Get rejected by publishers and magazines, feel the rejections and bounce back.Get abused but never relent on it. Let them squeeze your manuscripts for once and throw it in a waste can, yes, for once; It would make you better, dear boys. Allow a publisher to kick you out and allow your heart to cry … Continue reading For Boys Like Me Who Are Writers.
Our ancestral home would not forget your perfection. On this ground shall we plant your names also for those who are to come. We will gather firewood, we will gather soothsayers, we will gather seekers of fate to get into you. Life is meant to be spent in joy. Having Nkporo on your lips is … Continue reading For Those Boys Bearing Nkporo Names On Their Lips.
This dream fell out from my eyes last night when I tried to find a related body to passionately tell all that I have being through but could not. This dream was the light of my skin but fairer was the colour of its miseries. Coming home is a tribulation you should never dream of. … Continue reading For Those Boys Who Were Aborted
I have never heard where white men say: “Because we are white”, “They didn’t like us”, “They didn’t want us in the game”, “They are racists”, and other pity inducing words whenever they lost in a competition. Instead, they frowned at what they could have done that they didn’t do when they had the opportunity … Continue reading Lamentation Of Black Men
All I ask for is equality…not sameness. Religion is currently a tool for blackmail as men keep subjecting their women to an absurd level of slavery, claiming the man has been placed over the woman from the very beginning and backing up their claims with excerpts from both the Bible and the Quran. It is … Continue reading Man!! Stop the Blackmail – I am a feminist.
They called us “dot” on the map and nobody is quite sure where. Inside that “dot” were 700 lawyers, 500 physicians, 300 engineers, 8 million poets, 2 novelists of the first rank, and God only knows what else — about one third of all the black intellectuals in Africa. Those intellectuals had once fanned out … Continue reading A Betrayed People
They say the Area Boys are a law unto themselves. They say they are a pack of illiterate feral kids who’d slit your throat in a heartbeat for a bag of candy. They are smelly, dirty little boys who lived like sewer rats in colonies underneath the bridge or behind the motorpark. Their homes are … Continue reading The Education of Area Boy
He bursts up into a old popular igbo song having concluded his lengthy syllabus for the semester, with the class joining suit… “Akwukwo na-ato uto O na-arahu na mmuta Onye nwere nkasi obi…” “Sirrr… off me” Dimkpa, one of the popular class guy nicknamed for his huge stature, roared in excitement. Finally, the 6 hours … Continue reading The Emeritus Professor
It is time to tell my story It is time to know what I really am It is time to see the scar behind my mask Few months ago, I was seated calmly waiting for death to come claim me, but it never came, how disappointed I felt, even with all the love … Continue reading Sickled Heart
Of those things that glamour for clarity Of those roads that sipped dead calls Of those shadows that retrieved retributions panache of the smoke that chased blunt images, We are here for the death of our dead ones, We are here to breeze out bodies from the ghost of our forefathers giving out beggars of … Continue reading Of Shadows And Spirits
These days it seems 80% of women are now self proclaimed feminists which would have been wonderful if only most of them knew what it’s all about… Sometime last year I wrote on how the society has continuously sidelined women most especially “The African Woman” and on why we should all be feminists… Women has … Continue reading WHAT IS FEMINISM REALLY All ABOUT?
My heart bled again today when I heard of another killing, this time an entire Christain community butchered. This meme has become but a natural disaster to these people, just like in northeastern Nigeria. Their children never signed for their future to be shabby, they met the world cruel to them and yet lived on. … Continue reading Pray For Benue
I EAT AND WRITE AT THE SAME TIME. SUE ME ( EYE ROLL) So yesterday was an amazing day for me. I slept, ate, slept and ate again (lol). You’re probably wondering why I have so much free time in my hand to eat and to sleep. Well, Let me tell you why. (clears throat) … Continue reading I Eat And Write At The Same Time. Sue Me ( Eye Roll)
They have called us names. They saw us as good for nothing. They always compare their time and ours and would never hesitate to use any derogatory word that came to their heads on us. It is even more suffocating if one have them in the family, and if one doesn’t, at least, one wouldn’t … Continue reading Younger Generation: Instinct And Survival
My young cousin is exclaiming UP NEPA!!! 3 generations post-independence. This was not the plan. I hope his children won’t too. I cannot promise him that this would not be the case in the next decade if nothing is done about it. Since the 60s our politicians have continually failed to deliver on their promises … Continue reading When will Nigerians stop saying “Up Nepa”