Africa Is a Country

'I wanna be a Nigerian so freaking bad'

'I wanna be a Nigerian so freaking bad'

By
Sean Jacobs

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzbvPa5npmo&w=560&h=349]

UPDATE: This video, “I wanna be a Nigerian so freaking bad,” by a group of American high schoolers focusing on Nigeria in an AP Comparative Politics class, is a minor Youtube hit. The song is a tongue in cheek rip-off of “Billionaire” by Travis McCoy and Bruno Mars. Why Nigeria? “Our teacher has gone to Nigeria multiple times and helped create the documentary Sweet Crude.”  (A few lazy blogs, cutting and pasting, kept writing that they were Russian.) The video has had more than 10,000 views since it was posted on June 6.  Some decent political insights, but what’s with the guy in the loincloth? On that, one of the students who made the video has responded on Youtube:

… the guy in the “diaper” has nothing to do with the video more of a way to make our class laugh. We know there are not all villages it just fit with the original song … This video in no way was meant to offend or make fun of Nigerians or their culture. We are sorry to all we offended.

Further Reading

Fuel’s errand

When Africa’s richest man announced the construction of the continent’s largest crude oil refinery, many were hopeful. But Aliko Dangote has not saved Nigeria. The Nigerian Scam returns to the Africa Is a Country Podcast to explain why.

Fragile state

Without an immediate change in approach, Somalia will remain a fragmented country populated by self-serving elites seeking foreign patrons.

Coming home

In 1991, acclaimed South African artist Helen Sebidi’s artworks were presumed stolen in Sweden. Three decades later, a caretaker at the residential college where they disappeared found them in a ceiling cupboard, still in their original packaging.

Imaginary homelands

A new biography of former apartheid homeland leader Lucas Mangope struggles to do more than arrange the actions of its subject into a neat chronology.

Business as usual?

This month, Algeria quietly held its second election since Abdelaziz Bouteflika was ousted in 2019. On the podcast, we ask what Abdelmadjid Tebboune’s second term means for the country.