Ibisaki, in Kalabari means “the right time” which I felt was befitting because

my name, Tabia Iyene, means “I will succeed because now is my time”.

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I have been on a personal and political journey since I moved back to Nigeria in

2011 and I felt it was not only time to share my findings, my reflections on the

inner workings of African and global society, but also to create a space where

thoughtful critique of the status quo can open a new pathway for those who like

me fervently believe that structural change, beyond individuals and political

parties, is the only way forward.

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Ibisaki is thus a multimedia platform; a personal and critical journal of

politics and culture, which tells the stories of Black people and their

material circumstances as conditioned by the structures around them, the

state of affairs at a local and global level. It is a repository, a storehouse for

the moments that define the contemporary Black experience using Nigeria as a

case study. Our present realities are also illuminated by an exploration of the

past: it is still with us and while we think of ourselves as free, rational, and

independent beings, we are in fact teleguided by the encounters of bygone days,

of which an essential meeting which receives little attention in mainstream

public discussion, that is, the European “discovery” of Africa and the

continent’s subsequent re-invention of itself under colonial rule.

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Today’s hybrid Black societies embody modernity and the ideals of Western

progress as a “failed quest for whiteness” (to quote Cecil Foster) producing

unsuccessful state projects, botched attempts at democracy and socio-cultural

disputes with lasting effects on our understanding (and practical applications) of

religion, ethnicity, citizenship and belonging, inequality and wealth distribution,

class and gender, the very categories which were perhaps most affected by the

encounter. This unresolved confrontation between the past and the present

animates our daily lives in a myriad of ways.

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Ibisaki pursues the rediscovery of the radical traditions, ideas and

transformative potential of Black societies and philosophies in order to shake

the false consciousness keeping us accepting of a dysfunctional reality, which

exists only to serve the interests of a few at home and abroad.

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Ibisaki is a decolonial project, merging thought and practice, to help make sense

of the world by deconstructing social issues. The goal is to produce active

communities engaged in revolutionary praxis: designing real alternatives to

failed, discriminatory and unjust socio-economic systems, re-affirming the

belief that another way and another world, is possible.