Otis Maho is a Nigerian music artist based in Hamburg, Germany. A few days ago, the artist was interviewed on Nigezie’s E-xtra Borderline where he talked about his career, future collaborations and more.
Before becoming a musician, Otis Maho was a boxer. In 2011, AfroCosmopolitan met and interviewed Otis at the Nigerian independence day celebration. Unfortunately, we were unable to upload the interview because there was some problem with the sound. You can see the photo gallery from the event here.
Let’s take a look at the top red carpet fashion style from Tanzania model, Millen Magese who has strutted the runway showcasing pieces from different designers. The pieces we have chosen for this post are either from the model’s outfits to red carpet events, or red carpet worthy outfits she modelled for different designers. Happiness Millen Magese is signed to Ford Models in New York and Ice Model Management South Africa. BShe shot into the limelight when she became Miss Tanzania in 2001. Since then, her modelling career has been growing from strength to strength. She was also the first African woman to become the ‘face’ of Ralph Lauren Campaign.
Below is our top red carpet fashion style from Tanzania model, Millen Magese. Check them out and get inspirations on what to wear for your next wedding event or a red carpet outfit to wear to an event or other special outings.
Millen Magese wearing a lace green dress designed by Frank Oshodi while on the red carpet at the 2013 edition of the Miss Nigeria competition that took place at the Intercontinental Hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos.
Above, Millen Magese is photographed walking the runway in a purple Tiffany Amber maxi dress at the ARISE African Icons Spring 2013 runway show. The piece is from the brand’s Spring/Summer 2013 collection.
Millen Magese modelling an amazing mixed ankara dress from the Mustafa Hassanali collection at the Arise Magazine Fashion Week event that took place in Lagos.
The 179cm model strutting the runway in a flowy Mustafa Hassanali piece.
Today on Al Jazeera’s global talk show South 2 North, Redi Tlhabi looks at the ongoing conflict in The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
“By general consensus, the United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo has failed,” said Redi at the start of the show, which is broadcast from Johannesburg. “The conflict continues and by some estimates 5.4 million are dead and hundreds of thousands of women are raped every year. Fearing the rising death toll, the UN has broken tactic: the peacemakers are going to war. Is this the way to create internal peace and prosperity in the Congo and is it the way forward for international peacekeeping?”
Redi was joined by Ambassador Bene M’Poko, the DRC ambassador to South Africa; civic leader Bernard Katompa, former CEO of Liberty Africa; and American Jason K. Stearns, author of Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: the Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa.
Jason said the DRC conflict has not received the global press coverage it deserves because of the complexity of its situation.
“Five million people have died but they died in ways that are very difficult to simplify and to tell,” he said. “In the Congo more than 90% of the victims… are indirect victims of violence – in other words these are people displaced by violence who then died due to diarrhea, malaria and pneumonia, far away from TV cameras and not due to direct violence. The conflict they died in involved several dozen different armed groups and at one point nine different African countries, so you can already see that it is a very difficult story to tell. Journalists used to tear their hair out and ask me, ‘How can I possibly tell this story in 400 words?’ I think that’s the tragedy of the Congo – we care less about stories that are difficult to understand.”
The ambassador stressed the DRC’s potential, pointing out that the country provides 80% of the minerals used to make satellites and cellphones and has the agricultural potential to feed the rest of Africa. “We have an economic growth projected by the World Bank this year of 9.6 percent, with double digits next year.”
He said this has been a mixed blessing. “The source of the conflict is resources,” said the ambassador. “If Congo was a desert country someplace without resources, nobody would touch us and nobody would be interested.”
Jason believes the current UN intervention marks a “crucial moment.”
“The weakness of the Congolese state and interventions from neighbouring Rwanda were never really addressed by past peace processes,” he said. “This intervention brigade of South Africans, Tanzanians and Malawians… is deploying within the context of a new peace framework that was created in February and involves exactly that – reforming Congolese institutions and [trying] to prevent Congo’s neighbours from meddling in each other’s business. This provides hope but it will have to tackle vested interests.”
Ambassador Bene
The ambassador welcomed the UN intervention. “We requested it. SADEC requested it. We needed a temporary intervention from outside to solve the problem and with the intervention brigade, by the end of the year, the problem will be solved so that our newly-formed military can take over the responsibility to secure the Congolese borders.”
Later, he added, “I will give the special brigade six months to resolve the problem. We should look at Congo today as a post-conflict country.”
But while the ambassador praised the current regime, both Bernard and Jason were more critical.
Bernard called it “a geological scandal” that in a country with “some 24 trillion dollars of resources… 70% of the population lives below the poverty line…”
Is the DRC’s copper-based growth benefitting the poorest of the poor? Is the current regime outsourcing too many of the functions of government? What is the blueprint for the way forward? Watch Redi ask the important questions in this week’s episode of South 2 North, which premieres at 19:30 GMT on Friday, 28 July 2013 and also screens on Saturday at 14h30, Sunday 04h30 and Monday 08h30.
For more information, visit http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/south2north/, where all episodes are available to watch online.
You can also tweet your questions, comments and opinions to @AJSouth2North or find South 2 North on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/South-2-North/255419671252120.
Catch up on last week’s episode of South 2 North, where Redi discussed the pros and cons of the Egyptian situation, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rp2_NOQAXvU.
With less than two months left for the UK’s First Plus Size Wedding Fair & Fuller Figured Expo to take place in London. Afrocosmopolitan in collaboration with theLoving Your Curves team, is offering a free ticket competition for the event.
Two free tickets will be given out to two lucky contestants. As a winner, you can choose to attend the expo or the wedding fair.
To participate in the free ticket competition, leave a comment below to tell us why you think you are the right person, you can also compete by sending us an email (info (at) afrocosmopolitan.com). Which ever method you choose, make sure you add your your first and last name.
The Loving Your Curves event is scheduled to take place on Saturday 21 September (Expo) and on Sunday 22 September (Wedding Fair) at Battersea Arts Centre, London (BAC).
The free ticket competition will expire on August 15 and the winner will be announced a few days later.
The bridal show will open at 11am and end at 6pm. There will be entertainment and workshops throughout the day.
Afrocosmopolitan is an official media partner of Loving Your Curves Wedding Fair & Fuller Figured Expo. We look forward to seeing you at the event.
With only a few days left for the third edition of Africa Fashion Week London to take place on August 1-3 the organisers are excited to bring news of another new partnership. AFWL, the biggest African fashion show in London is partnering with popular Nigeria online platform iROKING.
As part of the partnership, the iROKING and iROKO websites will be hosting AFWL 2013 on their backdrop. Also, the iROKING team have put together an exclusive music mix for this years African Fashion Week London event.
“Fashion and music are inextricably linked; it’s almost like they share the same DNA. Can you imagine a catwalk without music? I doubt it, and this is why iROKING – Nigeria’s number one online music platform, is sponsoring AFWL 2013, marrying two world-class African creative outlets that we can be truly proud of, music and fashion,” said Michael Ugwu, CEO of iROKING of the partnership.
“It is brilliant to see two African brands working hand in hand in support of each other and making use of this partnership to bring African fashion and African music together to showcase our culture to the world. We are delighted to have iROKING’s support to make the third edition of AFWL a huge success,” said Ronke Ademiluyi, CEO and founder of Africa Fashion Week London.
While the Nigerian senate is discussing about deleting a subsection of the constitution that says “any woman who is married shall be deemed to be of full age” irrespective of whether she is a minor or not, hear what Nada Al-Ahdal has to say. She is an 11-Year-old Yemeni girl who gave her opinion on forced marriage between female children and older men.
The young and brave girl ran away from home in order to avoid being married off to an old man by her mother. “I’d rather kill myself,” she said while expressing her hate for underaged marriage and its consequences.
Talking about her running away from home, she said, “It’s true that I ran away from my family. I can’t live with them anymore. Enough. I want to go live with my uncle. What about the innocence of childhood? What have the children done wrong? Why do you marry them off like that?”
It is important to note that while some members of senate want the subsection to be deleted, Senator Yerima is championing the fight to make sure that subsection remains unchanged.
two years ago, Senator Yerima was in the news for marrying a 13-year-old child.
Nollywood actress, Stella Damasus is furious over the ongoing discussions by the Nigerian Senate to make child marriage legal.
The Nigerian movie star and singer condemned underaged marriage and asked other Nigerian celebrities, the first lady as well as all Nigerians to join the fight against child marriage which she said was enslavement.
Watch the video below and hear all what she has to say.
The Most Beautiful Girl in Nigeria (MBGN) beauty pageant took place yesterday and 18-year-old Anna Ebiere Banner, the representative of Bayelsa State has emerged the winner. At 18, Ebiere will be one of the youngest winners of the MBGN crown.
Ebiere competed with 31 other contestants for the 2013 edition of the MBGN pageant that took place in Yenogoa, Bayelsa State. As the winner, Ebiere will represent Nigeria at the 2013 Miss World pageant that is scheduled to take place later in the year in Jakarta, Indonesia.
Other contestants who made it top the top 5 finalists are, Miss Imo (Stephanie Okwu), Miss Adamawa (Powede Lawrence), Miss Kaduna (Enoma Agboniko) and Miss Abuja (Melissa Devidal). The first runner-up, Miss Imo (Stephanie Okwu) will represent Nigeria at the Miss Universe pageant.
Top Nigerian and UK based PR consultant, Vannessa Amadi’s traditional wedding took place in Enugu today and these are the first photos from the event. Vannessa is the CEO of VA-PR and represents top Nigerian and other international celebrities such as Genevieve Nnaji, Estelle, D’Banj, Ne-yo, Eve and the Sugababes.
Vanessa and her boyfriend, Oki has been in a longtime relationship. In March 2013, the couple got engaged. Toolz and Colette Otusheso are some of the personalities from the entertainment industry who were at the event.
With just three weeks left for the third edition of Africa Fashion Week 2013 to take place, the organisers are offering three great surprises for this week for exhibitors and the public in order to make this not just the biggest but also the most interactive African fashion and lifestyle event in the UK.
Free Standing Tickets
With standard and VIP tickets fast selling out, Africa Fashion Week London introduced free standing tickets to all runway shows which also allow the holder free entry to the exhibition halls. The tickets were released earlier this week on a first come first served basis in order to give all fans of African fashion lovers a chance to see some emerging and established names on the runway while saving their cash to splash on the exhibition goodies.
To claim your ticket now, please the Africa Fashion Week London website and follow the free ticket link.
Africa Fashion Week London 2013 has introduced the public red carpet runway. The public runway is a chance for you to get dressed to impress with your best African inspired outfit. Hit your stride on the runway and don’t forget to work the cameras at the end of the “red runway.”
Sale Sunday for Exhibitors
With exhibition stalls at high demand, Africa Fashion Week London is now offering tickets at discounted rates which can be as little as £50 for exhibitors who wish to book stalls for Sunday, 4 August 2013. “With a huge demand for exhibition stalls and our exhibition hall fast filling up over the first three days, we have now decided to extend the exhibition on to the fourth day with more exhibition stalls at an incredible discount rate of £50,” says Ronke Ademiluyi, founder and CEO of Africa Fashion Week London 2013.
To inquire about discount exhibition stalls, please email, info@africafashionweeklondon.com
Africa Fashion Week London 2013 is scheduled to take place on 1-3 August 2013 at Old Truman Brewery in Shoreditch. For your fashionable fun time on the red runway purchase your tickets now at www.africafashionweeklondon.com
