Adéwálé Májà-Pearce

Most young people in Nigeria regard military rule as an aberration and find it hard to understand why it appears to be popular in other West African states. But in the quarter-century since we swapped khaki for agbada, the percentage of Nigerians living in extreme poverty has only grown, while half the population is under eighteen.

History was expunged from the national school curriculum more than a decade ago because, it was claimed, there was no interest in it. Evidently, the political establishment continues to fear that knowledge of their history might further empower young people, who are more interested in good governance than in the ethnic politics of elderly men reluctant to concede power.

Vagabonds! tells compelling stories of survival, about women seizing agency in spite of the forces ranged against them. Men are largely incidental in this brave new world, when they aren’t in the way. Eloghosa Osunde makes her point with one-liners: ‘When she moved, she seemed to bend the mood of the room.’ Or as she says on the dedication page: ‘There are simple and good and straightforward and well-behaved people, I’m sure. But this is not a book about them.’

Nigeria pumps out​ 1.5 million barrels of oil a day, making it the biggest producer on the continent. The multinationals – Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell et al – in partnership with local firms and the state oil company, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, have made billions from it, and oil accounts for more than half of government income. But next to none of this money reaches the region where most of the oil is found, the Niger Delta, where more than a third of the population lives below the poverty line.

Because the British Museum has artefacts from so many other places the British pillaged and destroyed, and because many more people visit London than Benin City, or even Lagos, it follows that this is the best place for the Benin bronzes. I don’t like that argument, but I worry that if people in Benin City are trampling the remains of a heritage site under their feet, heritage in Nigeria doesn’t have the meaning some of its citizens would wish.