The Left-Hand Stereotype in African and Nigerian Society
Esther Oladimeji
The Left-Hand Stereotype in African and Nigerian Society
Esther Oladimeji
The Path of Least Resistance
Kolade Adegbola
The So-called Traditional Woman
Queeneth Adams
This is the Day
Dume Ikiriko
What Silence Sounded Like at Ice Pyramid
Emmanuel Uke
The Last Canoe Carver on Ikorodu Road
Blessing Chidera Nnadozie
The Performance of Widowhood
Mkpouto Edet Ema.
What Inskriba is
A deliberate record of African and Nigerian life: more than 140 essays across 26 themes, ongoing collections and research, recorded conversations, and a standing panel whose responses become public data. We pay our writers, and we hold what people tell us anonymously.
Editor’s Picks
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The Questions We Stopped Asking
Jii Filani
Okada Lessons
Azeez Hamirat Oluwanifemi
Is Afrobeat Declining?
Joshua Thompson Iquot
I Wrote Their Degrees
Benjamin Mba
When Insecurity Defeats Investment
Blessing Akpan
Faith, Power and Submission
Adekunle Bankole
A WALKING PACK of CHAOS
Anwasia Chinazaekpere Cynthia
Inheritance
Eriyanga Ernest Obot
Ongoing Collections
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Research
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Research
Algorithmic Colonialism: Why Global AI Safety Guardrails Fail the Nigerian Reality
The safety guardrails for large language models (LLMs) at scale globally are still basically tuned to Western sociological baselines. This research examines the systemic friction of these imported protocols with the Nigerian reality. This paper, through a localised lens, analyses Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) and shows how global AI models often misclassify the localised Nigerian informal economy as a risk vector and misinterpret indigenous linguistic nuances such as Pidgin and localised syntax as policy violations. Ultimately, this research makes the case that true algorithmic alignment must come from indigenous red-teaming to ensure global models adapt to African realities rather than enforce digital exclusion.
Praise Oshin
Research
Declining Participation, Shifting Registers: Voter Turnout Patterns in Nigeria's 2015, 2019, and 2023 Presidential Elections and Projections for 2027
This research observes voting patterns in the last three presidential elections and offers advice to relevant bodies on how to improve the turnout for subsequent elections.
Sifon Bassey
Research
The Architecture of the "Urgent 2k": Nigeria's Invisible Micro-Lending Network
This research investigates the structural mechanics of the "urgent 2k"—a ubiquitous, informal micro-lending network prevalent across Nigerian youth demographics. With tough collateral and credit history requirements, this demographic is generally excluded from formal credit systems, but has built a decentralised, zero-interest peer-to-peer lending ecosystem. This paper discusses the role of social capital as an alternative mechanism for credit scoring, the role of neobanks in facilitating high velocity liquidity, and the role of digital reputational threat as the main tool for debt recovery. The deconstruction of this cultural phenomenon shows systemic failures of formal models of financial inclusion, and at the same time resilience of indigenous financial engineering.
Praise Oshin
The Inskriba Insight Engine
Lived experience, gathered as evidence.
Alongside the essays, Inskriba runs a standing panel of Nigerians, paid for their time and held anonymously. Across sectors, money, law, and more to come, they answer the questions we are all asking. Their responses become branded public datasets: aggregates and anonymized voices, never a name against an answer. The conversations and the research are built on it.
Inside the Insight Engine
The first datasets are on the way.
Explore by Theme
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June 2025
“There are two kinds of writers. Those who write to be heard, and those who write to finally hear themselves. The essay, at its best, is always the second kind: a private act of listening that somehow becomes public.”