Even activism is for personal gain in Nigeria, so it’s no surprise that nothing improves. Should that happen, activists would be out of business. I a… - Sefi Atta

We call that development, but at every traffic light along the way are beggars, most of whom are children and disabled adults. Some are amputees and presumably they are often victims of sharia law punishments. We look away only to see billboards advertising business conferences at mega churches.

Perhaps living in other countries has given me a different perspective, but for me these are not signs of a country’s progress, by which I mean its advancement towards freedom, justice and equality. The way we are going, I don’t think we’re prepared for the political impacts, social shifts and economic disparities that will come, and we still have no common ideology that unites us more than capitalism does.

In my short story “Unsuitable Ties”, I have a snobbish character called Biola whom I refer to as an authority on class since her early schooling in Switzerland. Characters like these provide comic relief for me. Blame the British as well. They left us with a social construct called class distinction, which makes no sense except to justify the oppression of the majority of Nigerians.