Journalists From Nigeria

"Sometimes you just gotta turn your back and walk away…your peace of mind counts the most."

"Life is too short to wear tight shoes”… so hey, come on!!"

"Some people eventually die at 80 but the Truth is, they have been dead since they were in their 30s”"

"We have walked on that street called hope but having each other makes it bearable. It requires sacrifice & it takes effort & nurturing. You want a good marriage? Work at it!"

"I have since learnt that there is a process to success and that process can break or build us depending on our beliefs and inner strength. Our thoughts can make or mar us so be careful what you’re thinking about."

"Remain humble. Give back. Take care of you. Stay fab, don’t hate; hating takes too much effort."

"He makes a way where there’s no way. He moves mountains and fills valleys. He makes the blind to see. He loves me unconditionally. His word never returns to Him void."

"I also realised one thing, the reason I wasn’t sleeping was not only because I had chronic insomnia, but I was so busy thinking about not sleeping. The idea of me not sleeping engulfed me. By this time, I had stopped going to church or praying."

"I think it was while I practised as a field reporter on television; I went for an assignment and I needed the speech."

"I take a deep breath and think outside the box."

"She condemned police and military “brutality” across the country, and a “generalised system of impunity."

"Monitoring elections. I mean the entire process of democracy and where we are today as a people and a nation."

"On the 5th of January 2018 scores of people went missing with 9 soldiers killed when Boko Haram attacked Kannama near Geidam. The likes of Falmata Shettima continue to live precarious lives in spite of the seeming degrading of Boko Haram."

"I’d say I am lucky being married to a man who understands what I do and sure does appreciate me as a wife who sometimes moves from city to city."

"We need men to look at what women can offer and to hand them the baton to thrive."

"Challenge is not forgetting who you are and what you stand for and also ensure that when you are a plumber you wear the hat of one and when you then become a mechanic the next day, you do same."

"Experts say most sexual abuse offenders are acquainted with their victims; approximately 30% are relatives of the child, most often brothers, fathers, uncles, or cousins; around 60% are other acquaintances, such as “friends” of the family, babysitters, or neighbours; strangers are the offenders in approximately 10% of child sexual abuse cases."

"It’s the number of people who don’t know me that I can join in to do a thing or two for those who need them even more than I do."

"Tweeting for me is a hobby and not what I do my whole life. I’ve had people ask me if I have a day job and if I go."

"Celebrity couples should stop living their lives on twitter and Instagram; it’s ok in the real world for couples to disagree."

"No woman should be anybody’s fool. But if you say should a woman stoop to conquer, then why not."

"I love what I am doing especially as it is impacting people. Genevieve changed my way of thinking from “what if I fail?” to “what if I succeed?”."

"Don’t dwell too much on what you haven’t achieved, rather focus on how to achieve it. It’s never too late to start again even after starting again."

"Appreciating the moments with enthusiasm and a “can do” spirit separates the achievers from the rest."

"Change begins with how we as women see, treat and fight for other women. Change truly begins when we do."

"I didn’t just want to document: I wanted to fully understand what I was documenting. I wanted to be very aware of how you take photographs in certain situations; not to expose people, and to try to present the narrative you want without making it into a spectacle of a human being in suffering. That is why I see myself as a visual scholar. I need to understand the aspects of what I am working with."

"The first thing I would say is to understand there is a history of activism, of the arts, and literature and to keep that in mind and not discard the past and what people did. It is important to learn about the past and build on it. That is quite important to understand. Ageism is still very prominent in how people speak, write, and create their ideas, particularly on social media. I would say the first thing is to look at the past and build on it and respect it, just as I respect what is happening now and what young people are doing."

"I want to resist the “African homosexual” as an empirical figure waiting to be discovered or, through NGO and international interventions, to be created and saved"

"Caught between Western imperialism, African patriarchy and religious fascism, the continent’s gay community needs a strong, articulate set of voices. This is a work of African resistance that boldly states: We are here, and we are many!"

"People need to understand we are invested in the future and how that future will be."

"You can’t change anything if you don’t have imagination... Don’t let the oppressor dictate the narrative. I think we have the tendency to react to the oppressors’ narrative and really we should be dictating our own narrative. That is something I learned: sometimes we focus on them rather than what we ought to change in ourselves. They are there to distract us from what we need to do."

"My statuses are designed to read the Nigerian mind and mentality. I want to fix this country and being a politician is not the only way to do it."

"Today I made my debut as an actress. I will be acting in different films IJN. Nollywood is not an easy job. I want to really commend all the actors, actresses, extras, set designers, directors, and producers. It is HARD HARD WORK. I worked on a movie today with Director @toyin_abraham. She is dynamic”"

"Madam Governor Lifestyle: Yes, I carry guns around Ibadan. There are 5 of them and I owned them legally in the US"

"Why are most of my Facebook fans in Nigeria men? Could it be the women are jealous and intimidated?"

"Stop dating people not interested in your personal development. This life is beyond sex, bone straight wigs, iPhone 13, Domino pizza, Coldstone, and KFC. Find a partner who is stress-free, willing to invest in you. Never been married but I see many of y’all divorced so soon."

"It’s time we moved the shame from victim to perpetrator. They’re the ones that should be ashamed."

"Freedom is exercising your rights, getting an education without the fear of sexual harassment."

"Once we begin to see women as humans with as much right to occupy spaces as men. We would have removed the foundation upon which gender-based violence thrives."

"But, why are we commercializing religion and brainwashing the congregation? I will become a Woman of God very soon and use my prophetic abilities and bible story knowledge to apply wisdom to your lives. Prison always make all inmates spiritual…right"

"That prison is a big newsroom, but Nigerian prisons need reform. I met ex-Biafrans and Niger Delta agitators in the prison"

"When crime is clearly separated from legitimate agitation for self-determination, it would be easy for the governments at all levels to find a political answer to the legitimate question of self-determination."

"To live peacefully with others in this diverse polity, we need to engage by pushing our advantages while respecting the sensitivities of others in the national community."

"Nigerian politicians treat and approach political contests as the equivalent of warfare in which they have to conquer their opponents through the deployment of everything at their disposal."

"We need a radical reappraisal of public finance in Nigeria. We spend money without thinking. We have carried on for too long thinking more about how to spend money, reflecting less on how to raise revenue — largely because of the seasonal oil windfalls. A modern state cannot build its finances on oil windfalls and hand-outs. The revenue base must be well established, reliable and predictable."

"In the pantheon of Nigerian rulers, President Buhari occupies an uncontestable stool. He is the first leader to return to power on the strength of a faulty myth rather than on a record of demonstrable achievements. The political marketers of the Buhari candidacy in the count down to the 2015 elections were armed mostly with nothing concrete beyond a lingering myth."

"At the end, it is very clear that while the political parties must wean themselves of bad behaviour in the conduct of their primaries to nominate candidates for elections, both the Constitution and the Electoral Act would have to be amended. We cannot continue with a situation in which Judges will veto the choices of the electorate on the basis of technicalities. If this democracy is to survive, it is imperative that the judiciary as an institution and judges as individuals are not only impartial to those who appear before them but also that the wider public have the confidence that cases affecting their well-being will be decided fairly and in accordance with the law."

"Yesterday, the Supreme Court put a final seal on the gubernatorial election by dismissing the review application of Mr David Lyon. The ruling APC candidate had won the election in the state before the recent Supreme Court judgement that due to multiple certificates (with different names) presented by his deputy, the votes accorded him be voided and his defeated PDP opponent be declared winner. That, of course, is pleasing to the PDP leaders who have been carrying their pot bellies from one embassy to another in an ill-advised campaign against the Supreme Court. Sadly, it has also led to a more sinister decision by a number of APC hoodlums to lay siege to the home of a supreme court Justice. But whichever way we look at the ugly developments, it is very disturbing that the integrity of judgements coming from our courts is being openly questioned. More worrying is that in Nigeria today, neither those who cast the ballots nor those who count them decide the outcome of a democratic process. The decision as to who represents the people is now with Judges."

"Democracy, according to Ross Feingold , is considered the most legitimate form of government because the power of choice rests with the people. “But when this power dynamic is altered and citizens lose their influence, the legitimacy of the system is threatened”. That is where we are in Nigeria today because the choices made by citizens with their ballots are being increasingly rendered useless. And this threat to ‘the legitimacy on the system’ is coming from our courts, including the highest court in the country whose decisions are not only final but affect those of lower courts."