Nigeria Culture

Margaret Bassey Ene currently has one mission in life: gaining weight. The Nigerian teenager has spent every day since early June in a "fattening room" specially set aside in her father's mud-and-thatch house. Most of her waking hours are spent eating bowl after bowl of rice, yams, plantains, beans and gari, a porridge-like mixture of dried cassava and water.

A 17-year-old Muslim girl in Nigeria who rights groups say was forced by her father to have sex with three men will be flogged Jan. 27 for breaking a law against premarital sex, a judge said. The sentence--180 lashes with a cane--will be carried out despite an appeal by the federal government to suspend the punishment, said Judge Idris Usman Gusau. The sentence has prompted an outcry from human rights groups, which fear that the girl, Bariya Ibrahim Magazu, might die during the lashing.

Oyeyinka Adegoke, the elderly tribal chief for this steamy little village, has fathered three sets of twins in his 70 years, a feat not much rarer in these parts than an afternoon rain shower. "There are many, many twins here, yes," Adegoke said one afternoon not long ago, as heavy clouds rolled in. "But as a Yoruba man, I know there are twins everywhere." The 18 million Yoruba people of western Nigeria, in fact, have the highest rate of producing twins in the world.

It was a decision that changed Auntie Vero's life. Unmarried and pregnant as a young woman in the early 1970s, she sought an abortion. But the general practitioner had little experience in the procedure, and it went horribly wrong. When she got home, she began to suffer excruciating abdominal pain and swelling. Later, she learned that she was bleeding internally. In a panic, she rushed back to the same doctor, a decision that proved nearly fatal.

A 17-year-old Muslim girl in Nigeria who rights groups say was forced by her father to have sex with three men will be flogged Jan. 27 for breaking a law against premarital sex, a judge said. The sentence--180 lashes with a cane--will be carried out despite an appeal by the federal government to suspend the punishment, said Judge Idris Usman Gusau. The sentence has prompted an outcry from human rights groups, which fear that the girl, Bariya Ibrahim Magazu, might die during the lashing.

As Art Alade took his place at the piano in the basement club known as Art's Place, the ratio of musicians to audience members gave him pause: There were three sidemen on stage behind him and four people at the tables in front. The percussionist led Alade into a jazz-accented Yoruba tune. It was the kind of thing Lagos was once famous for, a traditional rhythm blending with a piano style reminiscent of Earl (Fatha) Hines.

The heavily armed soldiers had taken up their positions by 5 a.m., well in the vanguard of this busy capital's morning-long commuter rush. Swiftly they secured all access roads to the federal election commission's headquarters and occupied all of the bridges overlooking the building. The scene last month might have resembled one of the frequent military coups that have afflicted this vast country since its independence in 1960.

In what could be a precedent-setting case, the NCAA eligibility committee is considering whether USC defensive end Israel Ifeanyi broke rules by accepting money from members of his Nigerian tribe. "It's a natural thing in Nigeria," Ifeanyi said Thursday. "I really don't understand [the NCAA's concern]. I think it is a cultural bias. They are wrong to use this against me."

Francis Awe's grandfather was named Adibulu, which means "somebody whose first opening of eyes saw drum first," according to Awe (pronounced AH-way ). It seems to run in the family. Even when he was a baby being reared in a Nigerian village, "any time the talking drum was played, I always would burst into an unusual cry, my grandmother has told me. So she, as an experiment, took me to where the drums were being played, and I would stop crying.

Visible five abreast in the hazy distance, the horsemen kicked their steeds into motion, as if jump-starting a car. Out of a cloud of red dust they thundered, galloping past the ancient mosque of Kano and straight for the dun walls of the emir's palace, as if trying by sheer momentum to burst through its tiny dark doorway into the labyrinthine chambers within. But at the last moment, the horses skidded to a stop and reared high on their hind legs.

Margaret Bassey Ene currently has one mission in life: gaining weight. The Nigerian teenager has spent every day since early June in a "fattening room" specially set aside in her father's mud-and-thatch house. Most of her waking hours are spent eating bowl after bowl of rice, yams, plantains, beans and gari, a porridge-like mixture of dried cassava and water.

When Cynthia Njemanze wanted her classmates in a black studies course at Rancho Santiago College to hear about Africa from a person who lives there, she called on a relative who happens to be one of that continent's more prominent residents. Her uncle, King Emmanuel Emenyonu Njemanze of Owerri, a region of about 26,000 in southeastern Nigeria, readily agreed.

In what could be a precedent-setting case, the NCAA eligibility committee is considering whether USC defensive end Israel Ifeanyi broke rules by accepting money from members of his Nigerian tribe. "It's a natural thing in Nigeria," Ifeanyi said Thursday. "I really don't understand [the NCAA's concern]. I think it is a cultural bias. They are wrong to use this against me."

Francis Awe's grandfather was named Adibulu, which means "somebody whose first opening of eyes saw drum first," according to Awe (pronounced AH-way ). It seems to run in the family. Even when he was a baby being reared in a Nigerian village, "any time the talking drum was played, I always would burst into an unusual cry, my grandmother has told me. So she, as an experiment, took me to where the drums were being played, and I would stop crying.

Visible five abreast in the hazy distance, the horsemen kicked their steeds into motion, as if jump-starting a car. Out of a cloud of red dust they thundered, galloping past the ancient mosque of Kano and straight for the dun walls of the emir's palace, as if trying by sheer momentum to burst through its tiny dark doorway into the labyrinthine chambers within. But at the last moment, the horses skidded to a stop and reared high on their hind legs.

As Art Alade took his place at the piano in the basement club known as Art's Place, the ratio of musicians to audience members gave him pause: There were three sidemen on stage behind him and four people at the tables in front. The percussionist led Alade into a jazz-accented Yoruba tune. It was the kind of thing Lagos was once famous for, a traditional rhythm blending with a piano style reminiscent of Earl (Fatha) Hines.

When Cynthia Njemanze wanted her classmates in a black studies course at Rancho Santiago College to hear about Africa from a person who lives there, she called on a relative who happens to be one of that continent's more prominent residents. Her uncle, King Emmanuel Emenyonu Njemanze of Owerri, a region of about 26,000 in southeastern Nigeria, readily agreed.

It was a decision that changed Auntie Vero's life. Unmarried and pregnant as a young woman in the early 1970s, she sought an abortion. But the general practitioner had little experience in the procedure, and it went horribly wrong. When she got home, she began to suffer excruciating abdominal pain and swelling. Later, she learned that she was bleeding internally. In a panic, she rushed back to the same doctor, a decision that proved nearly fatal.

The heavily armed soldiers had taken up their positions by 5 a.m., well in the vanguard of this busy capital's morning-long commuter rush. Swiftly they secured all access roads to the federal election commission's headquarters and occupied all of the bridges overlooking the building. The scene last month might have resembled one of the frequent military coups that have afflicted this vast country since its independence in 1960.

Oyeyinka Adegoke, the elderly tribal chief for this steamy little village, has fathered three sets of twins in his 70 years, a feat not much rarer in these parts than an afternoon rain shower. "There are many, many twins here, yes," Adegoke said one afternoon not long ago, as heavy clouds rolled in. "But as a Yoruba man, I know there are twins everywhere." The 18 million Yoruba people of western Nigeria, in fact, have the highest rate of producing twins in the world.