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Showing posts from August, 2018

A JONI THAT SINGS

Anyone could tell he didn’t belong once he opened his mouth to sing the first line of the song “Kumbaya.” Apart from the unconscious cracks and the battle of staying on the key of C major, Joni was shaking with each breath exhaled. His legs wobbled, his hands waggled, and his eyes spoke the language of fear mixed with doubt. How shocking! He was introduced to the choir as a tenor singer from a sister church called Oasis. Unfortunately, this oasis had its lungs and throat all dried up.   Joni stopped singing from the looks on every face. By a corner, he saw the man playing the drums lift his eyebrows - not in wonder but a mechanism most people adopt to hold back laughter. The woman playing the bass guitar was looking down at nothing. As Joni’s eyes roved around the church, he saw an invisible congregation, all rising from their seats, eyes tight with laughter! The white walls were bloody-looking. Ah! Even the brown wooden cross on the altar resembled a negation. Joni felt the wo...
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PREJUDICED HUMAN CHARACTERISTICS

PREJUDICED HUMAN CHARACTERISTICS We always have sweet names for repulsive human behaviours all in the façade of easy identification. Tribalism, racism, chauvinism, feminism, sexism, totalitarianism, subjectivism, egocentrism, and all other "isms" that have turned the world up-side-down. These prejudices are everywhere you go even deep inside our spirits, souls and bodies. It is so difficult for one to just live freely as created by God that compromise becomes the only moving train which could take you to your destination and sometimes it ends up being your final destination. Have you ever been told that you are too fat to be a front desk agent but would fit as a writer who’d work from home instead? Have you been asked to send a picture of your “real face” while applying for a Personal Assistant job? Have you been told that you’re too skinny to be a sales agent but should opt for modeling instead or too dark and short to be an usher or too plain to be the face of...
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OWO NI KOKO (MONEY IS THE MAIN THING)

OWO NI KOKO (MONEY IS THE MAIN THING) One of my young customers walked into my small shop some time ago to collect his sewn wears and mistakenly stepped on another customer waiting to be measured by me. At first I just stood there watching the show: “Do you know who I am? I’m sure you never saw the four walls of a university that is why you cannot even say sorry after stepping on me with those cheap shoes of yours” “For your information I am a graduate, a lawyer for that matter, with a second class upper if your grandmother does not know of it. Maybe you are the one who needs to go back to school to learn some manners for you lack one obviously.” I did not know who the more frustrated customer was. Were manners now acquired from going to the university? These two men could not even pay the initial fee I charged them and there they were insulting one another; a show of educational power. And as we say today “who education epp?” I was not ready to even settle them both;...
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CHANGING THE UNREALISTIC NARRATIVE OF THE NIGERIAN EDUCATION

CHANGING THE UNREALISTIC NARRATIVE OF THE NIGERIAN EDUCATION “Your education is your meal ticket in life.” Those were the words of my father and like every other child present in the socioeconomic jungle called Nigeria; we believe that education will solve our life problems. My over two-decades-and-a-half-life journey as a Nigerian, in Nigeria clearly shows that this view is totally unrealistic to the contemporary average Nigerian Youth’s reality.   After all, I have gone through the errors of reciting multiplication tables, to never understanding the reason why I have to take 16   subjects in Secondary school and settling for what my country; through Jamb, feels is best for me to study (I was lucky I loved English). Not to disrepute our educational system, but I must say that what is taught in our schools is totally different from the reality we meet outside. We were never trained to think like problem solvers, there was more reputation placed on grades rathe...
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MORALITY IN TRANSIT

It was a cool, quiet evening—one of those rare days when the city seemed to exhale. I boarded the bus home from work, grateful for the unusual calm. The vehicle was only half-full, a welcome contrast to the usual chaos of rush hour. The driver was sealed off in his little cubicle up front, and we passengers were scattered like leaves on a still pond. Among them was a man who immediately caught my eye—late 60s, wearing a crisp white cap that read ' Chosen One' in bold black letters. He was flipping through a newspaper with such frantic energy it looked like he was searching for something long lost—or perhaps arguing with the headlines themselves. Opposite him sat another older man, though you wouldn't know it from his clothes. He was dressed like a teenager—like someone clinging to relevance with both hands. Then, out of nowhere, the man in the cap spoke, loud and clear, as if addressing a courtroom rather than a quiet bus. 'Does time determine what's right or wrong...
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IF HAIR COULD TALK

  “You know, I get nervous by the sight of unkempt hair” “And why’s that?” “Well, it makes me imagine the worst of the man or woman in question.” “But you can’t always have clean cut or well-made hair. It’s hard work and who has time for such beauty strife. Or why do you think Beyonce sang that beauty hurts?” “I’m not talking about beauty. Rather I mean responsibility. Bad hair must surely birth a bad day. Look, I hate seeing my wife without her hair done or at least covered. I blame it on Medusa. Should have never seen that movie, T he Clash of the Titans .” “Hahaha, that’s just cracking! Now you blame your sick theory on a movie? Buddy, your wife must be tolerating a whole lot of shit from you. Cut her some slack and leave her hair alone. If you continue shaving yours all the time, you’d be bald before you’re even 40, man.” I’ve been thinking. A thousand tongues there would be if our hair could talk. Imagine, a million heads would have a zillion tongues and more! The ...
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MAKEOVER

  When she realized her hair was gone, the barber had increased the volume of his radio and India Arie’s ‘I am not my hair’ filled the room. ‘If I can manage the situation like a professional, my construction contract with her father will hold tomorrow,’ I thought. I breathe in and out, a logic that never works for me, but I do it anyway. I rehearse my words, changing each sound to a softer version of the previous one - aligning my looks to the words so that my eyes become half closed and there is a faint smile on my face. I wait for the explosion. All the while, the barber is busy touching what is left on her head with his clipper. He says it is the final addition and calls it the moon look. He fumbles with the chair, turning Stella from left to right like a child’s play. The large mirror in front of us escalates the mishap and the fumes on my girlfriend’s face seem to be burning the white walls. It was meant to be a makeover since her 25 th birthday was the next day. Now it...
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