February/March 2023

Islam

Black Mecca A Brief History of Black Islam from Africa to the Diaspora

By the second half of the twentieth century, Islam re-emerged as an ideological tool for African Americans fighting within civil rights and Black Power movements. Ironically, the proliferation of Black Islamic organizations in twentieth-century United States—most famously the Nation of Islam—often masks the gradual, centuries-long formation of said organizations, their ideologies, and their influence on modern Afro-diasporic identity.

Interim Royals The Marginalization of Women-Regents in Present-Day Yoruba Monarchy

Yoruba culture, particularly traditional leadership, holds that men are superior to women, so they dominate governance at most levels while women are considered unfit to lead in most cases. On these grounds, for women to assume the position of regents, tradition demands they discard their identities.
MC Oluomo

The Conductor of Chaos MC Oluomo’s Dangerous Rise and Rhetoric

MC Oluomo, who rose from being a bus conductor to one of the most feared political henchmen in southwest Nigeria represents a crude brand of state-backed political instruments. As the leader of the NURTW, he has over the years allegedly been at the centre of political subjugation, playing an important, albeit terrible role in shaping the politics of Lagos State.