THE NIGERIAN VOICE NEWSPAPER November 2013 Edition Issue 13

The city of Bahia in Brazil is
said to be the biggest city of
Nigeria outside of Nigeria
according to Mr. Franklin
Martins, producer of African
President Television Series
and former Brazilian Minister
of Social Communications on
7th of November at Sandton,
Johannesburg in a recent
interview with the Nigerian
Voice newspaper.
M r. F r a n k l i n M a r t i n s
expressed that Brazil and
Nigeria have a lot of things in
common, speci?cally the
province of Bahia, and the
state of Bahia “People believe
that 80% to 85% of the Yoruba
and Hausa people located in
Nigeria went to Brazil.”The
other parts of Brazil have
people from Congo, Angola,
and Gabon”, he noted.
E x p l a i n i n g f u r t h e r, h e
informed that Bahia is the city
with the largest number of
black people in Brazil. “The
people, perhaps 80% to 85% is
black and they are very proud
of being black and of their
history.”
Mr. Franklin mentioned that
his motivation for doing his
television program;
interviewing African
Presidents around Africa is
that Brazil is a country with a
huge population and half of
this population of Brazil

Mr Franklin Martins the producer of African Presidents and former Brazilian Minister of Social Communications
during an interview with Nigerian President His Excellency Goodluck Jonathan at the Presidential Villa Abuja

comes from Nigeria, Congo,
Democratic Republic of
Congo, Angola, Benin, Togo
and Mozambique. As half of
these Africans were slaves in
America, they were slaves too
in Brazil historically. Also, he
added that the television
production was necessary
because Brazilian black
population do not know very
much about Africa. “There is a
de?cit of information about
Africa in Brazil and people

Olaniyi Thevoice Abodedele

want to know about Africa,
but there is no one to tell them
about Africa. So, the gap in
information is that de?cit that
moved me to try and make this
serious, to give more
information about Africa, and
information without
prejudice.”
Re?ecting on his interview
with Nigerian President, His
Excellency Goodluck
Jonathan, he stated that he

found it very interesting to
know that a country with so
many ethnic groups has its
president from a small ethnic
group, “he is not Yoruba, he is
not Hausa, he is not an Igbo,
he is from Niger Delta. The
fact that he had been elected in
Nigeria being from a small
ethnicity makes a kind of
balance in politics. I think to
people it's something new, I
think people are looking more
not for the ethnic but for the

leadership, for what he wants
to do, what he says , what
should be done and you
believe he would possibly do
it.” He made it known that
ethnicity is healthy in politics.
“Ethnicity is something that
appeal not for something that
unites the people but appeal
for something that divide the
people and this is very bad, but
in Nigeria ethnicity is not so,
it's part of democracy”.

The former Brazilian Minister
believed that a lot of Nigerians
especially the Yorubas and
Hausas are moving to Brazil
and that is very interesting. He
said he has visited a lot of
major places in Nigeria, “I
went to different regions of
Nigeria and especially I went
to visit Ife, that is the heart of
Yoruba land and it's very
interesting to deal with the
people there. I interviewed
one of the kings there, it was
interesting to travel to Lagos,
and it is a very big city. I was
very impressed with Abuja
because Abuja is like Brazil's
capital city of Brazilia. It is a
modern city that has been built
50 years ago. In the hotel I
was, I ate a lot of things and I
didn't know exactly what it is
but when I tasted them, it's the
same thing I eat in Brazil. A
little bit of spicy.”
He narrated his experience of
eating a muf?n-like food in
Nigeria called Akara (Beans
Cake) by the Yoruba, but
same food is known and called
AKARAJE in Brazil. Also, he
mentioned that there is a kind
of soup made of Okro in Brazil
that is also eaten by the
Nigerian people. “All the time
I feel at home. I eat things I eat
in Brazil. I feel at home and it's
very important.

Continue on page 2