Fiction and Articles

Something happened to me a while ago that I needed “closure” for. I struggled so much to get it but it never happened.   Here is a story of a hurtful experience I had and the approach I took to make sense of it all.   The date that did not happen. I believe most of us are familiar with the irritation you get when your flight has been delayed for hours. This was exactly how I was feeling when I entered the Abuja bound Air P eace plane months ago. As I moved towards my seat, I silently wished for a good seat partner. I was not in the best of mood and all I wanted was someone decent to sit beside me. Not a person with a toddler, not a loud person and definitely not someone old (no offense) I honestly just wanted a drama free flight.   As fate will have it, a good-looking man who seemed to be in his early 30’s sat right next to me. The first thing I did was to scan this person. From his well-groomed nails to his height, skin etc. everything was the way I liked it. Verdict= He looke

Guys, I have always wanted to tell this story but just couldn’t find the perfect title or explanation for it. I have however decided to tell it once and for all and believe me this is a true story. Despite growing up the orthodox way, my mum caught up with the Pentecostal wave of worship. This led us to weekly visits to a beautiful Pentecostal church. The pastor was not only handsome but a very funny man. His wife was equally beautiful and they were family to us. The only thing that I looked forward to during the weekly visits were the funny stories the pastor told during his sermon. Every other thing; the long car ride from Magodo to Iju every Tuesday, the traffic, staring out the window, hearing my mum yell at the driver for not looking out for other cars, hours of cursing our enemies, with our eyes shut and head going left and right like a pendulum and the long sunny and traffic jam ride back to the house was simply pure torture to me. All I wanted back then was to stay back at home

  The end of this article will conclude that we are pieces of a giant puzzle known as the universe. The middle will talk about how we need to realise that we all complete each other. My imperfection s complement yours and vice versa and that is why I will give you the money I made from babysitting for you to make me up and you will use that money to pay your mechanic who will use that money to buy his son a school sandal, the son who will later become president because he used his talent to win the people over and the people (musicians, bankers, doctors, footballers, jewellers, consultants, carpenters, traders a traders and engineers) will always put their money where their mouth is. The beginning will talk about how if we really consider it, our existence will never make sense if we were all the same shapes and size s i.e., if we had the same physical and mental attributes, mannerisms, characteristics and ideologies. The difference of puzzle pieces is what helps solve the puzz

  In the spirit of turning a year older, I decided to make some changes in my social life. I activated my Instagram account and unconsciously started telling lies. No, not lies on Instagram. I will get to that later. Truth is when my fellow Nigerian millennials started to jump on the bandwagon of Insta years ago, I was preoccupied with other things that mattered more to me- dealing with the loss of life as I used to know it. And over the years, even as things got better, I decided not to join the social media parade but to live and lead a quiet and peaceful life. A lot of people could not fathom why I seemed anti-social, I could not fathom how people had so much time to check out who just bought a new car, got married or moved to Canada. But as I turned a year older, my dad talked me into setting up one. The only problem is, I did not and still do not know how it works. Well, that’s half the truth. I know how to search for people and respond to dm’s but that’s about it. It is quite

  Nigeria is not the traffic you face, its the hawkers on the way. Nigeria is not the darkness in the night, its the people by your side. Nigeria is not the dollars you can't make, its the crop you germinate. Nigeria is not your loved ones being taken away, its the moments you appreciate. Nigeria is not the market stall with no food, its the blind beggar whose belly is filled. Nigeria is not what its done for you, its about the power of two. Yours truly, A Nigerian.

Dear Child, I woke you up today but I noticed how tired you were so I decided to wait for you instead, you know, to have that conversation we’ve been meaning to have. I looked on from the living room as you dashed around to shower and make breakfast, it would be selfish of me to demand that we talk when I know you are running late for work. As you ran out of the door, with your shoes, keys and phone in your hands, I wanted to remind you of how much I love you. I decided I would text you instead even though I could already tell that when the message drops, you will swipe to the left. I understand you have tons of messages to respond to even though you could have sworn you went to bed leaving no message unread, you’ve complained quite often of how you cannot seem to keep up with the notifications and requests that come pouring in each minute. I decided to wait till you get back instead. The noise of your keys tonight jolted me from the deep thoughts I had of you.   How precious

I had an idea to write about trying times after experiencing one myself. We live in an era where people are encouraged to smile more often, mask their problems and count their blessings. While this sometimes count as good advice we should also not neglect the fact that sorrowful events do occur and we have this emotions for a reason. A baby cries when there is need to cry, there is no amount of counselling or masking that can stop a baby from expressing discomfort but a baby also laughs and chuckles and we embrace this too. I wrote a few friends to tell me about trying times they have experienced to encourage someone out there perhaps the decisions we made in those moments can guide someone else through their trying time.   What the stories will do for you; It will entertain you with stories of trying times experienced by people, the poor and not so poor choices made during those periods and a major lesson learnt. What the stories will not do for you; Give you concrete advise

  The story of the Taliban taking over Afghanistan has spread like wildfire around the world. If you pretend not to be interested at least you know the main gist. Power has changed hands. That being said, this takes me to what we count as essential when our lives are about to be changed and everything we know is about to come to an end. I can imagine lovers, fathers, daughters, friends who are about to be torn apart for circumstances beyond their control. A lot of questions are being thrown in the air? Why can’t they fight back, why did America agree to leave? Is this going to happen in Nigeria? What will be the fate of those who are left behind. For questions that we may never have answers to, it is important that we seize every moment to appreciate the little and big things of life, with things or with people, whether our freedom is limited or not.    P.s- During the EndSars Protest in Lagos, Nigeria I remember "fleeing" to a friend's house with my passport and a

  For those who do not know; Oluronbi is a popular Yoruba folklore about a woman who in desperation asked an iroko tree for a child and pledged the same child in return to the iroko tree. Well, she did have the child, a girl whom she named Aponbepore and when it was difficult to honour her pledge the iroko tree took the girl away. Now, I am very familiar with this story. I must have heard it a couple of times when I was younger and I count it a privilege to have watched a live musical (written and directed by Mister Rain) about it on Sunday the 19 th of July 2021 at Glover Memorial Hall, Customs Street, Lagos. After the show ended, most of us expressed our opinion on how foolish Oluronbi had been. Why did she pledge a child when others pledged animals and foodstuff? was it out of arrogance to show her friends she was the best or was it out of disbelief that the iroko tree was not able to give her a child? There were many ‘lessons to learn’ with the chief one being don’t make promi

Dear Busayo, I racked my brain severally on what to write about you in my blog because I don’t write just for fun, I write from my heart. I wanted to talk grand about you but I realised that I don’t have much to say except that I have been told that you are a talented athlete and I believe this because you have your gold medals to show for it and you give me the shivers that talented people give. There is no doubt that you are one of the next big things to happen to the world-we just haven’t realised it yet. Anything I say in addition will be me exaggerating facts because I do not know you so well but I want to believe that you are a decent and respectful human being and I have no doubt that some day I will talk more about you because your story is still being written. Busayo, you have found big magic. I hope you make it big with the right people on your side. I hope that on cloudy days and stormy nights you find the light, I hope you live a life that will encourage people to be

The design of the world is that its imperfections make it perfect. It is nobody’s world, yet it is everybody’s world. No matter what you say or do, people will not live their lives the way you want them to and people will not do things that make sense to you.   Please keep your “this is the way you should live your life” opinion to yourself and leave people alone. Particularly when you are not sponsoring the lives they have chosen to live. P.s- Am I doing exactly what I just preached against?  Leave me alone  😄😂 😅

Have you ever wondered why a lot of successful people in telling their success stories hardly recount the positive remarks they received  during their period of struggle  but almost always talk about the hateful and discouraging words that were said to them at the time? Long question but I want you to take a moment to think about the times when people said negative things to you that stirred you up to prove a point, make a change or do better for yourself. Whoever said lemons weren’t good? 😉 Keep making lemonades on your way to the top!!   P.s- I wanted to write a list of the ‘hateful remarks’ made to Oprah, Zuckerberg and the likes but I’m sure you get the point.

I saw a very disturbing video today of two children, a boy and a girl engaging in sexual activity in class. I was sick and disgusted to my stomach. I still am. I have no words for the adults because all we mostly do is to talk and talk about these things with everyone but the children. Dear Child, I hope you are well, safe and in school. I hope you are learning as you should. I know you have a lot of questions with no one to answer. You wanted to google the words on the phone but your mum had no data. Sex is a beautiful thing, there is no doubt about that But it has a place, a time, age and agenda. I don’t want you to get distracted by what your friends tell you, How they make fun of you and term you uncool. Someday, I hope very soon, you will become the man or woman of your dreams. You will be of the right age to take delight in the pleasures of life, And will have loads of sex with the right person by your side. But for now don’t let anyone touch your priv

I have a wish list and one of the items on the list is a customized eat, pray, love-key ring. For a thousand reasons, I couldn’t get one so I opted for getting a key ring with the letter F instead. Cheesy right? Yes, I agree. Cheese is good. Weirdly enough, I also could not find a letter F key ring for a long while until today. I was super excited when I saw the shiny purple coloured key ring on the counter at Celebrations, Lekki, Lagos. It almost caused for a little celebration as my dear companion Bubari who knew of this long felt desire to get a key ring with the letter F expressed her excitement for me. (Yes Bubari, I saw you shine your teeth and squeak in delight). Finally, I had what I wanted and it came in my favourite colour. This is not the end to the key ring story though because I am oddly not as excited as I should be or to better phrase it “the thrill was in the chase”. However, one key thing I learnt today was that there is nothing you want in life that is missing,

If Nigeria had a Ministry of Family Planning, the Minister would be Eseoghene. Today was particularly a good day because I found delight in the little things. My trip to the Lagos State Waste Management Authority (during work hours lol!) resulted in me butting into the conversation of Ese and Ola. Within ten minutes of random conversations, we became ‘friends’ and what made it even more interesting was that we shared the same view on most of all the things we discussed except family planning. Ese my friend suggested that every couple in Nigeria should have a maximum number of two or four children, I was of the opinion that people should not be restricted to a certain number of children because the fact that Mr. X cannot look after his dozen children does not mean that Mrs. Y cannot look after her half a dozen of children. Our further narrative on family planning made Ese suggest that an entire ministry be created in Nigeria for this purpose. I told her to submit her proposal becaus

Oh my!!!!! I cannot believe it has been twelve whole months since I posted last. I trust we are all well and safe. Today I want to tell you something I encountered two days ago that made me really proud. A story that would not let me rest until I tell it. After a long day at work, I was in my taxi home when we noticed a car parked on the side of the highway that had started to emit smoke and was about to go up in flames. My taxi driver like other car drivers could not ignore the situation. They all drove slowly by the scene of the incident. While we were trying to make sense of the damage that was about to occur, with me particularly hoping that the car does not burn while we were driving by, we saw a group of people dashing towards the smoky car. A group of men who left their various activities to make sure that a car is saved.  I was overwhelmed by the show of affection and empathy.  We all have good in us no matter what anyone says and something in me wanted to reach out to thank th