Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (Review)

Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart is a beautiful novel - as an extended metaphor for African despoliation, life and politics it works wonderfully. Beautiful is, perhaps, a strange word to describe this essentially melancholic novel but whilst Things Fall Apart is a sorrowful affair it is never a despondent one. The scenes from the life of Nigeria's Ibo society are painted with an assured, uplifting clarity and they resonate brightly - and long. Okonkwo is an excellent, wonderfully human, central character: strong; headstrong; wilful; proud. A traditionalist, he is acutely aware of the pitfalls of forgetting the past but he is blind to the absurdities, cruelties and sheer backwardness of certain of his tribe's customs and of his own, sometimes outrageous, actions.

Okonkwo can fight with the best of them - indeed his place in his community stems from his physical prowess and his victory in an important wrestling contest when he was still comparatively young - but he can't prevent 'progress'. What he knows (and the reader acutely shares in his knowledge via Achebe's polished, elegant writing) is that Europeans and their impudent monotheism, hubristic imperiousness, their racism and ultimately the sheer violence of their culture and its justice is not in any way 'progress' at all. Achebe shows us Okonkwo's (and Africa's) dilemma: the progress to a capitalist future is no future; the rural isolation and ignorance of his tribe is no longer even a viable present.

-- Reviewed by Mark Thwaite on 18/07/2005

Further Information
ISBN-10: 0141186887
ISBN-13: 9780141186887
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Publication Date: 01/11/2001
Binding: Paperback
Number of pages: 176
URL: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/search?keywords=9780141186887&index=books&linkCode=qs&tag=marksbookrevi-21

Prosecutors won't appeal Messi's 21 month tax fraud jail sentence

Prosecutors had argued Messi had no case to answer during his recent trial for tax fraud, but won't appeal his 21 month jail sentence.

 

Leo Messi is running out of bullets. He still had two left after being convicted of tax fraud and sentenced to 21 months in jail, but he's just lost one. During the recent trial which found him guilty of defrauding the tax authorities of 4.1 million euros, state prosecutors only brought a case against Messi's father, having accepted the player's argument that he had only played football and knew nothing about his affairs (an argument the judges in the case threw out).
The case against Messi was brought by the solicitor general (also known as the state lawyer), effectively representing the interest of the tax authorities.
Messi had hoped that subsequent to the trial the prosecutor would support him by appealing his conviction to the supreme court. However the prosecution service has announced it will not be appealing the 21 month sentence. Messi's final bullet then is his own lawyer, Argentinean Enrique Bacigalupo, who is expected to file an appeal in the next few days.

Igbos Now Slave In Nigeria

UMUAHIA — A prominent nonagenarian monarch, Eze Demond Ogugua has decried the position of Ndigbo in Nigeria today, lamenting that Ndigbo are now treated as slaves in their country. According to Eze Ogugua, abandoned road projects are littered all over Igbo land and he called on President Muhammadu Buhari to send a team of trusted and sincere aides to Igbo land to see things for themselves.

He said that despite the contribution of Ndigbo in the development of Nigeria the South East region has been neglected. “We have no roads. We are now slaves in Nigeria,” he said. He particularly condemned the Niger Delta Development Commission which he said abandoned most of the projects in Abia and Imo States, which are members of the commission, saying it shows that Ndigbo are not regarded by the Government.

Eze Ogugua, who is the traditional ruler of Eziudo, Ezinihite, Mbaise, spoke weekend, in his home in Umuahia. According to him, NDDC has abandoned the Mbaise ring road and other projects in Imo and Abia State. “They [NDDC] abandoned all the projects in Igbo land, the Mbaise ring road, which is now a no-go area. Last two weeks, I went to Obehie area in Ukwa West council area, there is no road, no light, nothing to show that we are members of the NDDC”, the nonagenarian monarch lamented. “South East region has been neglected. We have no roads. We are now slaves in Nigeria. We cannot talk about Niger Delta Development Commission, that one has done nothing in Igboland. They hate Ndigbo. They have abandoned all their projects in Mbaise, in Imo and Abia States. “They are stepping on our fundamental rights. I urge President Buhari to send a team of his sincere aides to the South East to assess the infrastructural facilities in the area.

We have suffered a lot, enough is enough, Buhari should order all the contractors on the abandoned projects to return back to sites and resume work on them,” Eze Ogugua said. He also warned against dragging Ohaneze Ndigbo into politics, saying it would spell doom for Ndigbo.

UMUAHIA — A prominent nonagenarian monarch, Eze Demond Ogugua has decried the position of Ndigbo in Nigeria today, lamenting that Ndigbo are now treated as slaves in their country. According to Eze Ogugua, abandoned road projects are littered all over Igbo land and he called on President Muhammadu Buhari to send a team of trusted and sincere aides to Igbo land to see things for themselves. Igbo-hopeHe said that despite the contribution of Ndigbo in the development of Nigeria the South East region has been neglected. “We have no roads. We are now slaves in Nigeria,” he said. He particularly condemned the Niger Delta Development Commission which he said abandoned most of the projects in Abia and Imo States, which are members of the commission, saying it shows that Ndigbo are not regarded by the Government. Eze Ogugua, who is the traditional ruler of Eziudo, Ezinihite, Mbaise, spoke weekend, in his home in Umuahia. According to him, NDDC has abandoned the Mbaise ring road and other projects in Imo and Abia State. “They [NDDC] abandoned all the projects in Igbo land, the Mbaise ring road, which is now a no-go area. Last two weeks, I went to Obehie area in Ukwa West council area, there is no road, no light, nothing to show that we are members of the NDDC”, the nonagenarian monarch lamented. “South East region has been neglected. We have no roads. We are now slaves in Nigeria. We cannot talk about Niger Delta Development Commission, that one has done nothing in Igboland. They hate Ndigbo. They have abandoned all their projects in Mbaise, in Imo and Abia States. “They are stepping on our fundamental rights. I urge President Buhari to send a team of his sincere aides to the South East to assess the infrastructural facilities in the area. We have suffered a lot, enough is enough, Buhari should order all the contractors on the abandoned projects to return back to sites and resume work on them,” Eze Ogugua said. He also warned against dragging Ohaneze Ndigbo into politics, saying it would spell doom for Ndigbo.

Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/07/igbo-now-slaves-nigeria-90-year-old-monarch/

UMUAHIA — A prominent nonagenarian monarch, Eze Demond Ogugua has decried the position of Ndigbo in Nigeria today, lamenting that Ndigbo are now treated as slaves in their country. According to Eze Ogugua, abandoned road projects are littered all over Igbo land and he called on President Muhammadu Buhari to send a team of trusted and sincere aides to Igbo land to see things for themselves. Igbo-hopeHe said that despite the contribution of Ndigbo in the development of Nigeria the South East region has been neglected. “We have no roads. We are now slaves in Nigeria,” he said. He particularly condemned the Niger Delta Development Commission which he said abandoned most of the projects in Abia and Imo States, which are members of the commission, saying it shows that Ndigbo are not regarded by the Government. Eze Ogugua, who is the traditional ruler of Eziudo, Ezinihite, Mbaise, spoke weekend, in his home in Umuahia. According to him, NDDC has abandoned the Mbaise ring road and other projects in Imo and Abia State. “They [NDDC] abandoned all the projects in Igbo land, the Mbaise ring road, which is now a no-go area. Last two weeks, I went to Obehie area in Ukwa West council area, there is no road, no light, nothing to show that we are members of the NDDC”, the nonagenarian monarch lamented. “South East region has been neglected. We have no roads. We are now slaves in Nigeria. We cannot talk about Niger Delta Development Commission, that one has done nothing in Igboland. They hate Ndigbo. They have abandoned all their projects in Mbaise, in Imo and Abia States. “They are stepping on our fundamental rights. I urge President Buhari to send a team of his sincere aides to the South East to assess the infrastructural facilities in the area. We have suffered a lot, enough is enough, Buhari should order all the contractors on the abandoned projects to return back to sites and resume work on them,” Eze Ogugua said. He also warned against dragging Ohaneze Ndigbo into politics, saying it would spell doom for Ndigbo.

Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/07/igbo-now-slaves-nigeria-90-year-old-monarch/

PUBLISHING ONLINE IN NIGERIA

Most Nigerian authors have been searching for publishing companies to help them publish their books. They expect the publishing houses to review their manuscripts and then offer them publishing contracts where the publishing house handles the cost of publishing the book. Well, as long as it’s in Nigeria, that might never happen because most publishing houses in Nigeria don’t operate that way. They can only offer contracts to well established writers like Chimamanda, Wole Soyinka or promising up and coming writers like Charles Umerie. These are people they think they can make profit off their books even if it didn’t sell well. Nobody wants to invest their money into an unknown author; and not just that, Nigerian literary business isn’t as hot as that for unknown authors to break the market just like unknown music artists do all the time. That’s the simple truth.

A lot of young authors have figured that too, and they don’t depend on publishing houses to give them contracts. Rather they resort to printing their own books. That’s a totally brave move, but very unwise. Unless you have people requesting your book before you print it, and also have a perfect channel to distribute it after publication, you shouldn’t think of wasting money by printing it.

Well don’t be discouraged by this post because I have an amazing solution on how you can achieve your literary dreams. Have you heard of online publishing? Most people have, but if you haven’t, I think you should really pay attention.

Online publishing can be the answer to the problem young Nigerian authors face today. With online publishing, your book would be available for purchase worldwide! That’s one thing printing your book can’t give you. You can’t distribute it worldwide.

We live in an advanced age, and if you look around, you will notice that printed books are starting to lose value. Everything is read digitally these days. If you go to church, pastors are using iPad as bible. Even newspapers don’t sell that much again! Why purchase bulky papers when you can read them online- for FREE?!

That’s the world we live in, and young writers should adapt too. My advice to them should be they should publish online first. When you publish online, and maybe you are lucky enough to break the internet with your online published work, you will notice how publishing houses would be calling day and night to publish your work because you have proved that your work worth the risk.

Now let’s talk about how you can publish online.

Publishing online is just like printing the book. Both of them are still read. That’s what most online publishers forget. They think since it’s mostly free to publish online, they can treat their work anyhow and put it out for people to see; and still at the same time expecting to sell thousands of it. If you don’t prepare your online work professionally, it will never get anywhere. It would be available to the world, but only to be rejected by the world too.

With my research, it costs about N200,000 to print about 500 copies of your book, and still, most people won’t sell about 50 copies of that book. But do you realize that with just.. let’s say N50,000, you can have your book professionally published online? If you can handle the processes of publishing it yourself, starting from editing the manuscript, formatting it to kindle format or epub, designing the book cover and uploading it online, then you do it yourself. But if you can’t, I suggest you meet a professional to help you do it. There are a few publishing houses that help people publish online at a very cheap rate. Check BLACK TOWER PUBLISHERS NIG and contact them.

After your work is available to the world, all you have to do then is promote. As a person, you have friends and families. Share the link to your book to them through Whatsapp, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc, and also ask them to share with their friends and relatives too. Then connect with them and build yourself some fanbase.

There are many platforms to publish your book online. They include Createspace, Amazon Kindle, Smashwords, Lulu, etc. Createspace offers you a chance to publish your work, but it cannot be downloaded and read digitally. What they do is print-on-demand. That is when people order a copy or copies of your book, they print the book and ship to the person. Amazon Kindle can be downloaded digitally, but that is mostly for international sellers. Most African countries (including Nigeria) can’t purchase kindle books on Amazon. But you can still publish there if you still wish sell to international audience that reads mostly kindle books. Then the best one for Nigerians is Lulu. Lulu offers two options. You can publish it as Print-on-demand or just as ebook.. or even both for the same book! People can easily buy your book with their ATM cards, download the book and then read it on the phone with an ePub reader!

You can visit these sites and find which is best for you! Or contact Black Tower Publishers and request how they can help you publish online.  Good luck!

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MAKE MONEY ONLINE IN NIGERIA

The purpose of this blog is to keep you up to date on what's happening around you. You don't need to search all round the internet to know what's happening in your area. We will bring you up to date news and info ranging from business to social life! Follow us more for information like this!

There's been this issues of people searching the internet on how to make money online; especially in Nigeria. Well, I did a little research too, and found one that might interest you at the moment. Making money online has to do with your ability to get into whatever online business before any other person. At least before people would start rushing into it, you must have made your ground.

Anyway, the one I'm talking about is MMM. Some people might know it, and some won't, but all I know is that this MMM is not as popular as other online money making websites you know. And it's since it's not that popular yet, it's an advantage for the sharp ones.

Well, before you go into it, as a blogger, I suggest you make your inquiries and do some research to avoid being scammed. I'm just a blogger who's just here to give you updates as soon as possible, and you as a reader, it's your job make inquiries about what you getting into.

Right now I will share all the information I got on their website. You can visit it later and verify by yourself!

"ATTENTION!

Yes, it is possible to earn 30% per month here, but this is not a HYIP!

This is a community of ordinary people, selflessly helping each other, a kind of the Global Fund of mutual aid. This is the first sprout of something new in modern soulless and ruthless world of greed and hard cash. The goal here is not the money. The goal is to destroy the world's unjust financial system. Financial Apocalypse! Before you join, be sure to be acquainted with our ideology!

So, you decided to participate in MMM. How to do that? It is simple! Just go directly with this points.

1. Register on the website.
2. Enter the Personal Office (PO).
3. There will be two big buttons: “Provide Help” and “Get Help”.
4. If you want to put your money, so click “Provide Help” and point the sum of money, you would like to put in the System. The minimal sum is 1000 NGN.
5. You will get in the same moment Mavro in your PO, and they begin to grow with the rates of 30% per month.
   (Mavro is only the currency inside the system.)
   By the way You get mavro, but you cannot sell them, they will be under the status “Unconfirmed”, because You didn't transfer your money, you just decided to do that.
6. Then you will get the order with bank details of a man that you must transfer the money.
   The order will also have the contact details of that man, so you can talk with him if you wish and make sure, that he is real and alive man, same as You are.
   There is no central account in MMM, to collect all the money of participants (and from where they could be stolen easily). All the money transfers are made directly between participants.
   It means that everything is quite clear and honest. MMM plays just a role as some kind of a dispatch, which connect the participants.
7. Transfer the money to that participant. He confirms the receive, and after that Your Mavro become “confirmed”. That's it! Now You can sell them at any moment, fully or in parts.
8. If you want to sell your Mavro, click “Get Help” and point the sum.
   Another participant will get the order and he will transfer money to You, provide help. Same You did it before. But don't forget to confirm you money receive, after You get the money to Your bank account. (Not before! Beware of fraudsters!) Or the sender couldn't confirm his mavro.
9. You can take a look of PO and all this buttons "Provide Help" and "Get help" in the DEMO.
10. You can read detailed rules of system on the page "What is MMM".  "    

 
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