[about us]

Information about the Nigerian News source Nigeria '70

Nigeria '70 is a web application that I built to aggregate the best sources of Nigerian news on the "internets" and present them to you, the user, in one centralized location. I hope that it eventually becomes a medium for high level intellectual discourse about Nigeria and a cauldron for the next generation of ideas to move our country forward.

okay ... now what's the long story?

About 2 - 3 years ago, I got into using RSS feeds. (learn more about RSS here). All of a sudden, instead of having to check on 15+ websites everyday, I could get those sites to send their new information to me ... how cool is that right?. Using RSS feeds for the web is like using Tivo/DVR for watching TV. It changes the way you do things, forever. I quickly discovered that one of my favorite websites, www.cybereagles.com, didn't have an RSS feed.

Being a programmer, I set about to create my own RSS feed for the cybereagles forums. After a night or two of furious coding, I was done and released the feed to the cybereagles community to an enthusiastic response. This got me to thinking about what else I could do with the code I had developed. I was a big fan of popurls.com and after seeing an article in the now-defunct Business 2.0 about information aggregators, I turned my attentions to trying to building a Nigerian news aggregator. After getting a list of the most important news sources from my friends and cybereagles. I started to create what would become Nigeria '70

It wasn't an easy task, and most of the reasons are outlined in this fantastic piece of Nigerian satire ... "Nigerian News Websites winning the war on traffic", which I encourage all to read.

what now?

Nigeria '70 is still a bit away from what I envision for it. But I decided to release this early and take my cues from the Nigerian community, to build something useful instead of another web application with 40 registered users and 1 post every 6 months. I want your feedback. Be proud, be loud, stay late. Don't pull punches, let me know what you like, what you hate and what you want from this application. If you're Nigerian, this should be no problem :]

why Nigeria '70?

The older folks amongst us will know instantly what this is but the younger ones might not :] Nigeria '70 is what a young man by the name of Fela Anikulapo Kuti (you might have heard of him) named his band in the American city of Los Angeles in 1969. Eventually, he had to leave the USA after the authorities got wind of the fact that he didn't have a work permit. Upon arriving in Nigeria, he renamed the band Africa '70 and founded Kalakuta Republic. The rest, as they say, is history.

I am and have been an Abami-Eda (Fela) fan for a long time. I loved Fela's biting sarcastic wit, the Afrocentricity of his music, his understanding of the Nigerian psyche (listen to "Lady" and "Shakara"). I loved the fact that even though he sang in pidgin, his music was very highly technical (he was a classically trained musician) and it was clear to all that he was a highly educated man.

Fela started a completely new brand of music that no one has been able to recreate since his untimely death. That uniqueness and rebellious streak inspired this project and I want this site to eventually embody his free-thinking mentality.

where is the "tell my friend link"?

I want the people who use this site, to really really really love it. I want you to love it enough to take actual time out of your day to go to facebook, myspace, Nigerian bulletin boards and blogs to spread the word about it. I'd rather have 50 users who are madly in love with the site, than 5000 users who think its "okay".
Is that idealistic? yes.
Buts its my app ... so I can do whatever I want :P