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Indianapolis Star
6 hours ago
- General
- Indianapolis Star
INdulge: Traditional Nigerian stew with rich history is best thing I ate in Indy this week
Juneteenth, which commemorates the day the last slaves of the Confederacy were freed in 1865, has come and gone. However — if you'll allow me a brief moment on my radical, extremist soapbox — one could argue you don't need a federal holiday to support Black-owned businesses in your community. Among those businesses are Indianapolis' various West African restaurants. For this week's INdulge, I sampled a sliver of that robust culinary tradition with: If you're unfamiliar with Nigerian food, I suspect you could wander up to just about any restaurant that serves it, order a dish completely at random and end up with a memorably flavorful surprise. For an idea of where to start, consider the ayamase at Jollof Buka on the Near Westside. Black-owned restaurants: 40 to check out in the Indianapolis area Ayamase (aye-ah-mah-shay) is a thick sauce made with a blend of green peppers (usually bell peppers and/or unripe chilies), aromatic vegetables, hard-boiled egg and irú, fermented African locust beans. Various cuts of meat are also a common ingredient; Jollof Buka prepares its ayamase ($16.95) with shreds of turkey and chicken. These components are cooked in bleached palm oil, which has a distinct yet hard-to-place flavor I can best describe as hardy. The ayamase has a semi-dry, fibrous consistency similar to other spice pastes like Mexican salsa macha or Indonesian sambal. It packs a slight vegetal sweetness thanks to the peppers, while the meat and egg make it a well-rounded, savory meal. Though the stew is not especially spicy, an overly ambitious spoonful won't go unnoticed on the way down your throat. While not as well-known as jollof, Nigeria's national dish of spiced rice from which Jollof Buka gets its name (buka is a term for a casual restaurant in Yoruba, one of three major languages spoken in Nigeria), ayamase is extremely popular in the West African country. Unlike centuries-old jollof, ayamase has likely only been around for about a hundred years. The most popular origin story for ayamase tells of a woman living in the small Nigerian town of Ikenne named Felicia Ajibabi Adesina, who in the 1920s developed a sauce of peppers and palm oil to serve at her food stand with Ofada rice (ayamase is often referred to as Ofada stew). Supposedly, Adesina's short-tempered husband would often get into scraps with neighbors, prompting concerned friends and family members to call him Mase, a Yoruba word that means 'don't' — as in, come on, man, don't hit him. In turn, Adesina's wildly popular sauce became known as obe aya Mase, meaning 'Mase's wife's sauce,' and eventually just ayamase. Previously in INdulge: Why do dads love to grill? This BBQ dish was best thing I ate in Indy this week While the fun stories behind our favorite foods typically fall apart under scrutiny, the legend of Felicia Adesina actually seems to hold up. It's the only historical explanation for ayamase I can find, including in one of Nigeria's oldest independent newspapers, The Guardian. Amid a lack of contrary evidence, I'm content to believe the tale of Adesina's fiery entrepreneurial spirit and similarly combustible husband. Whoever its inventor, ayamase remains a strong representative of Nigerian cuisine. Though summer generally doesn't stir cravings of hot, spiced stew, I'd say a visit Jollof Buka is worth the sweat. What: Ayamase, $16.95 Where: Jollof Buka, 2501 W. Washington St., (317) 384-1575, In case that's not your thing: Jollof Buka's menu caters to diners of widely varying curiosity levels, so it's OK if you're totally new to Nigerian food. The jollof with jerk chicken ($18), fried spiced chicken wings ($9) or vegetarian okra soup ($16.49) should all ring reasonably familiar to the Western palate. Meanwhile, more adventurous eaters can swing for peppered ponmo (cow skin cooked in chili paste, $16) or the spicy goat stir fry called asun ($16, weekends only).
AFP
3 days ago
- AFP
Video shows militants abducting Malian soldiers, not Nigerian troops
'Sorosoke!!! Shocking clip of some bandits boldly loading men of the Nigerian army on bikes after raiding their camp,' reads the caption of an Instagram post circulating in Nigeria since June 7, 2025. The term 'bandits' in Nigeria refers to organised criminal gangs. Image Screenshot showing the false post, taken June 16, 2025 'Sorosoke' is a Yoruba expression meaning 'speak up'. It became a popular slogan during Nigeria's 2020 protests against police brutality (archived here). Liked more than 2,000 times, the video shows men in military uniform being forced onto motorcycles by gunmen wearing turbans. Comments below the post questioned the identity of the captured soldiers. 'This is chad army not Nigerian army (sic),' wrote one user, while another said the incident happened in 'Burkina Faso, that's where you can get those types of bikes'. The video was published by an account called 'Sorosoke Gossip' which posts lifestyle content and general news about Nigeria. However, the video does not show Nigerian soldiers being abducted by bandits. Clip from Mali At the 0'54' mark in the one-minute clip, AFP Fact Check noticed a Malian military patch stitched to the sleeve of one of the abducted soldiers. The visible part of the logo reads 'FAMa', an acronym for Forces Armees Maliennes, or the Malian army. Image Comparison of the Malian armed forces logo as it appeared in an AFP photo (left) and on the sleeve of an abducted soldier in the video Using Google Lens to conduct reverse image searches on keyframes from the video, we were led to a June 8, 2025, X post by Brant Philip, a terrorism researcher focusing on West Africa and the Middle East. In it, he described how the Al-Qaeda-backed Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) fighters killed scores of Malian soldiers in the Boulkessi military camp near the Burkina Faso border on June 1, 2025. AFP had reported on the incident, saying the Malian army said it lost at least 30 soldiers but security sources and a local official said they believed the death toll to be at least 60 (archived here). One of the videos in Philip's posts shows 30 seconds of the clip in the false post, with the media logo of the JNIM at the top right corner (archived here). JNIM then displays the loot and the prisoners captured, 8 days later their fate is still unknown, JNIM could keep them for a prisoner swap in the future 5/5 — Brant (@brantphilip1978) June 8, 2025 Nigerian army spokesperson Onyechi Anele also told AFP Fact Check that the video in the claim 'does not involve Nigerian troops'.
CBC
12-06-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
How the colour blue tells the story of Black history, from racism to joy
"Blackness, no matter how specific the experience, organically reaches across borders. And I followed it," writes Imani Perry in her latest book, Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People. "I have heard and seen blue ringing through Black life at every corner of the world, from Malian music and Yoruba cosmology to the testimonies of rural Colombians. In my blue notebooks, I steadily collected blue blues." To Perry, the colour blue is more than a colour, a mood, or genre of music. She sees a metaphor, a sound, a birthright, a sensibility, a respite and a mode of living with the cruelty of the world. The Harvard professor argues that Black people's love of the colour blue and pursuit of beauty were an assertion of their humanity in a world that dehumanized and objectified them. From birth, Perry became enveloped by the colour blue. She spent much of her childhood in a blue room in her grandmother's home. "The walls were blue, the drapes were blue, the bedding was blue. She had prayer cards with blue writing in the corners of her vanity," Perry said. That room became a portal for her, "the safest space in the world." Imani Perry continued to talk about her book, Black in Blues with IDEAS host Nahlah Ayed. Here is an excerpt from their conversation. You chose the colour blue and as you say, it's not accidental, but it also is a colour that becomes important to Black people. And I know there are a hundred answers to this because that's why you wrote a book about it. But how did that happen? Certainly, the indigo trade is a piece of it. Indigo is this colour that captivates the whole world. There's this talk, and this is why I use the phrase, 'my people gave sound to the world's favourite colour.' There is something about blue that captivates the imagination. And so you have this history of indigo cultivation. For me, there's an inception point to be found when people, West Africans, who have been creating blue items, have been cultivating indigo and using blue dye, experience what had to have been a sort of profound horror and disorientation by finding themselves no longer just cultivators of indigo, but traded for indigo — to imagine what it meant to be someone who crafted and then seeing oneself literally traded for a block of dye. There's something at the heart of that relationship to be found in that encounter. Then, of course, there's indigo plantations, and it's a very difficult crop to cultivate during enslavement. And yet, the people still love the colour blue and still want to wear blue. Even in these devastating circumstances, there's still this appeal and a sense of beauty and delight. And that, to me, is the fundamentally human part that was not destroyed, no matter the brutality. So there's some historical elements to why blue matters. In the book you refer to the writer Amiri Baraka — [and his] term for Black Americans, blues people. What does it mean to be a blues people? Baraka's description of blues people is, he pays particular attention to the way that black Americans stood apart from the American project, sort of sitting on the underside and therefore witnessing its limitations in reaching for a deeper kind of humanity, and expressing that musically, being a part of a world that was much bigger than the particulars of that nation state. I'm so interested in Baraka's conception of blues people on the one hand, and then Albert Murray's on the other, who is another one of my favourite writers who talked a great deal about how Black Americans were so fundamentally American. And so the blue note is actually a variation on this fundamentally American thing that actually is part of what creates Americana itself. Here are two brilliant thinkers who have, in some sense, opposing conceptions of what it means to be a blues people, that there is a spectrum of relationships, a vexed relation to the nation. The American project is also directly connected, for me, to why it was so important to have a sense of the international landscape of Blackness and blueness in the book because there are all these arteries of connection across the globe. Echoes, repetitions, and even intimacies, and mutual inspiration, so it's a sort of both-and. There's a particular relationship of blueness in connection with the American project, but then there's also this global sense of a blues people in the context of modernity, generally speaking. You point out more than once, very articulately that, "race is a messy and exacting business. It pretends to be precise, but it never has been and can't be." You argue, in fact, that, Black people — you point out the obvious, which is they span a huge range of colour from a creamy colour to all shades of brown to blue-black. So they're really not one colour at all. But the colour that connects them all and speaks to their sensibility and experience and way in the world is blue? It's beauty and the blues. The way I often think of it is a blues sensibility is one where people are creating beauty at the very site of wounding. And so it's not an evasion of the wounding, it's not an avoidance, but it is actually sitting in that and building a life. I think about this in particular with the history of slavery in the Americas. People were born, lived, and died enslaved over multiple generations, which means that they also loved and they also created art and they also laughed. And we have this history in intellectual work in my field in Black studies. We want to focus on the struggles for liberation, which we should, but that can lead us to forget how much people's self-creation took place in this position of deep constraint. And that actually is part of the story of who they were and how we became. So that blues, bluesiness, that blue note in the musical scale, the blues, blues people, blues sensibility, is a way to tell that story. For me, it's essential. Black Americans looked to nature for another blue to remember their dead — planting periwinkles on graves. Yeah, it's one of those pieces of history that makes me emotional every time I think about it. So for enslaved people, there were no headstones. And traditional West and Central African burial rituals were not available, although people found ways of creating new rituals, but often that was even under the cover of night. One of the ways that gravesites were marked in the Upper South, in particular, was through the planting of periwinkle because it is a hardy flower — it'll come up every year. And it's a wonderful combination of the ways history and science and documents all work together because archeological work is actually part of how we know this to be true, that so often under these beds of periwinkle flower, there are graves, there are bodies of enslaved Africans. I go places and I see it, and it creates its own sense of solemnity, but also power. I went to visit with a group of women on a trip that was called a sojourn for Harriet Jacobs, the site of the woman who wrote the first major slave narrative, Harriet Jacobs, where she was born in Edenton, North Carolina. We went to the graveyard of her grandmother. She was buried in Massachusetts because she escaped slavery. Close to the graveyard, there are patches of periwinkle. So at a certain point, this became a graveyard for Black people. I have different definitions of home that I'm working with in the book, but one of them is: a home is where you're dead or buried. It's a way of claiming a home there by marking the site.
Yahoo
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Culture and colour come out in praise of a Nigerian king
Thousands gathered on Sunday in an ancient town in south-west Nigeria for a spectacular display of culture, colour and tradition. The Ojude Oba festival in Ijebu-Ode, brought together locals and visitors to pay homage to the Awujale - the traditional ruler of the Ijebu people. This union of drummers, musicians and dancers coupled with a fashion parade told a tale of people deeply connected to their roots. Ojude Oba - a Yoruba phrase meaning "the kings forecourt" - began over two centuries ago. Earmarked for the third day after Eid, this was originally a modest gathering of the Muslim faithful, thanking the king for allowing them to practise their religion freely. But it has grown to symbolise pride, unity and identity among all the Ijebu people regardless of religion. The women were elegantly turned-out in colourful traditional dresses, known here as iro and buba, along with the gele, or head wrap. Their outfits were made from lace or aso-oke, a locally sourced fabric woven by the Yoruba people. The sunglasses and hand fans meant to provide respite for the blistering sun were must-have accessories, complementing the looks. Dressed in traditional Yoruba agbada, the men agree months ahead on what outfits, colour and accessories to use for the festival. Each year, they tweak the style and colour and display. Accessories include matching caps, beads and shoes. Regardless of social status, the people are classified into age groups known as regbe-regbe, with hundreds belonging to each one. They are aimed at fostering unity among the locals. The horses were adorned in colourful ornaments of gold and silver. Their riders displayed their prowess and the strength of their horses circling the arena to thunderous applause from spectators. Shots from locally made guns sent white smoke into the air, signalling the arrival of each of the traditional warrior family, known as Balogun or Eleshin. They protected the Ijebu kingdom from external aggression at one time. The flamboyant parade of culture provides an economic boost to the area as dress makers, weavers, shoe makers, jewellers and others are contracted to make the desired outfits and matching accessories. Additional reporting by Ayo Bello and Kyla Herrmannsen Nigeria's Egungun festival: Colour, culture and community Nigeria's spectacular horse parade closing Ramadan Nigerians take to the streets for Calabar Carnival Go to for more news from the African continent. Follow us on Twitter @BBCAfrica, on Facebook at BBC Africa or on Instagram at bbcafrica Focus on Africa This Is Africa
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Could Nigeria's careful ethnic balancing act be under threat?
In Nigerian politics, there has long been an informal understanding: presidential appointments should carefully balance the country's many ethnic and religious differences. Today, there are growing concerns that this is being ignored. While the constitution requires regional representation in cabinet positions, the broader distribution of other prominent roles has traditionally followed a convention aimed at fostering national cohesion. Nigeria's fractious divisions have in the past torn the country – Africa's most populous – apart. Concerns about fairness in presidential appointments are not new, but a chorus of criticism is growing over President Bola Tinubu's picks, with some accusing the head of state – who has been in power for two years – of favouring people from his own Yoruba ethnic group. The presidency vehemently denies the accusation. There have long been fears that members of one ethnic group would come to dominate key positions – and this means that presidential appointments are closely scrutinised whenever they are announced. There are over 250 ethnic groups in the country with Hausa-Fulanis, Igbo and Yoruba – hailing from the north, south-east and south-west respectively - being the three largest. Critics say that Tinubu, a southern Muslim, showed signs of ignoring precedent from the onset when he picked another Muslim (although from the north) to be his running mate for the last election. Since the return of democracy in 1999, the major parties had always put forward a mixed Muslim-Christian ticket, as the country is roughly evenly divided between followers of the two religions. Tinubu's appointments since becoming president in May 2023 are facing growing cricisim. Although there are dozens of roles for a head of state to fill, there are eight jobs that "are the most crucial for every administration", according to political analyst and barrister Lawal Lawal. These are the heads of the: central bank state-owned oil company, NNPC police army customs service intelligence agency anti-corruption agency and revenue service. There is no constitutional ranking of positions, but collectively these roles control the key financial and security apparatus of the country. Every president inherits his predecessor's appointees, but has the prerogative to replace them. As of April, all eight positions under Tinubu are now filled by Yorubas. The recent appointment of former Shell boss Bayo Ojulari to head the state-owned oil company, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC), in place of a northerner turbocharged the debate about the apparent monopoly of one group in top positions. Looking at who filled the same posts under Tinubu's two immediate predecessors, there was no such dominance of one ethnic group at the same stage of their presidencies. Goodluck Jonathan – who served from 2010 to 2015 – had a relatively balanced team of two ethnic Fulanis, two Hausas, one Atyap, one Igbo, one Yoruba and one Calabar. When it came to Muhammadu Buhari – in power from 2015 to 2023 – the situation was less clear. In the top eight he had three Hausas, two Kanuris, one Igbo, one Yoruba and one Nupe. But in the minds of many Nigerians, Hausas, Kanuris and Nupes are all seen as northerners – and therefore there was a perception that Buhari, who is from the north, showed favouritism. Some argue that Tinubu's appointments have merely continued the trend, but the 100%-Yoruba make-up of the eight key positions is unprecedented. "For a democratically elected president, I cannot remember at any point in Nigerian history where you have this high concentration of a particular ethnic group holding most of the sensitive positions," history professor Tijjani Naniya told the BBC. This is not just about what has happened in the past but it could have an impact on the unity and even the future of the country, the professor said. "For me, the fear is what if the next president continues on this path and picks most of the sensitive positions from his ethnic group, it diminishes the feeling of belonging among the rest and also reduces belief in democracy," he said. In the last two years, many northerners, mostly Hausa-Fluanis, have looked at the apparent direction of travel with alarm. The current men (there are no women) in charge of the NNPC, the police, customs and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) all replaced northerners. The removal of Abdulrasheed Bawa, a Hausa, as boss of the EFCC in 2023 just two years after he was appointed was especially controversial. He was arrested, accused of abuse of office and detained for over 100 days before the charges were dropped. He was replaced by Ola Olukoyode, an ethnic Yoruba. Some from the north felt Mr Bawa was unfairly treated and pushed aside to make way for Mr Olukoyode. "The president needs to know that the Yoruba people are just a part of the country, and all appointments should be spread across all ethnic groups and regions," social affairs analyst Isah Habibu told the BBC. Without addressing specific cases, a Tinubu spokesperson has said the president is being fair and balanced, by taking the wider view of all appointments. Media aide Sunday Dare did try to go into detail, saying overall, 71 northerners and 63 southerners had been appointed by Tinubu. But his 9 April post on X was later deleted, after people pointed out errors in his claim. He promised an updated list, but more than six month slater, it has yet to appear. Tinubu faces critics even from within his own party. Senator Ali Ndume is from the north and – like Tinubu – belongs to the All Progressives Congress. In one television interview he said he had gone on air to talk about the president's appointment "wrongdoings". Ndume said he was shocked, describing them as "non-inclusive and not reflecting the president's 'Renewed Hope' agenda, which promised to carry every section of the country along". Another presidential aide, Daniel Bwala, disputed the idea that some positions were more significant than others. "All I know is that the constitutional provisions [regarding appointments] have been taken care of by the president - there's nowhere in the constitution [where it is] mentioned top five, top 10 and the rest," he told the BBC. "The way we see it is that any position or appointment that one is privileged to serve in is very critical and important. "The national security adviser is from the north-east, the chief of defence staff is from the north-west and the secretary to the federal government is from north-central." The Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, which coordinates policy on behalf of the presidency, released a statement on 12 April saying Tinubu was being fair. "This administration is dedicated to ensuring that all regions and demographics of the country are adequately represented in its institutions and agencies," it said. Political analyst Mr Lawal said the president should appoint the best person for the job, irrespective of their ethnic origin – and agues that this is what Tinubu is doing. "It's high time Nigeria looks beyond ethnicity," he said. There could be a time when Nigerians no longer obsess over the ethnic origins of those in the upper echelons of government, but historian Prof Naniya says this is still some way off. He believes it can only happen when the country gets at least four presidents in succession who give every section a sense of belonging in terms of projects and appointments. "I think it can be done but needs the right leaders." Nigeria's spectacular horse parade closing Ramadan 'I scarred my six children by using skin-lightening creams' 'How I survived Nigeria attack that killed my 16 friends' Are Nigerians abroad widening the class divide back home? Go to for more news from the African continent. Follow us on Twitter @BBCAfrica, on Facebook at BBC Africa or on Instagram at bbcafrica Africa Daily Focus on Africa
