A stimulating notion of how to keep Nigeria together.
Owhoko (Career Frustration in the Workplace, 2016, etc.) takes a hard look at Nigeria’s future.
The African country of Nigeria includes a hodgepodge of ethnicities, drawn together into British-created administrative zones. While imperial state divisions gestured toward the regional identities of various tribes (predominantly the Hausa-Fulani in the north, Igbo in the southeast, and Yoruba in the southwest), the amalgamation of Nigeria into a single independent state was as much a product of England’s colonial legacy as it was the desire of Nigerians themselves. As Owhoko puts it, “British colonial masters failed both in intelligence and capacity to know that the country called Nigeria was not going to work due to the heterogeneous nature of the people.” Various groups lobbied for increased independence until a coup and secession in the 1960s erupted into civil war. Even now, following the 1970 reunification, the author says, “there is so much fear and anxiety rising from unhealthy competition and rivalry amongst ethnic groups.” Implied in Owhoko’s history is the idea that Nigeria’s people will continue to push for regional independence and that the best way to resolve these issues harmonically is by adopting a federalist system—not unlike the one that was practiced at the country’s founding, between 1960 and 1966. The author acknowledges that such a system wouldn’t be viable unless a majority of Nigerian citizens voted for it, but he thinks that’s possible, and his book is a road map for getting to that point. Owhoko impressively, if selectively, marshals his evidence; for example, he gives more space to historical figures that voiced the kind of federalism that he supports than he does to their opponents. And given the current state of oil prices, it’s unlikely that residents of a semi-independent northern region will content themselves with the proceeds of “groundnuts, hides, and skins” that sustained them decades ago, as the author argues. Nationalists and separatists will both find much to quibble with here, but Owhoko is an eloquent spokesman for his cause. Readers who still dream of a pluralist democracy will find this manifesto to be energizing reading.
A stimulating notion of how to keep Nigeria together.Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5320-2496-2
Page Count: 112
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: Nov. 30, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
