'He was nicknamed Gary Cooper' (A.O. Uzokwe 2003 Surviving Biafra)

There's another reference to the movies – and possibly Westerns – penetrating popular culture in Nigeria. This time the reference is to Western actor Gary Cooper (1901-61) in a biography of the Nigerian Civil War/Biafra War by Alfred Obiora Uzokwe (2003).

A 'common salute to the Americans is "Hello, cowboy!"'

Here's another reference to the Cowboy that I stumbled upon while looking for something else. This one comes from American foreign and war correspondent Archibald.T. Steele of the Chicago Daily News and mentions the Cowboy and American movies in relation to French colony adjacent to Ghana.

In the Gold Coast every American soldier is "Joe" to every African. In an adjacent French colony, a common salute to the Americans is "Hello, cowboy!" The trouble with those people is that they've seen too many American movies.

('Land of Slave Trade,' In: Negro Digest, Vol. 1(7), 28, originally published by Chicago Daily News, 17 March 1943)

Bits and Pieces from West Africa Magazine (Again)

I've been flicking through West Africa magazine in my breaks again. It's quite a useful exercise a change of pace when I'm stuck, a source that improves my grasp on Nigerian history, some of the developments that hadn't quite made my history lessons and at various times plenty of references (sadly) to the state of roads, accidents and (roadside) robberies in Nigeria. There is also this story of a manufacturer in Ogun State starting a business recycling motor scraps based 'entirely on motor scraps in its production.'

Cyprian Ekwensi (1973): 'Well, if you look at the North, you find that it actually is wild west country'

So, I've spent the second half of what passed for summer this year and the first half of autumn focused on my own health (and even though the mother of all colds still hangs on), that of my dad (thank God for the German health care system and the gifted surgeons at the hospital in Potsdam) and the (re-) construction of my parent's kitchen (yes, cowboy builders do exist in Germany as well!). That's not all I've done. Something had to give though – and as always it’s my personal writing including the blog that does give first. So, dear reader, forgive me for another period of neglect.

Nevertheless, I've still been reading (not as much as I usually do, but hey) and I've come across some quotes and references that I thought worth sharing with you, even with some delay. So, here goes one.

An Aside: Western Clubs in Germany

I have joined a non-fiction writing class to get feedback on my writing, mostly stylistically rather than content wise. And, it's proven to be helpful to have a bunch of native speakers point out when I inadvertently slipped into what we call Denglish – broken English, the German version.

The wonderful Susanna Forrest who runs the group also pointed me to a helpful volume on 'stylish' academic writing by Helen Sword. Last week I tried out one of Sword's advices. She suggested that academic writers include anecdotes into their articles that make the subject more relatable and/or illuminate the author's relationship with the subject. I included a throwaway remark about Western clubs in my native Germany. And, the more I thought about it the more I feel that it’s the intellectually honest thing to do.

Cowboy Snippets: Biodun Olamosu (2000) Crisis of Education in Nigeria

Another day, another mug of tea - and another reference to cowboys in Nigeria.

Now, in recent months I've read plenty of literature that discusses the impact of Hollywood and Italian Westerns and their notoriously ambiguous heroe, 'the Cowboy,' in Nigeria. I have recently found a reference to these films in an interesting context, Biodun Olamosu's (2000) book Crisis of Education in Nigeria. Olamosu shares with many other Nigerian commentators that I have come across a disdain for cowboy movies and in particular their alleged subversive effects on Nigerian youths. – I say 'alleged' because I am instinctively doubtful of argument that claim to identify singular causes of what may be described as anti-social or disorderly behaviour or, indeed, crime among young people, in fact, among any social group. And, this response is even more pronounced if the blame is almost exclusively put on any one medium (video games, music, films, books – over here it's currently fashionable to blame the Qur'an-, social media), foreign or otherwise. I can't help it. From where I stand that looks like a suspiciously convenient argument to absolve oneself and one's own society of all blame and to instead scapegoat someone or something else. Preferably something that wasn't around when 'we' were their age so that we can conviently blame 'today's youths.'

On Didier Gondola's (2016) Tropical Cowboys

One of the books that I have recently read and that I really wanted to write a review of for this blog is Didier Gondola's fantastic publication on the Bills, a cowboy-inspired subculture in colonial Kinshasa. I have tons of notes and have started incorporating some of his ideas and observations in my own draft (obviously with all the appropriate referencing) but somehow I have not quite found the time to write the kind of review this book deserves. In the meantime, I leave you with this nice CNN report on Gondola's research that Thomas Page published 8 December 2015. 

Shout-Out to the Interwebs: Looking for Article by C.P. Orie (2008)

Shout-out to the Interwebs: I am very much looking for the following article:

C.P. Orie (2008): 'James Hadley Chase in the Nigerian Thriller Film: An Adaptation of Want to Stay Alive? Into Django.' In: Film Nigeria: An International Journal of Nigerian Film. Vol. 1. No. 1. Aba: Leadership and Literacy Achievers Series, Abia Polytechnic, Aba, 2008. 37-41.

Does anybody have a copy of the article that they could kindly share with me?

Cowboy Snippets: Igoni Barret's childhood reading experiences

Igoni Barret was featured in the Guardian (UK) earlier this year and recalled his childhood reading experiences:

'For many years I only read whatever I found at home: my mother’s romance and detective and cowboy novels, and the motley books my absent father had left behind. Even the few books I borrowed from friends’ houses (and sometimes stole, like ER Braithwaite’s To Sir, With Love – sorry, Remi) usually belonged to their parents.'

(Guardian UK, 13 January 2016, my emphasis)

Cowboy Snippets: 'He joined a Gang called the "Cowboys" ...'

From a tribute to the actor Wale Ogunyemi (1939-2001)

In Ibadan, Wale was very rascally, he carried over his love for masquerades from his town to Ibadan and he was always following masquerades all over Ibadan.

Wale Ogunyemi started acting plays when he was in Standard One in Agurodo. He played the part of a chorus in the play “Adam and Eve.”

In Ibadan, he joined the Gang called the “Cowboys” and on Easter Mondays they would dress likes Texan cowboys and go to picnics and do all sorts of things that would attract people. They danced and re-enacted scenes they saw in the cinemas. Each time Wale went to see a movie, he would say to himself, “One day I too will become an actor”.

Apart from his activities as a youth and the kind of life he was exposed to by his family, which showed that he had always been involved in everything dramatic in one form or the other; he came into the theatre by accident.

(my emphasis)

Just to help us with the chronology – Ogunyemi attended the University of Ibandan in 1967 to study drama. Therefore, the above paragraph should be referring to the mid- to late-1960s, according to his Wikipedia page.