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Kelly Omodamwen, an experimental metal sculptor profiled by Folio Nigeria. Supplied.

Kelly Omodamwen, an experimental metal sculptor profiled by Folio Nigeria. Supplied.

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Open Country Mag Is Now Publisher of Folio Nigeria, Formerly CNN’s Exclusive Media Affiliate in Africa

Open Country Mag Is Now Publisher of Folio Nigeria, Formerly CNN’s Exclusive Media Affiliate in Africa

When we launched Open Country Mag in 2020, and described it as “a multiplatform space,” I had a different idea of what it would look like. We knew where we were headed but the path was not always clear. The timeline was five years. But it has taken two to get us further ahead than we planned on that front.

Last year, we entered a partnership with Folio Media that makes us the publisher of its platform Folio Nigeria, which was online at Folio.ng.

Created in 2018 as CNN’s exclusive media affiliate in Africa, Folio Nigeria covered four broad verticals: culture and entertainment, places and food, business and tech, and traditions and society. I was its editor from May 2020 to May 2021. It later went offline and ended its CNN affiliation.

I had done extensive work at Folio Nigeria, repositioning the brand and taking it to areas most culture platform just weren’t thinking of, so its offline status was uncomfortable for me. It meant that all that work could go down the drain and be forgotten. So I was happy when my former boss, Mr. Fidelis Anosike, accepted to give Open Country Mag these extensive rights to return it online.

  • Mayor Olajide. Supplied.
    Mayor Olajide, the then 17-year-old hyper-realistic artist profiled by Folio Nigeria. Supplied.
  • Intissar Bashir-Kurfi. Supplied.
    Intissar Bashir-Kurfi, turner of nylon into tiles, was profiled in Folio Nigeria. Supplied.
  • Aisha Ahmad
    Aisha Ahmad, Nigeria’s princess of polo, was profiled in Folio Nigeria. From @black_eesh.

This partnership covers only content produced by Folio Nigeria when I was there. Chief among these are profiles of changemakers in over 30 fields from the arts to sports.

Folio Media is the news and content arm of Folio Holdings, which also has business in solar power, investments, and logistics. Folio Media subsidiaries include Times Multimedia; Creative Africa Exchange (CAX); Folio Communications Plc., which owns Daily Times of Nigeria newspaper; Green Girl Company Ltd., which owns the Miss Nigeria pageant; and Folio Digital/Folio Africa, which includes Folio Nigeria.

Folio Media and Open Country Mag entered the agreement in September 2022, and it remains in effect until September 2025.

Here are the first republished stories:

— How Taaooma‘s Family-Based Comedy Skits Made Her a Social Media Phenomenon

— Intissar Bashir-Kurfi Is Collecting Nylon to Save the Environment

— A 17-Year-Old’s Hyper-realistic Portraits, in Charcoal

— Against Sexism, Female Photographers Push Back with Skill

New stories will appear every week. Read them here.

Our homepage now also has a Folio Nigeria section. ♦

If you love Open Country Mag‘s work, please consider making a PayPal donation to enable us to continue redefining perceptions of what an unfunded African media platform can do.

Otosirieze for Open Country Mag

Otosirieze

Otosirieze, a writer, culture journalist, curator, and media consultant, is the founder and editor of Open Country Mag. For the magazine, he has written longform features and Profiles of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Rita Dominic, and Cardinal Arinze; curates The Next Generation, a series of special issues highlighting rising literary voices; co-conceptualized Nigeria’s first formal bestseller list, with bookstore Rovingheights; and runs a Curatorial Fellowship, funded by Africa No Filter, mentoring creatives in art, fashion, music, and media. He was editor of Folio Nigeria, then CNN’s exclusive media affiliate in Africa, before its relaunch on Open Country Mag, and was briefly Business/Creative Head of its planned portfolio company Folio Digital Media. There, he wrote over a hundred pieces on the Nigerian culture scene, covering innovation in over 20 fields, including film, art, music, tech, sports, cuisine, fashion, journalism, sculpture, beauty, health, and activism. He was chair of The Gerald Kraak Prize, a South African initiative for storytelling about gender, sexuality, and social justice, and edited its fourth anthology The Beautyful Ones Have Just Been Born. He was a judge for The Morland Scholarship, a British grant for African writers. He has led or joined editorial teams at a host of platforms and projects in African literature, including at 14, the pioneering LGBTQ collective. His fiction has appeared in The Threepenny Review and Transition. He has given guest lectures at Dartmouth College and at Grinnell College. He has an MA in African Studies and a BA in English/History from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and an MFA in Fiction from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where he was Adjunct Assistant Professor of Creative Writing. He taught English at Godfrey Okoye University, Enugu. In 2019, he received the inaugural The Future Awards Africa Prize for Literature. In 2020, he was named among “The 100 Most Influential Young Nigerians” by Avance Media. He has appeared on With Chude's list of "The 150 Most Interesting Nigerians in Culture." Twitter & Instagram: @otosirieze. Website: otosirieze.com.

One Response

  1. I have a National Diploma in Mass communication. I have good problem solving attitude interpersonal relationship. I have attached my certificate for due information about a person, I promise to work hard, if the opportunity is offered to me. Iam consider an interview soon.

    Reply

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