nigeria
Uchechukwu Peter Umezurike’s Double Wahala
In Nigerian popular culture, ‘double wahala’ is a Pidgin English phrase that was made popular by ace Afrobeat musician and activist, Fela Anikulapo Kuti.
I took a tricycle to the hospital
I hardly leave my house, but I had to go there; I was going abroad and needed to be double vaxxed before traveling.
LECTURERS’ STRIKE IN NIGERIA GROUNDS STUDENTS, LECTURERS, AND PARENTS
The university store where Bimpe Alabi sells snacks and drinks at the park is usually crawling with customers. Since University of Ilorin's lecturers have gone on strike, this has changed. Alabi stands outside, inviting passersby. Her profits have shrunk, pushing her family into hardship.
A Nigerian Poet’s Dangerous Amorous Episodes
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.
Where Is Our Government?
“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)
Family Affair
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.
Nigeria’s Holy Romance with Ignorance
Our dealings are dominated by a disregard for scientific reasoning, and a preference for ostentatious, and often venal religiosity.
Making a Start
Iwo smells of dust and rusty air, clouding up my mind and drowning my memory. The first thing my mother welcomes me with is water. She is an ardent devotee of the culture that believes water is the most glorious form of courtesy that can be paid to a visitor. But I always find it hard to drink.
Notes on Kampf
One of the numerous reasons the German word, Kampf, has remained popular is its usage by the failed Austrian artist and dictator, Adolf Hitler. The word itself, ‘kampf’, from old High German, is borrowed from Latin, Campus; more familiar to us in its modern English form, ‘camp’.
Some places become homes by habit
When the thousands of mysterious Sumerian tablets were translated, they were thought to be business records, but what if they were poems or psalms?
On Digital Obituary
On the afternoon of my friend’s demise, I logged in to Facebook to discover a myriad of his pictures congregating people’s timelines. In those pictures, his face was distinct, sharp; his mien betraying the darkness saturating the day, binding us in that state of sadness with the thread of mourning.