ONE. There is a boy beside me; a small boy. He is eating bread and akara. The woman beside me is eating bread and akara too. Everybody in the bus is eating bread and akara. But I do not join them. I do not follow the multitude to do evil. The woman offers me […]
On the Edge of the World.
“When you fall in love, it is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake, and then it subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots are to become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this […]
How To Welcome Death.
The girl who sat beside Andrew in the waiting room was ugly. There was no better or softer way to put it. Being the cool and friendly person he was, Andrew did not want to conclude that she was ugly. And so he tried to look for something, something beautiful about her no matter how […]
Fiction or Nonfiction
FAILURE. I have forgotten the taste of failure. I have forgotten how the cold the hands can be at the touch of failure, of not succeeding. I have survived a long time without failure I do not even know that the enemy still exists. My lack of failure however does not mean I have always […]
This Is Why English Is Our Official Language
Another annoying thing is the issue of people asking useless whys. Why do we have to use English as our official language? Why not Yoruba? Why not Hausa? Why not even Pidgin? There are many reasons why this is not advisable and why I don’t pray it ever works out.
One. We need to understand Nigeria. Perhaps a little bit of history will help us understand this issue. I will do my best to break these things down. One is that Nigeria is not a nation
On Gender Equality.
Yesterday, I was on my departmental WhatsApp group when a sensitive issue arose. We were to have a party and the gate fee was N300 for both boys and girls. Now, before I go on, I think you need to have an idea of how things work in my school. Whenever there is a party, only guys get to pay. It’s always free for girls. And really no one has ever complained, at least not loudly. And no one saw anything wrong with this annoying idea. Until recently.
Poor.
I am writing for you, Jordan.For the first time in the nineteen years you’ve spent on earth, you opened your huge Collins dictionary and checked the meaning ofthe word poor. You never knew it would come to this. For more than a week, your bank account has had nothing but N500 in it and […]
The Collector.
“Writing is Telepathy.” – Stephen King. ONE. This is how you will know you like books. On a cold Thursday morning, when the birds are somewhere shivering and you can’t see past ten feets before you – thanks to the mist – you will set out with N5000 to buy a pair of shoes for […]
The Distance Between Us (Part 2)
Three years ago, I was a different person. Five years ago, I was different from the person I was three years ago. Five years ago, I was a notorious boy who thought the world was in his pocket. I had friends with whom I lived a vain life. I was in junior secondary school then […]
The Distance Between Us (Part 1)
ONE. Pwesh mangoes! Pwesh mangoes!! Pwesh mangoes were never fresh. Anyway, it mattered not. I don’t buy mangoes. I eat mangoes but I don’t buy them. Maybe it’s me, maybe it’s the mangoes, I don’t know. I just can’t bring myself to bring out my wallet from my pocket, count a few notes and give […]