Goldline & Jacobs Publishing

         The Way We Lived: Essays on Nigerian History, Gender 
and Society
   By Chima J Korieh

                                          ISBN: 978-1-938598-03-6

The work capture the voices of those whose activities have been neglected by historians and other scholars despite their central role in shaping the contours of change in society. Most of the essays in this volume deal with the effects of European contact: the Atlantic slave trade and its impact on Nigerian societies and the Igbo region in particular as well as the impact of European colonialism from the late nineteenth century. Nigerian and Igbo scholars will particularly benefit from this collection.

Nigeria and the Lugardian Hubris: Vision,Crises and Prospects

by Ihechukwu Madubuike



ISBN: 978-9784949804

Studies on colonialism especially the British variant of it have tended to underestimate the self-serving aspect of the imperial venture in Nigeria and to highlight its so-called civilizing principles. In the process the lingering destructive effects of the colonial project and its underlying implications for human development and freedom are underplayed. This neglect and its implications for nation building is the subject of Professor Madubuike's book, Nigeria and The Lugardian Hubris: Vision, Crises and Prospects. Through a clinical analysis of the elements of British administration, especially the policy of Indirect Rule, the author demonstrates the hypocrisy of the so-called "white man's burden" and shows how it has been at the root of Nigeria's disunity and under development. Britain, he argued, could have still ruled the two protectorates that were cobbled together as Nigeria in 1914, as separate countries, with self-governance for the sub-ethnic groups. This might have averted most of the contradictions inherent in the ill-conceived and myopic amalgamation, contradictions that have been tearing the country apart since its inception. It is the view of the author that Nigeria must liberate itself from the coatings of Lugardism, defined as the hangover of Britain's maladministration, its imperfections and inequities in Nigeria. He upbraids Nigeria's power elite and cabal for their vested interest in maintaining a dysfunctional, corrupt and predatory state and in obfuscating structural processes that will drive development and enhance self-worth.

Ezumeezu: Essays on Nigerian Art and Architecture– A Festschrift in Honour of Demas Nwoko
edited by Obiora Udechukwu and Chika Okeke-Agulu

Foreword by Wole Soyinka

 ISBN: 978-1-938598-01-2

Ezumeezu, edited by Obiora Udechukwu and Chika Okeke-Agulu, is a festschrift for Demas Nwoko, the influential Nigerian artist, architect, designer and politician. It is an unprecedented compilation of essays by important art critics, historians, artists, writers and scholars on the work of Demas Nwoko, and on Nigerian art, architecture, literature and art administration. Over the last two decades the constitutive history of modernism has irrevocably expanded, and so have names of the artists who have defined its multifarious contours. These changes did not come about through a change of heart in narrow art history, but out of an intervention from inside the practice of art by experimental artists and thinkers like Demas Nwoko, whose visionary, uncompromising avant-gardism, like Corbusier's, defies the dichotomy between artist and architect. Demas Nwoko is a unique figure, in his expansive modernism and distinctive contemporaneity.

The Igbo Challenge in Nigeria: Beyond Rancour and Recrimination
by Ihechukwu Madubuike





This book can be read as a historical voyage of the Igbos of Nigeria since their encounter with alien cultures and their heroic response to the challenges posed by the encounter. In a narrative that reads like an epic drama the author captures the high points of the Igbo existential constraints across time and space and their efforts to master their environment in its physical and metaphysical dimensions. The slave trade increased internecine wars and led to the depopulation of the Igbo country side. Colonialism and the policy of Indirect Rule brought to a standstill a people's burgeoning democratic and egalitarian system of governance and replaced it with the obnoxious system of warrant chiefs, in a society that believes that 'there is a king in every person." It was only a matter of time for the resentment occasioned by these events to explode. Igbos had fired warning shots through bloody confrontations with the British. Typical examples are the Aba Women's War of 1929 and the Iva Valley Coal Miners revolt in 1949. The author shows how these events would eventually lead to a civil war because of the Igbo spirit against injustice. For a people noted for their proclivity to commit suicide rather than to submit to slavery of any kind, war was nothing but an unavoidable demonstration of their will to be free. The bloody civil war that resulted wreaked havoc on the Nigerian society as well as on the Igbo ethnic formation. The Igbo Challenge, Beyond Recrimination and Rancour is copious with suggestions on the way the Igbos can recapture their lost glories within a constraining and vengeful Nigerian polity and how Nigeria can be a true federation of equal partners.

Women in Isilua: African Folktales of the Esan of Nigeria
by Bridget Inegbeboh 

eminist scholarship has extensively explored the representation of women in a variety of literary works. Such representation is dominated by two main categories of female character: women who are oppressed and remain passive and the oppressed women who resist. This book explores the presence or absence of currently known feminist categories of female character in feminist literature in Esan folktales. It also seeks to explore other categories of female character that have not been well-examined despite their presence in many oral literary traditions. The book demonstrates the existence of other categories of female characters, which feminist scholars have largely ignored. These are the category of unoppressed women and the category of women who dominate other women and men. These categories of women exist not only in the world of Esan folktales but also in everyday Esan society.

Crude Waves of the Delta
By Chris C. Onyema


Crude Waves of the Delta, a book of poetry set in Nigeria's Niger Delta area, mirrors the gory environmental experiences of ancestral dwellers in a region doomed, as it were, by oil boom. The raconteur, physically and psychologically cast assail turbulent waves of pollution and distress, portrays some irksome currents of extreme devastation of the fauna and flora, distressing experiences of denial and general poverty, as well as angst reactionary and violent appropriation of rent. Quite like the “mythical” global flows, the gruesome complicity of the national political class and the exploiting multinational oil companies, these shocking currents pervade every verse much like, well, the numerous oil wells in the wetlands.

“Crude Waves of the Delta is an epic poem in waves formatted as a letter in dramatic monologue. …The confrontational stance this poetry of challenge embodies defies the authority of a rampaging injustice,”–-Chinyere Nwahunanya, PhD, Professor of English, Abia State University, Uturu, Nigeria.

“Chris Onyema uses the discourse of ecological trauma as frame for well-horned craft, compelling language, diverse in its register and power of suggestiveness, to elevate the patently absurd waves of “oil curses”- brambles of ecological exploitation, mindless pollution, poverty, carnage and angst reactionary to robust poetry,”—Onookome, Okome PhD., Professor of African Literature & Film Studies, University of Alberta, Canada.

Chris Chinemerem Onyema, Ph.D., is of the Department of English & Literary Studies, Imo State University, Owerri, Nigeria, where he teaches Creative Writing, Discourse Analysis and Postcolonial Literature. He is the editor of Ecosahara: Africa Journal of Literature and the Environment.

Between Tradition and Change: Sociopolitical and Economic Transformation
Among the Igbo of Nigeria
Edited by Apollos O. Nwauwa and Ebere Onwudiwe

ISBN: 978-978-49498-7-3

Between Tradition and Change explores selected themes on the historical, socio-economic and ethno-political history of the Igbo of Nigeria.  Its coverage encompasses political economy, civil society, religion and politics, traditional politics, crime and punishment, literature and politics, cosmology, and women in politics. The book provides an insightful account of state formation processes in Igboland, and the embattled transformation of Igbo society, norms and political economy since the period of colonial encounter with Europe. It includes detailed accounts of the impact of Christianity and colonialism on Igbo communal cohesion and traditional norms. The book reveals that core Igbo values are important in understanding the character and trajectory of the transformations that have occurred and how the Igbo responded to these transformations in national, regional, and international contexts. Between Tradition and Change is an indispensable work for a micro analysis of the major forces of change in African societies since the colonial period.

Apollos O. Nwauwa is Professor of history and Africana studies as well as director of Africana studies program at Bowling Green State University, Ohio. Nwauwa received his MA and PhD degrees in African History from Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. He has authored several works on the Igbo and other related subjects. Co-editor, Against All Odds: The Igbo Experience in Postcolonial Nigeria (2011) and currently the Editor-in-Chief, Ofo: Journal of Transatlantic Studies.

Ebere Onwudiwe is a professor of political science and Distinguished Fellow at the Center for Democracy and Development, Abuja, Nigeria. His books include Afro-optimism (Praeger, 2002) and The Aftermath of the Nigerian Civil War, (University of Ibadan Press, 2004). 

Confronting Errors With the Truth: The Story of My Life and the Challenges of Governance
By Gov. T. A. Orji



ISBN: 978-978-49498-5-9(pbk)($25.00)         
     978-978-49498-6-6 (hardback)($45.00)

This book is an account of my stewardship both as a civil servant and a politician. I write not to celebrate self or to debunk frivolous and baseless allegations by my detractors, but to document for posterity my efforts to improve the welfare of fellow citizens. I also write to explain my approach to governance, my attitude to power, the philosophy and desire that motivate and drive me to act and behave the way I do. I write candidly about the circumstances of my early years; the people and events that shaped my life; my years in public service; my foray into politics; and my challenges as Governor of Abia State.


Governor T.A. Orji is the beau ideal of the public servant whose commitment to public service is matched by love for humanity. In any post he occupied – permanent secretary, chief of staff, and governor – he did not strive for self aggrandizement and never tried to draw attention to his own importance; he sought an opportunity to serve his country and to add value to the lives of fellow citizens--Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, GCFR, President and Commander-in-Chief Federal Republic of Nigeria.

T.A. Orji is the current Governor of Abia State, Nigeria

Space, Transformation and Representation: Reflections on University Culture
Edited by Olatunde Bayo Lawuyi
 & Chinyere Ukpokolo

ISBN: 978-1-938598-00-5

This book brings together diverse theoretical and empirical research on the university Culture from locations and interconnected spatial contexts within the continent of Africa and beyond. The major challenge is that of calling attention to various interactional processes and strategic moves leading to the administration, as well as intellectual development within the specific universities examined. It, thus, moved from the positivistic foundation of the university that is, of the academic rationalization of its existence, to examining experiences, which negate its ideal mentalistic constructions, exploring such issues as intercultural encounters, youth and protest culture, rites of passage, and exploration of memory to establish concrete structures of presence, interventions, and values. Most of the contributors are African scholars within and outside the continent and their reflections are of the type of a reflexive navigation of the space within the university and how performers have become bonded or not to it. In sum, it is a book about voices and their contestations of space, physical and intellectual, and timing of actions, in order to save the best interest of Africa specifically, and that of the world at large.

The editors have brought together an important volume that captures the changing nature of the university as a unique space for intellectual development and the making of a unique kind of culture.-Chima J. Korieh, Marquette University.

A book that is timely, relocating the university in its vision and mission--Professor Hocine Khelfaoui Université du québec à Montréal

Against all Odds:The Igbo Experience in Postcolonial Nigeria

Edited by
Apollos O. Nwauwa & Chima J. Korieh

6x9” paperback
502 pages
April 2011
$39.95
ISBN: 978-978-49498-5-9 

The 1960s in Africa was a period of significant political transformation which saw the end of European colonialism and the emergence of independent African states. Like other emerging nations in Africa, Nigeria entered the postcolonial period with a sense of optimism. As various Nigerian societies began to respond to the emerging political systems bequeathed by British colonialism, the ideology and culture of ethnic politics began to find resonance among the political elites from diverse ethnic groups. By the middle of the 1960s, Nigeria had begun to experience political crises that culminated in the Nigeria-Biafra war (1967-1970) which pitched the rest of Nigeria against the Igbo of the Southeast. Against All Odds explores the experiences of the Igbo in postcolonial Nigeria. It evinces both the grim side of postcolonial politics in Nigeria, particularly the horrors of ethnic politics, civil war, and the Igbo example of perseverance and human potential to overcome dreadful conditions of such magnitude. The collection illuminates the tension emanating from the enduring colonial legacies and their influences on Nigerian peoples and public life. Against All Odds links socioeconomic, cultural, and political events in Nigeria since the 1960s and the peculiar circumstances faced by the Igbo ethnic group with the continuing attempts to forge a more perfect nation state in which every constituent group is treated with fairness and equity. This book will appeal to the wider academic community working on modern Nigeria. It will also be of value to those whose work involves the nature of the postcolonial state in Africa and the crisis of nation building in modern Africa.

About the Editors

Appolos O. Nwauwa, PhD, is professor of history and Director of Africana Studies at Bowling Green State University, Ohio, USA. Dr. Nwauwa's research and teaching focus on modern Africa, especially colonial, post-colonial and intellectual history. He is the editorin-chief of Ofo: Journal of Transatlantic Studies.

Chima J. Korieh, PhD, (Toronto) is professor of African History at Marquette University, Wisconsin, USA. He is author of The Land Has Changed: History, Society, and Gender in Colonial Eastern Nigeria (University of Calgary Press, 2010) and editor of Mbari: The International Journal of Igbo Studies.

Remembering Biafra: Narrative, History, and Memory of the Nigeria-Biafra War
Edited by Chima J. Korieh & Ifeanyi Ezeonu



5.5 5.5x 8.5” Paper
220 pages
April 2010
ISBN: 978-978-49498-3-5

Remembering Biafra: Narrative, History, and Memory of the Nigeria-Biafra War brings the reader face to face with the literary and historical narratives of the Nigeria-Biafra Civil War from the perspectives of scholars and individuals who experienced the war. Authors who are diverse in their knowledge and experience of the complexities of the war provide fascinating insights into the human experiences of the war. Those looking for new perspectives on the Biafra war, especially a narrative of its human cost, will find this book illuminating and fascinating. The interdisciplinary nature of the book makes it a unique and important resource for scholars in literature, history, and all interested in the interplay between war, trauma, and memory.

About the Editors

Chima J. Korieh, PhD, teaches African History at Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Dr Korieh holds a Ph.D. in African History from the University of Toronto, Canada, MPhil in History from University of Bergen, Norway, MA from the University of Helsinki, Finland, and BA (Hons. First Class) from the University of Nigeria. He was a British Academy Visiting Fellow at Oxford University, Oxford, UK in 2008. He is the author of The Land Has Changed: History, Society and Gender in Colonial Eastern Nigeria (The University of Calgary Press, 2010).

Ifeanyi Ezeonu, PhD, teaches Criminology at Brock University, Canada. He received his B.Sc. (Hons. First Class) from the Anambra State University of Technology (now, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Nigeria), M.Phil. from the University of Cambridge, England, M.A. from the University of Leeds, England and Ph.D. from the University of Toronto. He has published on issues of social and economic justice in Sub-Saharan Africa. His present research interests include: gang violence, racialized crime, the social construction of crime, transnational crime, environmental crime in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria, and contemporary African Diaspora.

Communication and African Integration: The Foundation for a United Africa
By Desmond T. Orjiako

 ISBN: 978-978-901-536-8



Communication and African Integration: The Foundation for a United Africa explores the role of communication and the mass media in the attempt to integrate African countries. The book draws on historical as well as current attempts by African leaders to unite the continent and illustrates the centrality of communication in order for these efforts to succeed.

Desmond Tobechi Orjiako is currently a Communication Adviser with the African Union Mission for Somalia (AMISOM). He has also served as Communication Adviser for two years with the Joint UN/AU Secretariat of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region, in Nairobi, Kenya. He attended the University of Nigeria, Nsukka and obtained Bachelor of Arts Degree in Mass Communication and a Master of Arts in Communication Studies from the University of Nairobi. As the Head of Communication and Information at the Organization of African Unity and later the African Union, he served as the organization’s Chief Spokesperson from January 2000 to November 2005 and became an outstanding strong voice for Africa. His many accomplishments have exposed his hitherto hidden profile as a distinguished African Diplomat, Scholar, and International Speaker.

Igbo Jurisprudence: An African Excercise in Legal CoherentismBy Francis O. C. Njoku
ISBN 978-049-955–5
Igbo Jurisprudence: An African Exercise in Legal Coherentism is a theoretical endeavour to establish how Igbo African Jurisprudence can be rationalized along side Igbo African ontology. The book studies Igbo world and through a hermeneutical method makes explicit the philosophical and legal ideas implicit in it. Against a backdrop of a covenant theory of Igbo socio-political communication, it explains issues such as law, rights, rules, authority, morality and initiative democracy as tooted in Igbo African ontology. In specifically discussing the is-ought problem in Igbo Jurisprudence, this short but intense work proposes legal coherentism as a theory that ties together the natural law and the legal positivist inclinations of the Igbo socio-legal mind. Given the issues treated, this book is at once an essay in Igbo jurisprudence, and social/political theory.

Francis O C Njoku, cmf holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Legal Studies (Oxford, UK); MA Theology (Pittsburgh, USA); and BPhil., Licentiate in Phil., and PhD (Gregorian, Rome). For six years, he served as Dean of Philosophy at the Claretian Institute of Philosophy, Maryland Nekede, Owerri, Imo State, Nigeria. He has published widely in local and international journals. His major works include Studies in Jurisprudence: A Fundamental Approach the Philosophy of Law (2001, 2007); Philosophy in Politics, Law and Democracy (2002); Essays in African Philosophy, Thought and Theology (2002); The Empiricists and Causation in Law (2003); Development and African Philosophy: A Theoretical Reconstruction of African Political Economy (USA, 2004); Studies in Ethics (2006);. He is presently teaching philosophy at the University of Nigeria Nsukka.

Ana Atutu – Igbo Philosophy: An African Perspective on the Problem of Identity
 and Conflict Resolution
By Francis O. C. Njoku


ISBN 978-088-520–5

This book is an attempt to found an African Philosophy on the principles generated by African Philosophy itself.  It is a book that rationalizes Igbo African Philosophy, drawing from it non-philosophical corpus to make explicit the philosophy implicit in it. This book is s venture that takes on the problem of identity in the light of contemporary studies regarding conflict resolution.

“This book is a brilliant work of synthesis presented in a style that is a delight to read….It is a detailed examination of troubling issues of  identity and conflict resolution and a must read for all interested in Igbo philosophy and views towards these issues”—Professor Chima J. Korieh, Marquette University

Francis O C Njoku, cmf holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Legal Studies (Oxford, UK); MA Theology (Pittsburgh, USA); and BPhil., Licentiate in Phil., and PhD (Gregorian, Rome). For six years, he served as Dean of Philosophy at the Claretian Institute of Philosophy, Maryland Nekede, Owerri, Imo State, Nigeria. He has published widely in local and international journals. His major works include Studies in Jurisprudence: A Fundamental Approach the Philosophy of Law (2001, 2007); Philosophy in Politics, Law and Democracy (2002); Essays in African Philosophy, Thought and Theology (2002); The Empiricists and Causation in Law (2003); Development and African Philosophy: A Theoretical Reconstruction of African Political Economy (USA, 2004); Studies in Ethics (2006);. He is presently teaching philosophy at the University of Nigeria Nsukka.

Enyi Biafra: Regimental Drill, Duty Songs, and Cadences from Biafra
By Johnston A. K. Njoku


ISBN: 978-088-521-2

This is an unusual songbook in many respects. In the sense that it presents the voice of the Other Ranks from Biafra, the songbook is unusual. Unlike most war and liberation songbooks the book contains musical notation and transcripts of the sung texts as well as the meanings and relevance of the songs. The writer, who rose from private to the rank of a Sergeant in the Biafran Army, weaves ethnographic and personal experience narratives around popular regimental drill and duty songs from Biafra. It is not often that one gets the chance to hear the members of the Other Ranks tell their own part of the stories of the wars they fought. That is another why in which this songbook is unique. It is also different in yet another way: The target audience is the Biafran recruits, privates, and corporals who fought the war together with the greater Igbo speaking peoples of Nigeria who experienced the events that led to Biafra, suffered in Biafra, and still faces, as a people, constant threats and absence of justice in contemporary Nigeria. Even though it is short, it captures the Biafran saga—good, bad, and ugly. 

"Of all that I have read on the Biafran War - and I have read many of them -  none made me laugh, bit my fist on my chest, think, sob and cry, all at the same time as much as Dr. Kalu's Enyi Biarfa"—Dr Chukwuemeka Uche.

J. Akuma-Kalu Njoku (Biafra Army #7667) has a BA in music from the University of Nigeria, MA in Historical Musicology from Michigan State University, and two PhDs in Ethnomusicology and Folklore from Indiana University with PhD minors in Anthropology and African Studies. Since 1992 Njoku has been teaching courses in World Music, Folklore, Ethnomusicology, and Peoples and Cultures of Africa at Western Kentucky University.

Iwe Nwanne Anaghi Eru N'Okpukpu
By Emmanuel Ugokwe



Akụkọ a bụ banyere umunne abụọ Amanze na Ikediobi bụ ndi nọ na iro ọtụtụ afọ. Ihe nile di n’ elu ụwa nwere ihe mere ha jiri dịịri. Ha nile nwere ihe ha na arụ. Nwanne enweghi ihe dika ya. Oso n’ otu n’ ime ihe di n’ ụwa ana agaghi eji ego zụta. Mana obụ nani mgbe ụkwụ jiere agụ, ka mgbada ji abiara ya ụgwo. Mgbe mmadụ na nwanne ya bịara nwebe okwu bụ mgbe ụmụ nnadi na-abia n’ etiti ha.  Akụ  gụrụ nwata agụụ anaghi arụ ya afo. Ha mesịrị dozie okwu we birikwa. Ya bụrụ ya. Ihe mere eji egbochi agadi nwanyị ịta ụkpala bụ, n’ihi na obuta ụkwara ozuo oha onụ.

Emmanuel Ugokwe bu onye Uzii nke nọ na okpuru ọchịchị ime obodo Ideatọ nọtự nke di na Steeti Imo na Naijiria. Ogựrự akwựkwọ na comuniti skulu wan Uzii na Iheme memoria grama skulu Arondizuogu na Sekọndịrị Comashialu Skulu Osina. Ugbu a obự nwa akwựkwọ mahadum nke dị na Nsukka. Ugokwe ihe nrita na afo 2008 na obodo England rita abuo ozo na obodo anyị bự Naijiria na otu afo ahự dịka onye kasị ede Igbo nke onye nyere ya bu nnukwu sinatọ Ken Nnamani na Zamfara steeti ma ritakwa otu ọzọ na afọ 2009.