06Dec
Baba Cellular of Eyita
Psalm 20:7 "Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God".
Memoirs
27Feb
The Ikorodu Mafia
The long, early commutes to my Peninsula office were a defining feature of my early career. But those journeys were far from solitary. They were a tapestry of interactions with fellow commuters, men and women whose lives intertwined with mine. It was a time when our Nigeria felt like a single community, bound not by tribe, but by a shared pursuit of knowledge, mutual support, and a celebration of our common humanity
08Jan
Not Pretty but good enough II
There was no walking down the street to play with some neighbourhood friends and definitely no invitation for friends to come over and play soccer as I did at Oke-Labo. Our movements were fairly predictable - to school and back, to church or to some families for the occasional birthdays and celebrations for Christmas etc. We were truly ‘ajebota’ kids, protected by solid walls and iron gates.
08Jun
A Thousand and One Incisions
I would get woken up and, looking at the staircase, would see my father with his left hand resting on the rail, his right hand holding his chin with his eyes looking at me from the distance. His look was intense as if saying “come child”. A few times I had woken up those sleeping next to me, pointing at the staircase and shouting “Daddy is here”, but like those with Paul on the road to Damascus, they saw nothing and cautioned me to stop disrupting their sleep.
08May
Not Pretty but good enough
At break time, a pupil went around ringing the brass bell, something that we really looked forward to with excitement. Our excitement was not for the bell but what comes after it, the arrival of the ‘Iya Olounje’. Smartly dressed in deep blue gowns, they come into the different classrooms and set down their food trays right next to the blackboard. As she opens the food, the scintillating aroma fills the classroom and not a few of us would start salivating. Our food containers which we had deposited at the start of the day would be taken by the woman and filled with whatever food was for the day
30Dec
Had I flinched, when I should have scurried…
I narrowly escaped being killed, in the hands of the same uniformed men that had killed Dele Udoh 4 years earlier. With death, there usually is no premonition and I had none on this fateful day. I was walking on the pedestrian walkway by the side of the big car park opposite the CBN but adjacent to Cocoa House.
