The Day I Fought with Jollof Rice
Jollof rice was the soul of my childhood, reserved for special occasions or when my mum was in a particularly good mood. There is something unique about it — the memories it evokes, the sacred aroma. Fried rice is a contender. Sure. But jollof is the undisputed king. This dish has started wars, split friendships, and divided nations. As a Nigerian, I know our jollof is the best, and the pinnacle of them all is party jollof.
Scholarly Ways to Talk about your Dying Mother When Sincerity Fails You
My mother, too, diminishes by degrees. The body arranges its collapse like slow bureaucracy. Blindness isn’t a singular catastrophe. It’s administrative decay, paperwork misplaced between neurons, signals misfiring in silence. Something breaks, then stabilises. Then breaks again. Decline is always gradual enough that memory remains involved. It’s almost cruel. You must watch the empire rot while still remembering the senate, the pageantry, the language fully alive.
SARS and Men in Tie
The #EndSARS protest was a time bomb planted in 1992 that finally detonated for the world to hear. It was the sound of decades of brutality. The sound of injustice. The sound of the innocent tortured and violated.
And, among those voices, buried in the echo of that explosion, is my own story, the day I met SARS in Lagos in 2004, simply because I chose to wear a tie.
When the Messages Stopped
So, this is where I begin, with a letter you’ll never read, in a language made of grief. If I can’t kneel at your grave in Enugu, then let these words be the earth where I lay you down. Let them be the candle I light in the dark, the whisper I send into the void, hoping that somehow, somewhere, you’ll hear me.
In-between Pa’s and Society’s Nuggets
Arguing with my father, a renowned disciplinarian, still felt surreal. Pa’s authority was so firmly established that neighbours often sought his help when their own iron fists failed to tame their unruly children. Every boy in the area knew his name and dared not forget it when tempted by mischief. Pa was a predator of sorts, striking when disobedient children least expected.
Diary of a First Child
As the firstborn, I was crowned with expectations, one that felt like a heavy shackle around my spirit. My parents never sang their dreams for me like the lyrics of a song, but I heard them all the same, rumbling in the moments when their eyes met mine. Those unspoken hopes were the ghosts that haunted my nights, never letting me forget the knot of dependability that came with being the first child.
Conversation with Self
I’m tired. Come, come, let us rest here a while, so we would have the strength to continue this business of being alive.
How to Love a Father
When my father doesn’t ring my phone for a week, I don’t wait for him to call, because it’s unlikely to happen. I call him, and let him fuss about his day, and sometimes, about my mother, who had provoked him moments before I called. I have learnt to listen more and not judge him, partly because age has devoured his youth, colouring his hair and beard grey, and I’m afraid of losing them to death’s grip, and because I want to be in the same space with him, to understand and love him from the perspective of a person, not just a parent. I’m learning to give him presents, not just on his birthday, to the same degree as I would give my mother.
Christmas Children
I didn’t know what to ask of Christ, not because I was perfect or already possessed all the world could offer, but because I liked my life and the day, just as they were. I chose the wind and the dust it carried. I chose our shared presence, the warmth of our collective energy. I preferred the world we created in that small space, without demanding anything from it. I chose a Christmas that placed no demands on the world or on Christ, because the simple fact that He came to show us the way towards all that are good and noble felt, to me, like enough.
On Jinns: Between Waking and Sleeping
My editor read this essay and wrote somewhere in the margins: “Having suicidal thoughts is not exactly supernatural. Ordinary people have them when faced with stress and challenges. Your problem appears to be psychological rather than spiritual. These symptoms are classic examples in descriptive psychology for suicidal tendencies… This is denial. You’re clinging to spirituality to explain everything.”