Here’s a story in the NY Times I started work on a long time ago. Nice to see it finally go up.
LAGOS, Nigeria — Early this year, the crew members of the Mareena 1 fishing trawler had just finished hauling in their catch 15 miles off the coast and were settling into their bunks for a few hours of sleep when they were awakened by machine-gun fire.
A story I wrote for Time.com about boxers in the home village of the current WBC heavyweight champ.
On a small patch of dirt, next to a shed lined with harvested cassava tubers, two young men circle each other with gloved fists raised, their frayed sneakers kicking up dust as they move in search of an opening. They punch wildly, sometimes hitting the opponent’s face or body, more often hitting air and stumbling off balance. The crowd of young men leaning on their Chinese-made motorcycles doesn’t seem to mind. Their whoops and jeers accompany every haymaker and uppercut thrown.
I was quoted in a Voice of America story about the oil issue in Nigeria. Not sure I really stack up against the other folks interviewed in the piece, but cool nonetheless.
Here’s a piece I wrote for Time.com.
It’s hard to believe all the stories you hear about Henry Okah: That he smuggled 250,000 weapons into Nigeria, was kept incommunicado for five months in an Angolan jail cell, was murdered by secret service guards while en route back to Nigeria, and that (once again alive in his own country) he killed two poisonous snakes released into his cell by his captors. One thing you can believe about the social activist-insurgent, however, is that wherever you are in the world, Henry Okah is part of the reason you’re paying more at the gas pump every time your fill up your tank.
A bittersweet story about Nigerians living in America in the Houston Chronicle. Inspiring on the one hand, dispiriting on the other when you think of all the great minds who’ve left.
For Woodlands resident David Olowokere, one of Nigeria’s sons, having a master’s degree in engineering just wasn’t enough for his people back home. So he got a doctorate.
His wife, Shalewa Olowokere, a civil engineer, didn’t stop at a bachelor’s, either. She went for her master’s.
The same obsession with education runs in the Udeh household in Sugar Land. Foluke Udeh and her husband, Nduka, both have master’s degrees. Anything less, she reckons, would have amounted to failure.
UPDATE: Here’s a timely story in a local paper about Nigerian doctors leaving the country en masse.
While eating a plate of couscous and chicken, a young woman looked up at another young woman passing her table. She gasped and put down her fork, pointed, and said to her friend, “Ah, did you see her eyes? They were green! Beautiful!” Her friend laughed and continued to eat her couscous. But the woman kept looking at the green-eyed lady. Then she stood up and called out to her. “Hey! Dash me your eyes-o!” The diners at the surrounding tables laughed, but the green-eyed woman pretended she hadn’t heard.
A short report I did on last night’s sad fire in Lagos, for the New York Times.
LAGOS, Nigeria — More than 100 people were feared dead on Thursday after a construction vehicle struck an oil pipeline on the outskirts of Lagos, Nigeria’s biggest city, setting off an oil-fed inferno that spread to surrounding homes and a school.
This is the fifth and last piece in the Esquire.com series.
“Hello? Is this Williams?” The voice on the line is too loud and I have to hold the phone away from my ear.
“This is Will, yes. Who is this?”
“Hello, Williams! This is Rogers!”
“Ok.”
“I work for M-Net, the T.V. network. You’re a white guy, right?”
“Well, yes. Yes I am.”
“Great! We need you to be in our new T.V. soap. When can we meet?”
The fourth part in the Esquire.com series.
My bid to make it in Nollywood is gaining steam, but I need to hone my skills and learn from seasoned veterans, so I arrange to observe an audition. It takes place in the shadow of the National Theater, a spaceship-like structure visible from miles away, the only landmark in an otherwise desolate, dirty swamp bisecting the two main sections of Lagos.
The third installment of the Esquire.com series.
My first acting role in Nollywood behind me, I looked forward to gaining more experience and, with any luck, acting in a larger-budget Nigerian film. Eventually, I get a call from a director who wants me to play the victim of a robbery, a classic white-man role. I don’t want to contribute to the perpetuation of this humiliating stereotype, but it is an opportunity to see another Nigerian movie getting made, so I agree to do it.