News & Events

On 20 September 1967, Nigerian poet, teacher, and librarian Christopher Ifekandu Okigbo died fighting for the independence of Biafra. He is today widely acknowledged as an outstanding postcolonial English-language poet and one of the major modernist writers of the 20th century.

Aqeeqa is a play written by Assad Bhuglah, an economist who served as a trade expert for the government of Mauritius from 1981-2016. He produced several books on historical figures as well as fictional works. Aqeeqa is his first work with an explicit religious theme. It deals with the Islamic birth ritual consisting of naming, hair shaving and animal sacrifice.

John Kegel has been awarded a Kiem seed grant from Leiden University for the project 'The re-enchantment of infrastructure in Africa: Comparing Colonial and Contemporary Coastal Corridors'. The Kiem grant is an initiative from the university to stimulate new interdisciplinary, interfaculty research partnerships and encounters.

On 14 September 1924, Sierra Leone Creole academic, diplomat, physician, writer and poet Davidson Sylvester Hector Willoughby Nicol CMG, pen named Abioseh Nicol, was born in Freetown. He obtained degrees in the arts, science and commercial disciplines. Nicol also contributed to medical science when he was the first to analyse the breakdown of insulin in the human body, a discovery which was a breakthrough for the treatment of diabetes.