Mark LeVine's "Nigerian Spring"

 "If Nigeria's young artists are starting to find their critical voice, and relatedly, increasingly turning to the elder statesmen of highlife for inspiration and collaborations, a Nigerian Spring might arrive sooner than many imagine, especially if the upcoming elections fail to produce any substantive change in governance or the economy."


Here's the latest rib-tickler from Al Jazeera's American academia correspondent and part-time rocker Mark LeVine of UC Irvine. In this piece. Mark ties in Boko Haram intimately with the Biafran war of the 1960s and suggests that maybe it will all be solved by a "Nigerian Spring" ushered in by rap and Highlife music.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2015/01/marching-afrobeat-150129061936031.html

I remember watching Mark give a public "briefing" at UCI in a classroom attended by a couple of dozen students after he had returned from Cairo, Egypt during the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak. He described meeting with the opposition at Tahrir Square. That was what was then called the "Arab Spring". We all know how that turned out.

Well, as the meteorologists say, "Spring comes every year". Keep trying, Mark. You'll find your true spring someday.