AFRICA

It seems to him that he deserves the Nobel Prize for Laziness. He sees his head assassinated by idleness, digging swirls of silence in his blood in a similar way to digging gas lines in the street where he lives.

When news broke late on 22nd April 2022, that Ọba Ọláyíwọlá Adéyẹmí III, the Aláàfin of Ọ̀yọ́, had joined his ancestors at the ripe old age of 83, there was a sense in the entire Yorùbá speaking world that a truly regnant king had departed the realm.

Kufre Usanga is a PhD student in the Department of English and Film Studies at the University of Alberta, where she researches petroculture and Indigenous literatures. Usanga holds the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Doctoral Award.

“We have a lot of insecurity in Nigeria. By road we are not safe. By train we are not safe”. (From a survivor of the Abuja-Kaduna Train bomb; Mon., March 28, 2022)

Lack of funding is an unfortunate scenario that has bedeviled a great number of African literary magazines and companies like ours, too. Save for a number of magazines such as Omenana, Agbowo, Olongo Africa, Isele magazine, and others who pay, the many others do not.

Afternoon in a hall. A middle-aged woman, CHIEF, sits at a table on the podium, going through papers. A door opens and two female guards herd five men in handcuffs into the hall and make them stand in a line before the podium, in the order of their appearance. One, GUARD 1, stands by their side; the other, GUARD 2, by the door.

I was reading a book titled All Good Things, It was a lighthearted read and I found something rather unexpected in it; I found myself.

Bàrà was the burial site of the Aláàfin (King) of Ọ̀yọ́, ruler over the empire and its millions of subjects. “It is a spiritual site. When a new Aláàfin was to be installed, the Aláàfin-elect must come here to worship the past Aláàfins."

Nakedness in dreams was a terrible thing. It called for extra caution in your day-to-day life. It could require several days of prayer and fasting, depending on the perceived severity.

Barter Because it’s 1945 And the Allies put a war horse over a west African infantryman, A boy is traded for a horse.

The Western gaze comes from the idea that Eurocentrism influences the way we (Africans) are perceived, the way we think, and how we in turn see ourselves.

He belongs to a generation of Nigerian men raised to be strong, silent, and hopelessly incapable of accepting complicity even in the face of clear damage. The patriarchy is alive in him indeed.

For Ayọ̀ Bámgbóṣé at 90