Nike Davies-Okundaye
Our contributing editor Isaac Umunna visited the multi-faceted Nigerian artist Nike Davies-Okundaye in her Lagos gallery in January. The painter and textile designer is world famous for her expertise in Adire - hand knotted cloths, dyed in indigo. The artistic creation of these cloths has a long tradition in the culture of the Yoruba people of West Africa.
Nike, as she’s simply called in the art world, almost single-handedly revived this old handcraft, which in the past had a profound importance in the life of the community.
Isaac writes on Nike’s latest groundbreaking project as she seeks to fully accomplish her self-assigned mission to spread African arts throughout the world “and to let the unborn generations know that our culture is very rich.”

Challenges before Kenya in 2010
Our contributing editor and legal practitioner Sylvester Katua Mutuku writes on the challenges facing Kenya this year, as it grapples with a new constitution that should provide a sound foundation for its struggling democracy and ensure long-lasting peace and stability in the country.

Alleged terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and Northern Nigeria
News that a young Nigerian student attempted to blow up a Detroit-bound passenger plane on Christmas Day shocked the whole world during the festive season. After all, suicide bombers are not supposed to come from sub-Saharan Africa.
Our correspondent and Frankfurt-based scholar, Mohammed Faisal Garba, in this exclusive news analysis, shows how politically-instigated radical Islam in Northern Nigeria led Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab into the fold of the Jemeni terrorists and his evil adventure on 25 December.

Encounter with Afrobeat co-founder Tony Allen
“Without Tony Allen there would be no Afrobeat,” Fela Anikulapo-Kuti once said, showing the importance of the Lagos, Nigerian-born drummer and composer as co-founder of Fela’s legendary band Afrika 70. Although Allen, who will be 70 years old on 12 August, parted company with Fela in 1978 and later moved to Paris, he has kept the flame of Afrobeat burning.
Bugs Steffen and Femi Awoniyi met Tony Allen in Mannheim, Germany, recently and they talked with the veteran artiste about his life and music. Steffen writes about the long career of an exceptional musician who is still touring at an age when most of his contemporaries have long disappeared from public view.