Nobel laureate condemns 'colonialist' BBC series on Lagos
A BBC documentary set in the slums of Lagos has been branded "condescending" and "colonialist" by Wole Soyinka, Nigerian writer and Nobel laureate.

By Alastair Jamieson
Published: 9:31AM BST 29 Apr 2010

The series was made by independent producer KEO Films for the BBC Photo: KEO FILMS
Mr Soyinka, who in 1986 became the first African to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, said the Welcome to Lagos programme, shown on BBC Two, was "jaundiced and extremely patronising”.

In comments to The Guardian, the 75-year-old said the documentary, which follows the lives of the city’s poorest inhabitants as they struggle to make a living, was "the most tendentious and lopsided programme" he had ever seen.


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Aung San Suu Kyi fears trial verdict will be 'painfully obvious'The series, made by independent producer KEO Films for the BBC, featured Lagos citizens picking through a landfill site searching for items that could be sold.

Mr Soyinka, an emeritus professor at the University of Ife, told the newspaper: "There was no sense of Lagos as what it is – a modern African state. What we had was jaundiced and extremely patronising. It was saying 'Oh, look at these people who can make a living from the pit of degradation'.

"There was this colonialist idea of the noble savage which motivated the programme. It was patronising and condescending. It surprised me because it came from the BBC which is supposed to have some sort of reputation. It was not worthy of the BBC."

He added: "One could do a similar programme about London in which you go to a poor council estate and speaking of poverty and knifings. Or you could follow a hobo selling iron on the streets of London. But you wouldn't call it Welcome to London because that would give the viewer the impression that that is all London is about."

A BBC spokesman said: "Welcome to Lagos explores the impact of the massive rate of global urbanisation in one of the fastest growing mega-cities in the world.

"The series has generated a broad range of comment, but it has been well received by both viewers and media commentators, many of whom have specifically highlighted the positive and unstereotypical portrayals within the film."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/nigeria/7650138/Nobel-laureate-condemns-colonialist-BBC-series-on-Lagos.html?

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