Angela Ukomadu's Blog

According to Wikipedia, "a mobile library is a vehicle designed for use as a library. It is designed to hold books on shelves in such a way that when the vehicle is parked, books can be accessed by readers." Well, welcome to the world of Funmi Ilori, Chief Executive Officer of IRead Mobile Library, Nigeria's first mobile library. As a teacher, she had always dreamt of having the largest mobile library in Africa. This dream she started by some many years ago by carrying books in a basket from house to house so people can borrow and read. Today she is the proud owner of a moving library. I call her endeavour moving "the mountain to Mohammed". Yes ke , people no longer go to libraries to read or research, I am not talking about the libraries we have in secondary schools and the university, I am talking about public libraries. Did I hear someone ask if we have functional public libraries? Chill na.  Also the fact that most people are busy looking for their daily

Decades ago, most top Nigerian oil companies had only expatriates holding major managerial and expertise positions. Later, things changed a little as we began to see at least more Nigerian men. Today, the story is changing  a bit. We see more women holding managerial positions, and they are doing perfectly well. During the filming of this feature, we profiled three awesome ladies. The first was Amy Jadesimi, Managing Director of Lagos Deep Offshore Logistics (LADOL). When I first saw her, I thought she was the person taking us to see the main madam Amy , not  knowing she was the one. She looked so young to be manning the massive establishment we stepped into. She took us in a boat to her offshore site, showing us around and explaining the intricate steps in her organisational operations. Then we went to see Uju Ifejika, Chief Executive Officer of Britannia. Awesome lady too. She showed an exceptional knowledge of the oil and gas sector. She has done very well as her appointment to the

I went to a cybercafe for the first time in 2001. And then it became a weekly thing for my friends and I. Even though we were not expecting any mail from someone, it just felt like the in-thing for us to do then. And the cybercafes where just every where, with about three to five of them just on one street, and the patronage was quite high. Now, the cybercafes that I see around are a total shadow of what they used to be. Dirty, dusty, old computers, the shops have all lost the glamour they used to have back in the days. For the few cybercafes that are still operating, they are no longer dependent on offering internet services, but mainly to type, print or photocopy documents for people. Internet enabled phones spoilt the business for them I guess, as the world evolved, people could no longer wait to go to cybercafes, they just had to receive and respond to emails in real time. I can't stay an hour without my smart phones, I will definitely feel like I have lost touch with the w

One of those days when we just sit in the office and brainstorm about story ideas, a colleague of mine, Ejiro, told me that we could do a story on "Pink Lips." I'm like whats that, and she explained that its a process where you have a permanently stained lips in any colour of your choice. I thought she was joking and one day, on our way to film another story in Ikeja, we decided to go check the guys out. These guys stand under the Ikeja bridge, calling out to passersby: "pink lips, pink lips." We called the one of them, and began asking questions, he said "that's not all o madam, we can enlarge your breast, lift it up, increase your hips, flatten your stomach and so on." Hmm, God have mercy! All of these things are done in a shop, close to the bridge. Do people really go to them for breast enlargement? Hmm. Now I can't tell if he truly can do all of the things he mentioned, but I took him up on the pink lips, and he accepted we do a feature on

Iheoma Obibi is one lady who I thought was going to give us a hard time during the filming and interview session, it was the first time I was meeting her after several phone calls. She was just driving in when we got to her gate, so I introduced my self and she says "okay, just park your vehicle outside." Well, no wahala, we did and of course decided within my self, the videographer and the photographer that we are in for a "long thing today." Anyhow, story must be told. But guess what, she turned out to be a really nice and awesome lady, no airs about her, simple to a fault and we sure had fun with her that day. She owns Nigeria's first online sex toys shop called"Intimate pleasures, desires of the heart" a shop that caters to sexual health products and eroticas. Iheoma has ventured into this business, in our conservative culture where it even looks like a taboo to discuss sex openly. But the truth is, if she does not have the clientele, she would

In times like this, it feels so good to be a Nigerian. Don't get me wrong, I am a patriotic Nigerian, but during the Ebola crisis, all hands were on deck to do the right thing, and it was done to perfection. From the Federal government to the man in the street. I think everyone was scared, the people in government were scared too. I mean, this is something that you can't even see, you don't know when it creeps in on you. For example, the government can decide to fly to boycott a bad road, can get health services or education abroad to avoid our ill equipped hospitals and schools here. Ebola was not like that, you can do the right things and still get it, somehow, somewhere. From the first time Patrick Sawyer gave the disease a first class ticket to Nigeria, there was no rest, we just had to tell the story to the world. All the press briefings in Lagos and Abuja, the trips to the airports to cover passenger screenings, interviews at the Centre for Disease Control, the mark

I woke up that morning, Wednesday, October 15, 2014, determined more than ever to observe the "Lagos No Horn Day."   I drove out of my gate, my home is in a close, and you know how it is for those of us who live on the mainland and work on the Island, we have to leave very early, 5:20ish. But the gate to the close was still closed, how do I wake the sleeping guard? I thought of coming out to knock on his door, but me, I sabi fear o, I feel safer in the comfort of my car. I waited a few seconds, checked the time, every second in Eko counts, so I used the horn to wake him. Number 1. Everything was going on smoothly and then they came again, yes, those ones in yellow buses, who feel once you drive past them, you will pick all of their passengers, I waited, ah ah, Oga use your church mind and shift na, I'm not gonna take your passengers, just shift make I pass. He refused, and so...... Number 2. Now, I don't want to bore you, with long gist, but I met this ot