The Weekly Roundup: Bad Gal Riri Is The New Wonder Woman

Money talks… This week it started a huge argument when Wale’s daughter was sprayed at a party, money brought a lot of girls back to the classroom in Malawi and now, everyone is talking about Neymar’s world record signing fee. Here are the stories that made our week…

Wild thoughts about educating girls

Photo: BBC

Bad Girl Riri is not the most likely advocate for female education globally but following Rihanna’s social media campaign earlier this year, more girls are headed back to class. Months ago she had tweeted at world leaders, urging their action on female education and last week saw the fruits when she sat with French President Macron to discuss initiatives and this week launched a ‘1 KM Action’ campaign in Malawi to furnish girls with bikes so they could get to school easier.

Ney it ain’t so. Neymar’s record fee

How do you feel about a 25 year old footballer being signed for a world record 222m euro (just over 82 billion naira) and earning about 564k euros per week? And they say it’s only a game. Social media has been going slightly crazy over the fee with one tweeter claiming Neymar’s fee could ‘save Africa’. Obviously that’s a lot of money, slightly more than what’s in Davido’s bank account, but really, please leave Africa out of it.

Let’s spray for Wale

The Nigerian-American rapper was forced to defend Naija tinz this week after posting a picture of his baby daughter Zyla Moon Oluwakemi being ‘sprayed’ with money at a party. To Americans ignorant of our customs, this was akin to the degrading stripper pole at which they throw dollar bills for naked women to dance. Wale told his outraged followers they needed to respect his traditions and it became a surprisingly teachable moment about Nigerian culture.

Bad luck follows Goodluck

It’s not easy having multiple homes across the world. Ex-President Johnathan bemoaned his bad luck this week as his home in Abuja was reportedly stripped of all its valuables by robbers. The police guards are under suspicion but Jonathan played down the scale of the theft, dismissing reports of over 30 plasma TVs being stolen as wildly exaggerated.

How to lose a job in 10 days?

Photo: Slate

Work for President Trump of course. It was probably the fastest, highest profile and most humiliating firing ever. Epic would be an understatement as Scaramucci, aka The Mooch was fired from his post as White House Communications Director just days after taking over from the much-mocked Sean Spicer. His offence among other things was a distasteful public rant against his colleagues. He had already been fired from his marriage a week earlier when his wife filed for divorce. The Mooch became a meme overnight and a metaphor for everyone’s nightmare jobs on social media.