Caleb Somtochukwu Okereke
@CalebOkereke
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Founder & Managing Editor @MinorityAfrica | Journalist | Words: @AJEnglish @BBC @CNN @Guardian @NPR | Innovator @AKUMediaFutures | ex Correspondent @Heidi_News
Salt Lake City, Kampala, Lagos
Joined September 2012
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Pinned Tweet
Uganda’s parliament yesterday passed a bill imposing the death penalty for homosexuality. For
@ForeignPolicy
, I wrote about how U.S religious fundamentalists have similar to colonialists, stoked & bolstered anti-gay sentiments across Africa.
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I am emotional for the over 2 million Igbos who died in Nigeria’s civil war, to name a few. May colonial empires fail.
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This is incredibly sad to read. Thank you so much, Otosirieze. We all have a responsibility to boycott Brittle Paper, unfollow them, unsubscribe to their newsletter, and more importantly never forget that when it mattered, they chose the side of the oppressors.
Today, my time as Deputy Editor of Brittle Paper, a platform I'd've given my heart for, came to an end. I was made to leave because of my report on Hadiza El Rufai's comments on her son's gang-rape threat, a report that was taken down. My statement.
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Guys this happened!!! So excited to announce that our media startup
@MinorityAfrica
will receive a $20,000 grant, a $1000 stipend each month + an office space in Kampala as part of the Aga Khan University, Innovators in Residence Program. I am screaming! We’ve all worked so hard
Hey guys. Big day tomorrow. Wish me goodluck and tell me it can be done. 😧
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Graduated this week with a First Class in Journalism & Communications from Cavendish University Uganda. How do they say it? Done and dusted 🥂
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Barely 4 weeks after this photo was taken, Oranye Ruth was hit by a car where she was waiting to cross in Lekki phase 2. Ruth although sustaining major head injuries was still alive and was carried to a nearby private hospital which turned her away demanding a police report. 1/8
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Some news:
I am now a contributing editor
@NewAfricanMag
& I want to hear from you. I’ll be commissioning long form pieces on race, neoliberalism, & how colonial rule and its modern legacy have been a continuation of disruption. $0.15/word. Pitch: c.okereke
@icpublications
.com
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The legacy of colonialism has perpetuated the lie that Black bodies are to be pitied and exclusively be recipients of aid. Is it possible for African people to be regarded as experts rather than passive victims?
My piece for
@AJEnglish
w/
@nowhitesaviors
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A media company headquartered in Mauritius and with presence in Uganda and Nigeria.
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@XiranJayZhao
Everything you said! There’s this really helpful post we published
@MinorityAfrica
that touches on this:
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Today is my move-anniversary. Two years ago today, I got on a plane and moved to Uganda and it remains one of the best decisions I have made in my entire life. I am going to move again soon (😭) but I will always be thankful for UG and for what it gave me. Let’s drink to that!
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My story for
@AJEnglish
on how bicycle ambulances in Jinja, Uganda are pedaling their communities to better healthcare. With photos from
@bamulanzeki
. Please RT
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Not over here 📌
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Away from this tweet, there’s a broader conversation to be had about who we think deserves empathy or not. Seen so many takes condemning not showing “empathy” for the queen. Your politics are disgusting. God forbid I dance on the graves of my ancestors.
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I receive many a “sweet” email all the time but this has to go down in history as one of the sweetest. I was so anxious about teaching in a formal university setting so it’s just really really sweet! 🥹
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Black deaths and/or black bodies confronted with death do not conjure the same empathy as white folks. We have to audition for empathy each time & this demand that we be “empathetic” is consistent with the way whiteness moves about in the world. Always to be catered to.
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Hey guys. Big day tomorrow. Wish me goodluck and tell me it can be done. 😧
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Happy Birthday Darling Caleb. Repeating this quote to myself today: “You’re a stuff of stars, it's only natural if the sky bends to your will.” You’re a force
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That’s meee! 🥹😀❤️
Caleb Okereke, a
@UofUComm
graduate student, will be presenting at an event with the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford as part of the Global Journalism Seminars series. Tune in on February 1, 2023, at 6:00 am mountain time to watch!
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You deserve to see a beautiful man today. T for thanks!
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Singing the fucking national anthem. Do you know what it means to sing the anthem of a country that has done nothing for you and then to die singing that anthem? God!
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I am going to cry! I wrote a short story that was published in the Gerald Kraak Anthology: The Heart of the Matter which is a finalist for this award. My fiction getting recognized is particularly special to me cos I don’t write it as often anymore, yet it just keeps giving. 😭😭
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Them: Blue is a ugly color. Don’t do it.
Me:
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Through the month of November, I and my friend Tessa Doghor will be teaming with some of Nigeria’s biggest blogs and news organizations for the
#TreatFirstQuestionsLater
campaign which advocates for speedy medical attention in an emergency situation before anything else. 3/8
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This week and onwards, I want to read your pitches for
@MinorityAfrica
. Send me solutions based story ideas on African minorities for either text or video features. We pay between $100-$400 and on time! editor
@minorityafrica
.org. Please RT.
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I am not even 25 yet and I have used up all the “talking stage” I have in me. I am not talking to anyone again — if you see me and you like me, let’s start. We will talk on the way. 😅
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In Perugia this week for the International Journalism Festival. So excited to hug everyone & to share about our work
@MinorityAfrica
on two different panels. Up first today is our solutions journalism panel! Say hello if you would love to meet & attend our event. Details below🫶🏾
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That white people expect Africa (and Africans) to always be on the receiving end of violence and suffering (or viruses) points to a larger view of black bodies as only worthy of suffering and pain. The inherent belief that in pandemics, black bodies must hurt too, and first.
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Committed to beauty in 2023. As I was in 2022.
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Went and got myself a dog recently and she’s the absolute best thing. Five weeks and a delight to her daddy.♥️🌺
PS: anyone with tips on how to make a dog and two cats get along? My cats are showing our new arrival pepper. 😂
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Chuffed to officially resume at my new role as Managing Editor
@MinorityAfrica
. Please follow us. Also send me story tips, pitches (will put a call out soon for the kind of work we want) and just great vibes on editor
@minorityafrica
.org.
We’re so excited to introduce our Managing Editor,
@CalebOkereke
. Caleb Okereke is a Nigerian journalist working out of Kampala, Uganda. He has written and produced features for BBC, Aljazeera and Deutsche Welle. Caleb is a 2019
@IMChallengeug
,
@onewm
and a
@soljourno
fellow.
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Journalists, Pelumi Onifade is all of us. Every single one of us.
#JusticeforPelumi
#EndsSARS
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We need an approach to “charity” that doesn’t involve tokenizing the recipient to center the giver. Commendable yes but we must constantly ask: why am I taking this photo? What do I hope to achieve from sharing it? Is it self serving?
I spent this sunday evening giving out the little I can in form of posho, sugar, soap, milk, salt and rice to the vulnerable people in my neighborhood banda kasenyi neighborhood
doing my part in making the world
#ABetterPlace
with
@BetterWorldTL
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The actions we’re seeing from SARS are not retrograde to the original design of the NPF. Policing systems built to prioritize control over security will in turn resort to violence. I’ve been harassed by the NPF several times & it wasn’t even SARS. They are all the same.
#EndSARS
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“Those who are blessed with the soaring swiftness of an eagle and have flown before, let them go. I'll travel slowly and I, too, will arrive".
Ayi Kwei Armah
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Stoked to be one of the 12 to receive a 2019 One World Media fellowship. Besides training and Mentorship, the fellowship also provides me with a reporting grant to work on a story from Uganda. You can read about this project via the link below. Chuffed! ☺️☺️
We're v excited to announce the 12 talented
#filmmakers
+
#journalists
joining our Fellowship for 2019!! Over the next year, they'll receive mentoring, training & a grant to support them to report on an untold story from a developing country. Read more:
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In Uganda, Ojok Okello is building a city. And not just anyone but transforming his destroyed village into a green town where social enterprises responsibly harness the shea tree. My latest for the Guardian on
@OkereCity
with photos by
@Katumbabadru1
.
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I’ve written extensively (here and there) about being sexually abused by a neighbor at 8. I wrote about this smell from the scene that stayed with me and recently it struck me that I haven’t smelled it in months. I am not sure what that means but it does feel like healing.
If you’ve ever been molested, you may not always remember everything in details but one thing you will never forget is the sweat. There’s always that sweat. And it has a smell too. You will always remember the sweat and how it felt when it stuck on your skin too. Always
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When entrepreneur Juliet Namujju realized COVID masks were preventing her hearing-impaired staff from lip-reading, she resolved to find another enterprising use for Uganda's mountains of plastic waste.
My story published last month for DW.
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“The idea that queer people always have to postpone their liberation is problematic for several reasons. It implies that any form of oppression is okay and that injustice is tolerable. It also is ambiguous: there is no better day to fight for queer liberation than today and now”
“Queer people have been told they are a distraction to the
#ENDSARS
movement and that it is not our time. The idea that we always have to postpone our liberation is problematic. Here’s why.” Writes
@vicw0nder
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Incase you didn’t already know, I am giving a TEDx talk
@TEDxUnilorin
in about 3 weeks. If you’re in Nigeria, please come watch me speak and just hug me really. Check their pinned tweet for info on ticket reservation. 🙂
You really didn't think we were done unveiling speakers we have lined up, right?
May we present to you another guru who takes pride in his works and paves way for younger generations.
Meet CALEB
@CalebOkereke
#roots
#tedxunilorin
#tedxtalks
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Nairobi always brings out the pretty in me. 🙈
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Took some photos post our virtual
#QFest2020
panel today. Which is better, with or without glasses? 🤔
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Reminded today of the Kampala vet clinic that gave me a quote of 200k for a 4 day treatment for my dog. I said okay. Only to return the next day & be told that the 200k was per day so 800k in total. I asked them to remove her from the drip & I took her home. She didn’t die.
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Had to update my resume today for the first time since October and I realized how much it has changed. It’s easy for us not to see progress during the process but let’s not confuse being unable to see it to mean it isn’t there.
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This quote in a few sentences breaks down why Black people can't be racist. Because even if we wanted to be, we don't have the power to. Also applicable to things I see on these streets like 'heterophobia' etc.
“If a whyte man wants to lynch me, that’s his problem. If he’s got the power to lynch me, that’s my problem. Racism is not a question of attitude; it’s a question of power.” - Kwame Ture
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We are so cool
@MinorityAfrica
! 👏🏾
Congratulations to
@MinorityAfrica
our PISCCA GBV coalition partners who launched
#BorderDialogue
series last Friday at a
#16DaysofActivism
event. They launched the GBV resource bank and also gave certificates to journalists who undertook training on how to report for GBV.
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This one time I was arriving Lagos on the same day my sister was leaving, my father drove her to the airport at 11:00am went back to his office in Lekki and then came to get me at 5pm on the same day. I suggested using a cab but he insisted on showing up for me.
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Caleb Okereke is an incredible writer! 😆
A year ago, Western media predicted that Covid would devastate Africa. Melinda Gates talked of dead bodies in the streets.
Caleb Okereke and Kelsey Nielsen, writing from Uganda, assessed the situation much better.
Why didn't the press report THEIR view?
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The onus doesn’t fall on the oppressed to educate the oppressor about oppression. I know cis-hetero men think it’s a woman’s job to teach them about consent and rape but it really isn’t. In the event they decide to, your only reaction should be gratitude. It is not an obligation.
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Not surprising! This piece I wrote last year with
@nowhitesaviors
about the obsession of whiteness with Black Death rings just as true now as it was then. Here:
Officially, Africa's death toll from covid-19 is 222k. But our model suggests the true death toll is between 880k to 2.6m
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By the time the group arrived at the government hospital which was a distance away in Epe, Ruth had given up the ghost. She was just 27. This practice of demanding for a police report before treating victims has no backing in the law, but why do hospitals still do it? 2/8
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Last year, I wrote this story for
@africaarguments
on how queer Nigerians looking to find love are duped instead. Well, I thought you should know that they are being killed too and it must stop.
#EndHomophobiaInNigeria
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We intend to through the stories of 25 victims of this injustice sensitize medical personnel and the ordinary Nigerian about the existence of The 2017 Compulsory Treatment and Care for Victims of Gunshot Act, signed by President Muhammadu Buhari. 4/8
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I personally reject the narrative that one needs haters to propel them into achieving great things. What has been true in my experience is the place of love, authentic friendships, and a tribe who would move mountains for my sake. Love propels me. Not hate. Never hate.
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Explaining to people why I have to really like the house I live in can be exhausting. Because wym manage? I can cut down on eating out and travel but I will pay top $ for where I lay my head please. It’s literally the most important thing.
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A student in my Media Writing class found out about my work with
@MinorityAfrica
and said the most beautiful things during office hours today. Love love it! 🥹
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Just watched the Festival of Lights from Abuja on
@LadyDonli
’s IG. Can’t explain how I feel right now but I am in so much pain. And yet my pain is nothing compared to the pain the victims & their families have carried, some for years. We can’t stop this fight. We can’t.
#Endsars
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Prior to Ruth’s death, I had heard stories like this but it remains a story, it remains a statistic until it hits close to home and you realize that there’s little privilege can do for you when you’re at the mercy of strangers. I do not want it to happen to anyone else. 8/8
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If you run a blog or you’re an editor at a media house and will be interested in running one of these stories, please get in touch too. 7/8
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It mandates hospitals, public or private to treat gunshot victims (or what looks like a gunshot victim) with or without a police report. We'd also be taking a petition to the National Assembly demanding that this law be enforced and speaking directly to policymakers as well. 5/8
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I got ittt!! Excited to announce that my media startup
@MinorityAfrica
has received a grant from
@soljourno
to produce data driven multimedia solutions stories on African minorities through to August 2020 and as part of the LEDE fellowship!!! More info:
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The campaign will feature pieces from medical doctors and law enforcement officials to ensure we have a balanced grasp of why this continues to happen. If you have a story like this to share or then please send me a DM or shoot me an email on calebokereke
@gmail
.com. 6/8
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The reason men say “men also get raped,” in conversations about women being raped is same reason White people say “All lives matter” when we say “Black Lives Matter.” It is the tendency of despots to center themselves, to recalibrate the pyramid and become victims.
#JusticeForUwa
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I think this convo on Christians being insensitive to grieving people stretches beyond just Christians tbh. Nigerians as a whole don’t know how to keep quiet and so they must always talk: we are not taught to value silence or be okay with not having anything to say.
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Nothing to see here. Just another white woman saying that a black man telling his own side of a story makes him an “angry bro.” We’ve seen it through history, the way whiteness manages to mask black dissatisfaction as “anger.” Whether from a man or a woman.
This cancel culture is getting completely out of control. Trying to bring down a respected publication with YEARS of proved integrity based on hearsay of one angry bro trying to call a professional, intellectual woman a gang rape apologist? Pls. If that's not sexism, what is??
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My toxic trait is that I may be late for school but I will take those mirror selfie’s consistently on Monday through Thursday.
PS: Send help. Grad school is harder than I was told. 😂
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“My beautiful baby come closer give me your ears
I wan tell you something” 🎶
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If you want to read something not about
#Elections2020
, for the
@guardian
, I wrote about a rare approach by a coalition of 5 men to the drug misuse problem in a Kampala slum. Also touched on the “war on drugs” across Africa & why it is problematic. RT
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Love your life at every stage. Don’t postpone joy 🍾🤎
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I started a petition to ensure that accident victims in Nigeria are treated first before a police report is demanded. This petition which will be taken to the Nigerian National Assembly calls for enforcement of the 2017 Act that outlawed this practice. RT
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