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Abido Shaker! Life is a widening gyre where women fear cockroaches, cockroaches fear cocks, cocks fear men, and men fear women. A few years ago, Chukwemeka Cyril Ohanaemere was an ordinary name in Nigeria until fakery kissed bombast and vainglory took materialism to bed, birthing ‘The Lion Himself’, ‘The War’. ‘The Fight’, ‘Dabus Kabash’, ‘The […]
Continue ReadingIn this day and age of social media, journalism, one of the few fearless professions, treats soft news with almost the same attention it treats hard news. According to the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, hard news refers to stories that are usually timely, important and consequential, such as politics, international affairs and […]
Continue ReadingLife is a peaceful war. It’s a funny dirge. Life is the mystery of the eyeball and the proverbial pointed stick the Yoruba call ‘igi ganganran’. Igi ganganran, the pointed stick, aims to rupture the pupil, but a blink and the eye is saved from eternal darkness by the eyelids. Life could be a close shave, […]
Continue ReadingAníkúlápó is the man who bears death in a pouch, not Jimi Solanke. Solanke knew a braggadocious name couldn’t stop death. So, when death came calling, Solanke followed it without fear. But Solanke wasn’t afraid of death, he was afraid of life – this he told me many years ago at the backstage of the […]
Continue ReadingBy the Rivers of Babylon, there I sat down; yeah, I wept, when I remember N-i-g-e-r-i-a. Verily, verily I say unto you, these words that I write, are words of redemption and wisdom. Therefore, I beseech you, brethren, to keep these words in your hearts, inscribe them in stones and scribble them on scrolls. I […]
Continue ReadingThe tale of the scorpion is in its tail. Here’s the tale of Erelu Bede, a woman who lived in the time of Orunmila, the Yoruba deity of wisdom and divination. The Araba of Osogbo, Chief Ifayemi Elebuibon, told me this tale in detail. The tale grew popular and became a collection in the series […]
Continue ReadingMy father, Pa Bisi Odesola, is a retired builder. He owned a little construction concern, Bisi Builders, which constructed a number of buildings in Ikoyi, Victoria Island, Lekki, Ajah and across the country. He exposed me and my immediate younger brother, Biodun, to site life at tender ages. Don’t get it twisted, please; we were […]
Continue ReadingIt’s evening yet on Creation Day in Odò Obà, the Land of the prized Parrots, where the Lion complained about not having a crown to proclaim his kingship, and his creator gave him a golden mane. Later, he complained about his teeth and he got powerful jaws. He looked at his paws and bewailed, he […]
Continue ReadingBefore anything else, let’s do with some laughter because this is a sobering journey into time – a journey gathering hailstones, lightning and thunder – tools to be unleashed in the cases of royal injustice and intolerance in Iwo and Ilorin. A good laugh is a drink to wash down the two plates of stones-filled […]
Continue ReadingA good old friend of mine resident in Chicago, Yomi Abioye, aka Macito, texted me after reading the first part of this article. The Ifon-born indigene of Osun said, “You ought to have ended this write-up this week and focus your next article on the bunch of buccaneers in our legislature that has become a […]
Continue ReadingIt is the saddest night of October 2020. Nobody spoke except the shovels in their hands, heaping sand on slain bodies, bones and blood in a shallow mass grave. Secretly, they buried a great number of unnamed, unfortunate citizens in the still of the night. One, two, three…20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, […]
Continue ReadingOnce upon a time, before money displaced Ifa in the Land of Oduduwa, decency was the crest on the Yoruba crown. This was before government’s filthy hands slowly opened the palace gate, grabbed the glittering crown and tore off the crest. So, the crown, crest-broken, tumbled into the mud, crestfallen. Étiquette is not strange to […]
Continue ReadingNature was enveloped in darkness as dawn quickened in the womb of time, pushing towards the birth canal, carrying on its head daylight. The cock, being nature’s timekeeper, knew the water was about to break. So, it sounded like the flute in its throat, cookooorooocooo! And nature stirred awake. Upon hearing the cock crow at […]
Continue ReadingI possess neither the intellect of Albert Einstein nor the anointing of Apostle Matthew, the tax collector and Jesus’ disciple. I’m only a Lagos-born hunter from Igbajo, the Citadel of the Brave — an inheritance of Osun State. Unlike Einstein and Matthew, I’m no Jew, no scholar, no philosopher. Never can I hold a candle […]
Continue ReadingAt the Admin Block, where I had to pay some fees and do some paperwork, something instructive happened. I came before a registration officer, who was in high spirits. He greeted me in Igbo but I answered in English. He looked at me from head to toe, and asked in Igbo what my name was. […]
Continue ReadingWas. Is. Will. The spellbinding sight of the throne would blush King Solomon green with envy. With a grin, the elephant walked majestically towards the throne, swishing his tail as its tree-trunk legs embossed map-like footprints in the brown earth. He clambered up to the throne, turned around, made a throaty sound of satisfaction with […]
Continue ReadingCleveland, a city in Ohio, USA, was long regarded as the sufferhead among American cities. Bearing on its big head the weight of an unfortunate nickname – The mistake on the lake – Cleveland shares a few similarities with Nigeria. How did Cleveland get its nickname? This is how. As recently as late the 1960s […]
Continue ReadingBitter, sweet and curious creature, the honeybee. When the honeybee stings, its abdomen tears up, its mouth opens and closes, hitting the ground in a final kiss of death. That is the fate of the honeybee and its stinger – a weapon it uses for protection and the harbinger of its ultimate death. Hey, the […]
Continue ReadingWhen cornered by death or stalked by danger, an insect called the Malaysian Exploding Ant turns against its assailant, ruptures its abdominal muscles, causing its poisonous glands to explode. With the explosion of the poisonous glands, the ant releases an irritating substance in all directions. The released secretion is capable of immobilising or entangling the […]
Continue ReadingTomorrow is D-Day. The belly of the sky is heavy but no one knows what it will birth. The sky rumbles in labour pain. The water has broken. But no meteorologist is ready to put their certificate on the line and make a forecast. The sky booms in thunder and lightning, the wind whistles in […]
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