₦airaland Forum

Lagos Junction @LagosJunction

Lagos State Government seals deal with the United Kingdom Government, as part of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s state visit to the UK, to empower 3 million students with sport driven digital skills from April 2026.

Lagos State Government has sealed a deal with EStars (Home of Educational Sports) signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to empower 3 million students with esports-driven digital skills from April 2026.

The initiative is designed to equip young learners with relevant digital knowledge and prepare them for future opportunities in the global digital space.

https://x.com/i/status/2034345627409150137

UK in Nigeria🇬🇧🇳🇬 @UKinNigeria

In the lead‑up to the historic state visit, @OfficialEStars & @lasgeducation signed an MoU that will empower 3 million students from April 2026 with esports‑driven digital skills, preparing young learners for the future. 🇬🇧🤝🇳🇬
#GrowUKNG
#UKNGStateVisit

https://x.com/i/status/2034323950205808894

Babajide Sanwo-Olu @jidesanwoolu

We signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Estar, an organisation with digital learning expertise to bring modern digital learning platforms and infrastructure into our public primary and secondary schools.

This partnership will give our students access to curriculum-based tools that support critical thinking, communication, decision-making, leadership, and AI skills. It will also strengthen reading, comprehension, confidence, and classroom participation.

We are investing in the training of our teachers so they can use these tools effectively and deliver more engaging lessons, with a clear focus on preparing our students for the future and improving learning outcomes across the board.

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Anytime I hear her name, I always remember what Desire Oparanozie did to her at the 2016 Women's Africa Cup of Nations.

Desire played a thunderous freekick, there was no way that Dlamini could stop it. She was actuay smiling after the ball went into the goal because she knew that there was nothing she could do about it.

I created this post on March 19th.

The results of all these trips are so obvious and visible that anybody that says he can't see them is not serious at all.

President Goodluck Jonathan visited China (I created the thread) and the result was the Abuja - Kaduna rail line.

President Buhari visited China (I created the thread again) and the result was the Lagos - Ibadan rail line, the Railway University and the Railway workshop that builds coaches.

At different times Governors Babatunde Fashola and Babajide Sanwo-Olu visited China and the result was the trains that run on the Blue Line.

President Tinubu visited Qatar and the result was the free housing estates that Qatar is building for victims of Boko Haram and bandit attacks across northern Nigeria.

There are so many other projects across transportation, electricity, waste disposal, manufacturing and so on and so forth that have come from these trips and they are visible for all to see.

This is the origin of the Arike Ogunbowale thread.

Quite often when I create badketball threads, especially when I created the series of threads about Nneka Ogwumike and Elizabeth Balogun's attempts to play for Nigeria, people would show up and say that Nigeria should get Arike Ogunbowale to play for DTigress.

In fact, some of these people would immediately start in sulting Nigerian officials for not approaching her.

That's why this tweet by a Senegalese caught my attention. Nigerians are arguing in the comments section of this tweet. Some Nigerians say that they don't care if she's a lesbian, she's very good and they would do anything to get her to play for Nigeria. A few say that it's an abomination for her to play for Nigeria. Some say that the tweet is pointless because the same rules that prevent Nneka Ogwumike and Elizabeth Balogun from playing for Nigeria also prevent her from playing for Nigeria (she has played for the US many times).

So you see, it's news.

Then it reminded me of my 2017 thread about Caster Semenya and the hilarious reactions to the title and I decided that I must create the thread.

I knew that I would forget something and I did.

17) Playboy and Penthouse

These were the most popular pornographic magazines back then. Latoya Jackson posed for Playboy twice, in 1989 and 1994. I had the 1989 edition. This was at the height of her feud with the rest of the Jackson family (a feud that was extensively covered by the National Enquirer).

I have recently found out that the feud was instigated by a man who practically kidnapped Latoya and used her fame to get money.

Penthouse published unauthorised nude photos of Vanessa Williams which cost her the Miss America title.

16) Complete Football and National Sportslink

Complete Football is a monthly football magazine that appeared on the newsstands in 1985. It features everything about Nigerian football, from the national league to the Super Eagles. It contains the Nigerian league table, stories about the exploits of Nigerian players in Europe, posters of Nigerian footballers, stories about Nigeria’s exploits at Nations Cup competitions and columns by football experts like John Masteroudes and Segun Odegbami. It’s probably the oldest Nigerian sports magazine that’s still in production.

National Sportslink was a weekly sports newspaper that was popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s.


17) World Football, Shoot and the magazine whose name I can’t remember

World Football was the most popular international football magazine at that time. Shoot magazine was a popular British football magazine. There was another popular football magazine but I can’t remember its name. I bought this third magazine not only because of its football stories, but because everybody connected with it was completely insane. It was one of the funniest magazines that I’ve ever read.

I followed the exploits of Zico, Careca, Maradona, the three Dutchmen (I am scared of anti-spam bot), the three Germans (I am scared of anti-spam bot), Gary Lineker, Dino Zoff, Paolo Rossi, Baressi, Bergomi, etc. via these magazines.

18) Foreign comic books

I bought, exchanged and read innumerable foreign comic books. There were the strange and bewildering horror comic books like Uncanny Tales and Strange Tales, the football comic Roy of the Rovers, the war comic book Commando and its naval equivalent whose name I cannot remember, the hilarious British comics Beano and Dandy, the hilarious Franco-Belgian comics Astrix and Obelix and Tintin, the Marvel and DC universes (including their Nigerian counterparts), Dennis The Menace, Archie and Veronica, etc.


Having read all these and many more publications, it was very easy for me to figure out what Nairaland was when I first encountered it in 2005/2006. It’s a general interest website!


Nairaland has stories in its literature section that are very similar to the picture novels that I read. It also has stories from divorce court and in its crime section that remind me of the evening papers that were common back then. Nairaland’s politics section reminds me of the front pages of the major newspapers and political magazines like Newswatch. Nairaland’s sports section reminds me of the back pages of the major newspapers and magazines like Complete Football, National SportsLink, World Football and Shoot. Basically, Nairaland has something for everyone and it caters to a wide variety of interests.

Once upon a time, the romance section was the most popular section on Nairaland. The politics section has been the most popular section of Nairaland since 2011. This has made some people to believe that Nairaland is a news site. It is not. All those stories from the literature section would not get to the home page if Nairaland was a news site. They are not news stories.

Nairaland is a general interest website that caters to the diverse interest of its many readers and it tries to reflect this on its home page. I understand this, so when I see a thread that doesn’t interest me, I simply skip it and scroll on to a thread that interests me. I realise that, although I might not be interested in that thread, it might interest someone else and be useful to that person.

Back in 2009/2010, after a hard day’s work, I often searched Nairaland for Musiwa’s posts and used them to laugh away the stress, relax and unwind. It served a purpose for me, even though some people considered him to be a nuisance. Also, in 2010/2011, I book-marked the politics section on my phone and only accessed Nairaland through that section, because I knew that that was what I was interested in.

However, some Nairalanders are like dictators. They believe that only stories that interest them should be on the home page. They cannot tolerate the interests of others. One man’s meat is another man’s poison and what interests me might not interest you. But these people would instead try and derail threads that do not interest them, question the mods for moving these threads to the home page and ruin other people’s ability to enjoy those threads.

Why would you waste your time to click on a Big Brother thread and try to derail it if you are not interested in Big Brother? Why not just allow those who are interested in it to enjoy the thread? Why waste your time and click on a thread about the stock market if you are not interested in it and do not understand it? Why don’t you allow people who are interested in it to enjoy their thread? Why waste your time to click on a thread about a celebrity if you are not interested in him or her? Why can’t you just ignore the thread and allow those who are interested in it to enjoy it? Why click on a thread from the literature section if you are not interested in that kind of thread?

8 ) Reader’s Digest.

I absolutely LOVED Reader’s Digest! It featured a lot of seemingly random, but very fascinating articles. These were held together by regular columns and cartoons that were extremely funny. These funny columns included Laughter The Best Medicine, Humour In Uniform and Life In These United States. These were my favourite columns.


9) Picture Novels.

I can’t remember any of their names, but I read a lot of picture novels back in the day. Most of the stories in the picture novels are similar to the kind of stories you see on Nairaland’s Literature Section. The stories were usually about romance, travel, etc. but each scene was accompanied by a picture of people acting out the events in the scene.

10) Right On!

This was a magazine about black American music. It usually contained lyrics of songs, interviews with the stars, posters, information about future music releases, etc. It also had a pen pals section. Right On! Highlighted stars like Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, New Edition, Booby Brown, Prince, etc.

11)Ikebe Super, Lolly

These were slightly erotic and very hilarious comics.

Ikebe Super followed the exploits of the Ajasco Family and their friends Boy Alinco, Miss Pepeye and Pa Jimoh. Ikebe Super was not very explicit but there were lots of sexual inuendos, especially in scenes that featured Papa Ajasco.

Lolly was a much more sexually explicit comic book. It starred Dauda The Sexy Guy, whose solution to every problem was sex. In fact, I would describe him as a rapist. He often got into trouble because of his sexual escapades.

12) Benbella

This was an action/detective comic book that was popular in the 1980s.

13) Newswatch

This was the most popular Nigerian politics, economics and current affairs magazine. It covered major political stories and it was shut down several times by the military governments of the 1980s and 1990s. One of its journalists, Dele Giwa, was killed by a parcel bomb and several of its journalists were arrested.


14) Guardian Express, Evening Times, Lagos Weekend

Guardian Express and Evening Times were evening papers that were popular in the 1980s. Guardian Express was owned by The Guardian Newspaper, while Evening Times was owned by the Daily Times. There were several other evening papers at that time, but I can’t remember their names.

The evening papers usually hit the newsstands around 4:30 or 5pm, so they were able to report the major events that had occurred that day (government decisions were usually made during office hours, but TV stations did not air their first news broadcasts until 7pm, so the evening papers bridged the gap). The evening papers usually carried the first stories about riots, changes in government policy, etc.

However, such major stories did not occur every day and the evening papers needed something to fill their papers with, so the evening papers were better known for publishing (1) weird and funny stories from divorce court (2) weird crime stories (3) TV and radio schedules of almost all radio and TV stations in the country (4) weird and sometimes funny stories about sex and (5) cartoons, crossword puzzles, jokes, riddles and quizzes.

The evening papers were usually sold on weekdays. They were not sold at weekends.

Lagos Weekend carried similar stories as the evening papers, but it was sold on Fridays, so it did not usually publish the breaking news that the evening papers published. Instead it published information about concerts and events that were to take place that weekend.

15) Drum Magazine (the Nigerian edition) and Spear Magazine

These were Nigerian versions of South African lifestyle magazines. They were published by Daily Times and were very popular in the 1970s. They published stories about African musicians, politicians, sports stars, food, fashion, health, social issues and other issues that affect Africans. They also had a “girl of the month” feature (Miss January, Miss February, etc.) which was like the page 3 girl feature in the newspapers. Drum Magazine vanished from the newsstands in the early 1980s. I still don’t know why.

There were many Drum-like magazines that were published in Nigeria in the 1970s, but I can’t remember any of their names. I remember that they were smaller than most magazines (they were novel size) and another significant difference between them and Drum was that they oftentimes featured half naked women. You might be reading an article about food or fashion and you turn the page and see a topless girl at Bar Beach. It was quite jarring.

4) Prime People And Vintage People

These were the major Nigerian gossip magazines at that time. Think of them as the Linda Ikeji Blog and Stella Dimoko Korkus of the 1980s.

Prime People was founded in 1985 and it quickly became the biggest selling publication in Nigeria. Whenever the vendor came to the house, rather than the office (which was usually at the weekends), my sisters would immediately request for Prime People in addition to the two papers we bought every day. I believe Prime People usually hit the newsstands on Fridays.

Vintage People appeared in 1987 due to a split in Prime People.

Prime People covered stories about who was having an affair with whom, who bought what car, why did a star leave a TV series, disputes between music stars, how much did a famous person’s coffin cost, etc.

Prime People and Vintage People competed for exclusives and scoops on the Wedding Of The Century (Lanre Tejuosho weds Moji Okoya) in 1987. They reported about the items that the two families were procuring for the wedding and the cost of the wedding, who attended the wedding, who was on the bandstand at the two all-night parties (Sunny Ade and Ebenezer Obey), the gifts that the couple got (including cars and houses), the souvenirs that were distributed at the wedding (including Eleganza products), etc.

Prime People also reported the insane Harold Shodipo scandal in the 1980s and early 1990s. A wealthy man, Chief Harold Shodipo, who is a good friend of the Ooni of Ife, sued for divorce from his wife (they had been separated since 1983). He claimed that the Ooni of Ife was having affairs with both his wife and his daughter. The wealthy man’s daughter, who was a young lawyer, appeared in court as the Ooni’s counsel. Years later, the wealthy man’s daughter got married to the Ooni of Ife (who was her father’s former friend).

I think it was also Prime People that broke the story about the affair between Bianca Onoh and Odumegwu Ojukwu.

Vintage People deviated at a point and started publishing stories about juju and all that crap (they wanted to add something extra to the gossip stories that they regularly published. They wanted something to differentiate them from Prime People). That put me off a bit. However, I still read them occasionally because two of my favourite journalists from Prime People, Desola Rajifuja (later Desola Bakare) and Kunle Bakare both moved to Vintage People. Kunle wrote about cars and I’ve forgotten what Desola’s column was about, but I never missed it. They later got married.



5) Ebony and Jet

These were two black American lifestyle magazines that were very popular in Nigeria (especially Ebony).

Ebony Magazine backed Vanessa Williams during the Miss America scandal. Vanessa Williams was the first black Miss America. Lots of black Americans (and Nigerians) felt that it was a huge achievement to have a black Miss America. However, during her reign, Penthouse Magazine published unauthorised nude pictures of her. It was a huge scandal and she was eventually stripped of the title. Many black people felt that she was being victimised because she was a black person. Vanessa Williams went on to have a very successful music career in the 1980s and a film and television career since the 1990s.

Ebony also covered the 1988 election (despite the fact that it is not really a political magazine) primarily because for the first time ever, a black man, Reverend Jesse Jackson, was a strong contender to be the presidential candidate of one of the two major political parties. However, Reverend Jackson lost the Democratic race to Michael (I’m not going to type his surname because of the anti-spam bot).

Ebony Magazine usually ran articles about black American music, movie, TV and sports stars, famous black politicians, fashion, health, food, cars and other issues that affect black Americans. The magazine was so popular that it played a part in one of the biggest riots in Nigeria’s history.

The Babangida Government’s Structural Adjustment Policy (SAP) had made a lot of Nigerians poorer in the late 1980s. Nigerians had tried to adapt to the situation, but people were frustrated and angry. Then the government increased the price of petrol and this led to the first SAP riots in 1988.

Then a rumour spread in February 1989 that Ebony Magazine had ranked President Babangida as the richest black man in the world. Photocopies of the alleged article were quickly distributed across the country. The article in the photocopies stated that Babangida was the richest black man in the world, that he was worth $700 million, that he owned a refinery in France and that his wife owned a boutique in Paris. The article also claimed that Babangida owned a Swiss watch factory and that he and his wife owned one of the most exclusive schools in Switzerland.

Of course the article was a lie. Ebony did not publish any such article. However, the photocopies set Nigeria on fire.

Student unions held meetings at universities across Nigeria and began massive protests in cities across the country. The protesters in Lagos tried to march to NTA Headquarters on Victoria Island. They overran the police checkpoint on Independence Bridge but were felled by a hail of bullets at Bonny Camp. Students of University of Nigeria went crazy when one of their colleagues was killed during their protest, so they attacked policemen and marched to the prison, chased away the prison warders and set the prisoners free. In Benin, Uniben students also marched to Benin Prison and set it on fire. Three people were killed during the protest in Port Harcourt, while students of the Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria burned cars and sang songs against the Babangida government. At least one person was killed during the protest in Ibadan.

The Johnson Company, which published Ebony, denied that it had published any such story. The front page of the May 1989 edition of Ebony carried stories about Bill Cosby and his wife and Smokey Robinson. There was no story about Babangida in the magazine! People did not care. Nigerians had had enough of Babangida and SAP, so the riots continued.

The government arrested Dr Tai Solarin and took him to SSS Headquarters, 15 Awolowo Road, Ikoyi. Dr Solarin had been actively involved in distributing the photocopies. I watched the NTA Network News that night and saw as they grilled Dr Solarin. The SSS showed him a genuine copy of the May issue of Ebony Magazine and asked him if Babangida was featured in the magazine. They asked him if he knew the origin of the photocopies that he was distributing (he didn’t). It was a particularly depressing night for me because Dr Solarin was one of the heroes of the pro-democracy movement and it was embarrassing to see him being shamed like that on national television.

6) National Enquirer

This was the biggest gossip magazine in the 1970s up till the early 1990s. It was like the TMZ of that era. The National Enquirer covered the death of Marvin Gaye, the Vanessa Williams scandal, numerous rumours about Michael Jackson (Brooke Shields, Tatum O’Neal, the hyperbaric chamber, Bubbles, etc.), stories about Princess Diana, the Whitney Houston and Eddie Murphy rumours, Elizabeth Taylor’s numerous weddings and many more gossip stories.

The magazine even published pictures of Elizabeth Taylor’s wedding at Michael Jackson’s house, even though access to the wedding was restricted, the couple had stated that they wanted the wedding to be private and Elizabeth Taylor had sold rights to the wedding to People Magazine. I first saw pictures of the gazebo and the photographer that parachuted into the wedding venue in the National Enquirer.

Oprah Winfrey hated the National Enquirer and she never missed an opportunity to tell people that she did not read the magazine.

7) Hello, OK and the Sun

Hello Magazine was like a British version of the National Enquirer. They also focus heavily on weddings, so you can also think of it as a being similar to Bella Naija. Ok Magazine appeared later as a rival to Hello Magazine.

We also occasionally got copies of The Sun, but I wasn’t really into it because they published a lot of weird stories about aliens arriving on earth and giant Russian dogs (they reminded me of Vintage People when it started publishing a lot of juju crap).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hc_qjdes-Sk?si=I694EjmAq0fhu1SF

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgIH4iEONv4?si=Q0vuBzoOGq9IZtfm

Peter Ndubuisi Mbah @PNMbah

I had the privilege of engaging with global investors at the UK—Nigeria Project Agglomeration Compact Dinner held at the House of Lords, London, on the sidelines of President Tinubu’s state visit.

Convened by Mutandis Africa, the session provided a dedicated platform to present Enugu's story as a ready and credible investment destination.

We highlighted our ongoing reforms and a strong pipeline of bankable opportunities across key sectors — energy, infrastructure, healthcare, agriculture, technology, education, housing, and tourism.

We are building a private sector-driven economy anchored on ease of doing business, infrastructure expansion, and strong institutional frameworks that support and protect investments.

Our message was clear. Enugu is open for business.

Tomorrow is here

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