My fingers are itching.

Genevieve Nnaji

I know sontin about the Half of a Yellow Sun film. I have been sitting on it for weeks.

No, not that Genevieve’s part (may have)/has been cut. That’s old news.  But I may know certain factors surrounding this. In other words, why.

I would love to talk about it, not because of gossip – it’s not really my style – but because of the conversation I want to start about Nollywood and …and…grrrrr! I can’t even say the next thing because of the ultra smart people who will guess and I have my source (yes, the same one that worked on the set of the film) to protect.

We need this conversation. We need it.

What to do, what to do?

So, BBC Newsday used my audio…

Listen to the programme here. The Aluu segment is at 1.25.  If you need to hear the full audio, click here.

IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU.

(I did this post last night but the feeling stays).

Today, I am both ashamed and afraid to be Nigerian.

I don’t know what happened in Aluu  - I don’t care for the conflicting accounts. All I know is that four (some accounts say thee) Univeristy of Port Harcourt boys were stripped naked, beaten and burnt to death on the SUSPICION of being robbers. They were tried on the spot by elders of the community too. How’s that for 21st century Nigerian justice?

It reminded me of the Bakassi Boys from when I was a teenager in Anambra state – those fierce men of indeterminate origin who were sanctioned to rid the state of ‘armed robbers’ by any means necessary. This audio I made will tell you what you need to know. I apologise, it is unscripted and I an popping like crazy so obviously have shamed my broadcasting trainers. And I am talking slowly because I am angry and when I get angry, I am incoherent. I had to slow down for you to hear me.

P-square news-es

UPDATE: HUH. Ifite Dunu, not Ifite Awka. I must read properly (but in my defence I’ve been having a fever for three days now.)

Flavour gini? Biko he’s too far away!

I must be SERIOUSLY slacking in my life because I did not know that P-Square are from Awka. My very doormout. How could I not know? I need to hand my National Union of Journalists badge back because I am a disgrace to the profession.

Anyway, if you’re done drooling, the boys whose mother died on the 11th of July five hours after heart surgery in India will be in Ifite-Dunu to bury her on the 2nd of August.

May God be with them at this time. And I mean that in every way. Some people are just coming to ‘chop their money‘.  They need to go to the Imo-Owka oracle and  kee nkwucha (also known as a spiritual ‘Tuck n’ Tape) otherwise plenti plenti girls will have their bread buttered for life via child support payments.

Hot off the press: Half of a Yellow Sun starts filming

Chiwetel Ejiofor and Thandie Newton

I cannot tell you how terribly pleased I am to discover that I have eyes and ears inside the film crew of Half of a Yellow Sun. So, I will try to bring you all the juicy details as fast as I can over the next few weeks and months.

It is Day 2 of filming in Calabar (Day 1 being Friday) where they are ‘shooting all the post-1967 scenes’. My source does not yet know whether any filming will be done in Nsukka where the book is set.

However all the main stars have arrived: Chiwetel Ejiofor as Odenigbo, Thandie Newton as Olanna, Anika Noni Rose as Kainene and John Boyega as Ugwu. How terribly exciting. (Yes, I am excited. Sue me.)

Anika Noni Rose

John Boyega