Scanning Nigeria's history

In an unassuming office in Lagos stands an oversized scanner and a stack of yellowed newspapers. And from its headquarters, Archivi.ng wants to save Nigeria's printed history – page by page. The initiative digitises old magazines and newspapers and makes them accessible online.

The idea came to founder Fu'ad Lawal when he encountered a historical gap in his work as a journalist: “When I googled events from 1960 to 2010, I was left in the dark.”

There is a gap in Nigeria's archives between independence and the dawn of the digital age. Newspapers from this era, marked by conflict, coups and the struggle for democratic rights, are in danger of disappearing. Archivi.ng rescues old printed articles and puts them online.

The online archive is a time machine: it contains photos of the 1966 coup, headlines about the end of military rule, colourful fashion spreads from Lagos in the 1990s and cinema programmes from the early days of Nollywood.

But the project is not just about preservation. In the online magazine The Archivist, the team retells stories. One report, for example, tells of Aso-Ebi – colour-coordinated festive clothing worn at family celebrations. Still ridiculed as ‘bad fashion’ in the 1940s, it is now an integral part of Nigerian style.

For Lawal, one thing remains certain: “Only with a keen eye on history can we tap into the pulse of everyday life in Nigeria.”