Nigeria

Or How to Render Metaphysics in Film

To a generation of Nigerians, the character Àjàlá might as well be an urban legend.

increasing abductions on the Abuja-Kaduna expressway

A young police officer is standing with a woman I assume to be his mother. She is praying for him loudly, at a major junction on the streets of a Lagos suburb; speaking in tongues unashamedly while passers-by stare, some in admiration, others, not so much.

I hardly leave my house, but I had to go there; I was going abroad and needed to be double vaxxed before traveling.

In the traditions that established earlier voices in modern Africa poetry, sociopolitical maladies have remained an arch theme. In the words of Omafune Onoge, what rocks African poetry most is the crisis of consciousness.

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.

Thousands of Africans from countries like Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Somalia and other countries languish under the disproportionate cold of eastern Europe as they wait at transit points and the border.

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

Our dealings are dominated by a disregard for scientific reasoning, and a preference for ostentatious, and often venal religiosity.

All our lives, a series of crossings. The parts of our existence we are often not proud to claim still make up the sum total of our lives.

I have always found it a little too dramatic when I see movies where people run off to another city to begin a new life after a break up. A whole life in a place, ending because of one relationship. Ridiculous!