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☆ Art historian and curator Alayo Akinkugbe on reframing Blackness
▼ + stars: | 2024-10-30 | by ( Leah Dolan | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

Editor’s Note: Curator and art historian Alayo Akinkugbe is CNN Style’s guest editor for the month of November. The child is tucked away in the bottom left-hand corner, but in the mind of curator and art historian Alayo Akinkugbe, his presence fills the entire frame. But Akinkugbe holds a magnifying glass over these slim fragments, off-cuts of the dominant whitewashed narrative of art history, and forces them to take up space. “I think a lot of it was down to the fact that (art history) is viewed as an elite, white field. The coincidence at times feels “sinister” for Akinkugbe, but she believes there is longevity in the increased interest in and support for Black art and artists.

Persons: Alayo Akinkugbe, London CNN — Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s, “, Rossetti, Akinkugbe, Bélizaire, Jacques Amans ’, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, De Agostini, Tate, ”, weren’t, ” Akinkugbe, Polly Alakija, Pius Utomi Ekpei, —, Chris Ofili, Lee Pretious, George Floyd Organizations: CNN, London CNN, National Gallery, Royal Academy of Arts, Opera, Getty, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, New York Times Locations: London, Lagos, Nigeria, ”, Falomo, Benin, AFP, Nigerian, British

☆ Wole Soyinka on having his memoir made into a movie: ‘Turning my life into something people can watch, pains me’
▼ + stars: | 2024-09-24 | by ( Daniel Renjifo | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

Twenty-two months in total isolation, denied books, denied paper, my cell constantly searched, nothing at all to sustain my mind. Let me put it this way, turning anything in my life into something other people can watch, pains me. Nigerian playwright, novelist and Nobel Prize in Literature winner Wole Soyinka poses for a portrait in Johannesburg on April 4, 2024. But it was grand when one after the other (African Nobel winners) began to come in. WS: If Branson came now and said, I’ve found space for you, I would terminate this interview right now.

Persons: Nigeria CNN — Wole Soyinka, ”, Soyinka, CNN’s Larry Madowo, Larry Madowo, it’s, Wole Soyinka, MARCO LONGARI, Mrs, Ransome Kuti, Fela Kútì’s, Wole, PIUS UTOMI EKPEI, Sani Abacha, would’ve, Ken Saro, I’ve, Armstrong, Richard Branson, Branson, I’m Organizations: Nigeria CNN, Getty, WS Locations: Abeokuta, Nigeria, Southwestern Nigeria, Nigerian, Johannesburg, AFP, Lagos, Jose ( California

☆ Africa's richest person just opened a $19 billion oil refinery to help Nigeria reduce fuel imports
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-21 | by ( Nathan Rennolds | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Read previewAfrica's richest person has opened one of the world's largest oil refineries in Nigeria. Aliko Dangote, the billionaire founder and chairman of the multinational conglomerate the Dangote Group, opened the Dangote Petroleum Refinery in a bid to help make Nigeria self-sufficient in fuel. This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. The $19 billion refinery, in the coastal city of Lekki, near Lagos, has suffered years of delays and setbacks, but it finally began production last week. This is something that the new Dangote refinery aims to change by eventually producing up to 650,000 barrels a day.

Persons: —, Aliko Dangote, Pius Utomi Ekpei, David Rubenstein, Dangote, Rafiq Raji, Raji, John Moore, Alhassan, Forbes, Rubenstein, Bill Gates, Gates, Aliko, Melinda Gates Organizations: Service, Dangote, Petroleum Refinery, Business, Dangote Petroleum, Center for Strategic, Studies, Africa, Bloomberg Global Business, West Africa's, Al, Azhar University, Dangote Cement, Bloomberg, Melinda Gates Foundation, English Premier League soccer, Arsenal Locations: Nigeria, Lekki, Lagos, AFP, New York, Nigerian, West, Egypt, Africa

☆ 'Unpredictable' election in Africa's largest economy is set to resonate around the world
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-22 | by ( Elliot Smith | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +8 min

After 24 years of uninterrupted democracy since ending military dictatorship in 1999, Africa's most populous nation and largest economy is conducting its seventh election. Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria's president, speaks during the U.S.-Africa Business Forum in New York. Leena Koni Hoffmann, associate fellow of the Africa Programme at Chatham House, told CNBC on Monday that the presidential election will be the "most unpredictable" since the transition to civilian rule. Alongside the Covid-19 pandemic and war in Ukraine, Koni Hoffmann noted "missed opportunities" and "self-inflicted crises" under Buhari's regime. Economists panned the decision, which Koni Hoffmann suggested rendered Nigeria and its neighbors more vulnerable to the damage of the pandemic.

Abuja, Nigeria CNN —Nigeria was forced Wednesday to delay plans to replace its banknotes with a redesigned currency after chaotic scenes at ATMs as millions of people struggled to get their hands on the new cash. The new naira notes are, however, “fortified with security features that make them difficult to counterfeit,” President Buhari said last year. Across the country, banks have increasingly become targets of mounting anger over the frustrating search for the new naira notes. Angry Nigerians vandalise Bank premises over frenzy of new naira notes. Nigerians are desperately relying on their banks to distribute new bills after the February 10 deadline to exchange the old currency saw many scrambling to deposit their old notes.

Yet for former Ghana star Derek Boateng, they hold a personal truth. “Football saved my life, because without football I don’t know where I would be or what I would be doing,” he told CNN. Just four years earlier, Ghana had competed at its first ever World Cup, in Germany, with Boateng again featuring. “Playing the World Cup is everything to me, as a football player. Pius Utomi Ekpei / AFP via Getty ImagesThat mantra lay at the heart of Boateng’s playing career, and it is a message he repeats to aspiring student-athletes at the academy.

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