[{"id":2098,"date":"2026-09-22T02:47:56","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T02:47:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/?p=2098"},"modified":"2026-09-22T08:53:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T08:53:12","slug":"the-king-of-world-beats-at-80-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/the-king-of-world-beats-at-80-2\/","title":{"rendered":"\u00a0The King of World Beats at 80"},"content":{"rendered":"
Download as PDF<\/span><\/a><\/a><\/div>\n

On the second day of September 2026, the U.S. Mission in Nigeria, through their official X (formerly Twitter) handle, published a hashtag-led tribute to a historical signpost in US-Nigeria relations. For archival accuracy, the post in part:\u00a0
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c#ThisWeekinUSNigeriaHistory in 1983, America\u2019s Billboard 200 welcomed a groundbreaking sound from Nigeria: King Sunny Ad\u00e9\u2019s J\u00f9j\u00fa Music spent 29 weeks on the U.S. chart, introducing his innovative sound to American audiences. For 40 years, it stood as the longest-charting album by a Nigerian artist.\u201d<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
The main character of that triumphant moment in US-Nigeria cultural relations is none other than Prince Sunday Ad\u00e9n\u00edy\u00ec Ad\u00e9g\u1eb9y\u00e8, born 22 September 1946. The U.S. Mission X post thus came exactly twenty days to the official 80th birthday of King Sunny Ad\u00e9, and not a day too soon. KSA, as he is known for short, has lived a long artistic life full of productivity, landmarks, instruction and intrigue in almost equal measure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Long before the US Billboard charts recognized his unmistakable sound, King Sunny Ade\u2019s records had been a feature of the World Music scene in Europe and Asia. A consummate live performer, fans sold his albums as well as bootleg \u2018live\u2019 cassettes at London Tube stations and even on trains in Europe (that these were among the preferred sales points deserves some study). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the height of his powers, KSA\u2019s prowess with Yor\u00f9b\u00e1 lyrics in song <\/p>\n\n\n\n
(Mo m'\u1eb9mu m'\u1eb9mu mo d\u00e0b\u00ed \u1eb9mu\nMo m\u00f2g\u00f9r\u00f2 t\u00edt\u00ed mo d\u00e0b\u00ed \u00f2g\u00f9r\u00f2\u2026)\n<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
found the perfect setting in his lush musical arrangements. These, combined with the electrifying choreography of his 15 to 20 piece band, provide the ultimate atmosphere for what the Yor\u00f9b\u00e1 call \u00c0r\u00edy\u00e1 or F\u00e0\u00e1j\u00ec, words with no exact matches in the English language but which can be loosely translated as lavish enjoyment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His assured and talismanic personality apart, KSA is a performer with palpable star power oozing through his every gesture, and his original sense of musicality. Like most of his contemporaries, he felt the need to append an authoritative honorific to his name. His generation of Nigerian music artists across the genres, including \u2018The Black President\u2019 Fela Anikulapo Kuti, relished these appellations. It was the era of \u2018Emperors\u2019, \u2018Commanders\u2019, \u2018Princes\u2019, Admirals, Generals, and Barristers (yes indeed, barristers).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over six glorious decades, and with an incredible work ethic, KSA has risen in stature and dexterity sufficiently to play in front of crowds across the world and for select audiences at home, especially on the Lagos social scene. His brand has stood firm all through the years without diminution, growing in standing and allure, continuing to command global recognition. Right from the beginning, his donn\u00e9e has been the triad of song and chant and spectacle. That last element was probably first encouraged by his time with Moses Olaiya, popularly known as Baba Sala, anchoring the music section of the famous comic actor\u2019s ensemble. Some will recall that Baba Sala was also a musician. KSA\u2019s first language is Music; his second, Yor\u00f9b\u00e1; his third, English; and his fourth, a certain visual verve. It is no surprise that Sunny Ade had his own groupies, just as The Beatles did, just as The Rolling Stones, just as The Beach Boys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But King Sunny Ade and His African Beats were never just about besotted women, adoring crowds or irresistible presentation. There was always a core that the dance steps and the lights barely touched. To really understand the man and his music, one has to have an understanding of the world in which his ideas and ideals were formed. A world at once physical and spiritual\u2014the food and drinks, the apparels\u2014indeed every element required for psychic and physical sustenance is accounted for in that milieu. KSA\u2019s is a world of ancestors and the unborn; a world in which the rites of passage\u2014from boyhood to manhood, girlhood to womanhood\u2014are encoded and embedded in the music and songs of the people. KSA chose his path at age 16, putting all his savings into the purchase of a box guitar; and he\u2019s never looked back. He taught himself to play the instrument without picks, his right thumb now forever imprinted by guitar strings, his ears attuned to their frequencies. Being differently dog-eared in his self-taught school of music, there are pictures of a young KSA listening with utter concentration and seriousness to the sound emitted by his guitar as he practiced. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He was no doubt influenced by musicians in the Juju and Highlife genres \u2013 Ayinde Bakare, Victor Olaiya, Tunde Nightingale, Seni Tejuoso, Fatai Rolling Dollar, J.O Araba; not forgetting I.K. Dairo and his Ijesa precursor, iGlory. Notwithstanding the influences, KSA went into the soundforge<\/em> and didn\u2019t reemerge until his distinct Juju sound had been hammered out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
King Sunny Ade has said in various interviews that his music draws from Yoruba ritual tradition (the shrines) and rhetorical practices, from wordplay and wordploy<\/em>. Take his long play album, \u00d2g\u00fan<\/em>, consisting mostly of chants, as well as various other devices such as the truism, the pun, and the double entendre<\/em>. Quite apart from the ample panegyric to the demiurge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The maestro and his technique<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
KSA is a master of tempo. If Eri Okan<\/em> is on one end of his musical spectrum, his rendition of Kini Mba Ro\/Easy Motion Tourist<\/em> is on the other. His metronomic measure naturally maps his growth and musical maturity. Young KSA was partial to faster beats, the grand elder KSA leans towards softer, slower beats. Growing with his patrons in age and influence, his sense of occasion is flawless. For those that witnessed the command performance that President Olusegun Obasanjo laid on for visiting President Bill Clinton in year 2000, one that KSA anchored with a particularly voluptuous rendition of Easy Motion Tourist<\/em>, the rapture on the face of the American leader as he took the dance floor was genuine. It was on this occasion that it dawned on some of us that Clinton can really, really dance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From its beginnings, Juju music has relied heavily on intricate guitar lines in conversation with talking drums, tambourines, s\u1eb9\u0300k\u1eb9\u0300r\u1eb9\u0300 and vocal harmonies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Between 1963 and 1973, KSA transitioned from the box guitar to the electric guitar. His decision to not adopt the plectra in plucking the strings was something he had in common with many other Nigerian musicians of the time. As though adopting the pick might get in the way of his reputation as the \u201c\u00e0nj\u1ecd\u0300n\u00fa t\u00ed n ta w\u00e1y\u00e0\u201d (the genius that plucks\/trades strings). He wanted a direct connection with the string and has not once expressed regret at his callused right thumb. That said, his refusal of one aid was by no means a rejection of other means of strengthening his musical output. By 1982, a technological choice in aid of his sound proved to be a force multiplier for the instrumental clarity of his band. It also charted a new path for Juju music, with reduced background noise, allowing all the elements\u2014percussive, string and vocal\u2014to shine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first KSA record to be mastered using Dolby Noise Reduction technology was Juju Music<\/em> (1982), a watershed of the genre. It is worth noting that the Synchro System album of 1983 was a reworking of the earlier Synchro System Movement originally recorded in 1974. The reboot was aimed at an international audience and it did not fail, earning King Sunny Ade his first Grammy nomination in 1984. Always distinctive, the world-conquering Juju sound was, for the first time, available on international flights (KLM was an early champion of KSA), as part of the World Music audio loop. Other Juju artists would soon get in the Dolby Noise Reduction line, hearing for themselves the huge qualitative leap in the sound. KSA can be credited with pointing the way for others in diverse genres across West Africa. Among these were Salif Keita, Youssou N\u2019Dour and others who would become big players in the World Music category.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
1983\u2014the year King Sunny Ade and His African Beats embarked on their historic tour of the United States\u2014was an interesting one on the global music scene. The Police released Synchronicities<\/em>, the last album of the rock group that had Sting as its frontman. The British Pop group Culture Club released their monster hit, Karma Chameleon<\/em>. And it was the year a Nigerian musician spent 29 incredible weeks on the US charts. No mean feat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A king\u2019s game theory <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
K\u00f3\u0144k\u00f3 jabele, k\u00e1luk\u00fa l\u00f3 m\u00ed \u1e63e t\u00ecr\u1eb9<\/em>\u2026 so goes a coda in one of KSA\u2019s most beloved songs\u2014a musical exposition of his game theory. Placed side by side with mathematically rigorous theorems of game theory such as by the inimitable John Nash, Nobel laureate in Economics, the intersections are striking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For KSA, an individual\u2019s strategy is a \u2018best response\u2019 to the strategies of everyone else. For Nash, it is very much the same. What\u2019s more, this is true whether the individuals are allied or in competition. And though the veritable Gayatri Spivak warns against trying to live the theory, KSA has lived his musical game theory into some splendid outcomes. Through the traditions he draws from, and by his individual talent, he has shown that the skies are wide enough for all manner of birds to fly \u2013 kites, eagles, guinea fowl, geese, black swans, even bats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a poignant interview with Molara Wood published in 2004, KSA recalled his relationship with Afrobeat legend Fela Anikulapo Kuti. KSA noted that Fela was a genius through whose music one could recognize Nigeria; and he expressed the hope that his own music could also be a compass whose true north would be Nigeria. This is another aspect of what I like to call KSA\u2019s game theory. Having lived in the limelight while doing his fair share of the work to give Juju artists a decent living from their earnings, the maestro set his sights on something more ethereal, as true musicians should.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But perhaps the ace up his musical sleeve is his ability to set the pace. KSA celebrated his first decade as a recording artist with a double album, 10th Anniversary Special Vols. 9 & 10<\/em>, released in 1973. Here was a musical diarist, celebrating audiences from his roots in Ondo Town and all through West Africa. In truth, his influence was already spreading into Central Africa, from the Cameroons to The Congo. That first decade saw raw KSA performances heavy on Yoruba idioms\/chants\/incantations\/truisms captured by analog studios but mostly by live audiences. Ibi W\u1ecdn R\u00ed O<\/em> is an example of chant\/incantation\/acapella vocals (as found among acolytes of the \u00d2g\u00fan deity) fused with modern electronic instruments and vocal harmonies. The song points to its cultural source in the intro and closing lines. Such works, emblematic of KSA\u2019s first decade, channel the priests of his local shrines. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In keeping with Yoruba tradition, the first decade also saw KSA performing \u00ecj\u00fab\u00e0, paying homage to masters past and present. In later years, other musicians would pay obeisance to him too. Fuji maestro Sikiru Ayinde Barrister riffed on T\u1eb9n\u00ed B\u1eb9\u0301gi L\u00f3j\u00f9<\/em>, from Vol. 10<\/em>, in a tribute titled, Senior Leader King Sunny Ade<\/em>, released in 1983. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
KSA\u2019s second decade saw him boldly experimenting with new instruments and collaborating with artists across genres (including Tony Allen and Manu Dibango). It was the era of FESTAC \u201977, the epochal event where KSA performed and connected with a literal host of musicians of African descent. The roster of collaborators wasn\u2019t limited to Africans \u2013 Paul Meissonnier, Godwin Logie and Paul \u2018Groucho\u2019 Smykle would all leave their mark on Sunny Ade\u2019s music around this time. The KSA of this period is less given to the homage\/hommage, leaning more into asserting his singular talent, with the accompaniment of his band. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The sound in the next decade pointed to a more expansive and laicized KSA (remarkable, for a professed \u00d2g\u00fan devotee), his musical ecumenism and sonic syncretism in full flow. In came the celebrated collaborations with Onyeka Onwenu (Choices<\/em> and Wait for Me<\/em>). That experimental leap inflects KSA\u2019s musical production right up to the present. In Arts of Being Yoruba<\/em>, Adeleke Adeeko noted that other Yoruba artists have also done this, \u00d2g\u00fandare Foyanmu being a case in point. Foyanmu\u2014steeped as he was in the Ijala chant tradition of the hunters guild\u2014nonetheless waxed lyrical about the Christian God, using Ijala. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The fourth decade found Sunny Ad\u00e9 keeping up with social and communal developments, like most Yor\u00f9b\u00e1 music artists do. He sang to mark the transition of important personages, the elevation of new kings and chiefs, performing at the events of captains of industry and other major figures. While the older, laid-back Lagos\/Ogun\/Oyo elites stuck to the classic Juju sounds of Ebenezer Obey, younger upwardly mobile crowds went with the more energetic and fast-paced Afro-Juju of Shina Peters. Sunny, to his credit, picked a boulder and stood somewhere in the middle of the music stream. He kept his home base onside, with patrons like Elizade and eastern Yoruba music fans always behind him. At any rate, the skies were wide enough to accommodate all; and, in any case,  KSA\u2019s music was now global. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
KSA and his contribution to Nigerian jurisprudence<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
A true artist and a consummate businessman, KSA fought for the control of his intellectual property early in his career. In his corner was the legendary lawyer, Gani Fawehinmi.  Sunday Adeniyi v. Chief Bolarinwa Abioro\u2014decided in 1975 by Justice L.J. Dosunmu (known in legal citations as Dosunmu J.\u2014 brought the law of contract and copyright law to the fore in Nigerian jurisprudence. The interplay of private law (contract) and public law (copyright) came up for close interrogation, and the result of the verdict is a much fairer music publishing landscape in the country today.  KSA had signed an onerous contract with Abioro\u2019s African Songs Limited (ASL), but later kicked against an arrangement that paid him and his band only 20 kobo (or 3.33%) out of every N6.00 album sold. The verdict by Dosunmu J. ought to be required reading for every judge at the Federal High Court in Nigeria, as well as students of the law of contract. KSA\u2019s sense of the feud is worthy of remark. Once, as a dare to music rivals wanting to join issues with him, he deployed the Yoruba idiom: \u201cK\u00e1 j\u1ecd gb\u00e9 p\u1eb9\u0301r\u1eb9\u0301gi kan\u00e1\u201d. That legume, no longer in fashion, is typically cooked overnight. This was young KSA\u2019s way of saying: If you don\u2019t want a vendetta, don\u2019t throw down the gauntlet<\/em>. That this is no mere rhetoric is reflected in the fact that, up till 2017, his tiff with ASL was in the appellate court system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His musicianship and the inner lives of children<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
KSA wasn\u2019t all serious business all the time. Juju music is three parts fun out of four. For some reason, his artistry held a special appeal for children. It certainly marked some of us whose coming of age had Juju music as one of the main soundtracks. King Sunny Ade\u2019s musicianship was a passage, almost a ritual passage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
My earliest recollection of a critic\u2019s circle to which I belonged, had three of us as founding members: T\u00fand\u00e9 \u00c0j\u00e0y\u00ed-\u1ecc\u0300p\u1eb9, now an artist in his own right; G\u00f2k\u00e8 D\u00e1b\u00edr\u00ed, now a petroleum engineer in Scotland and me. Our school, Saint Andrews College Demonstration School in \u1ecc\u0300y\u1ecd\u0301 Town was something of a scholastic oddity. Without putting INTERNATIONAL in its name\u2014in the manner of educational institutions of today\u2019s Nigeria\u2014Saint Andrews was truly international, with Sierra Leonean, European, Egyptian, Pakistani, Indian, Sri Lankan (we said Ceylonese in those days) students, among others. As a result, those of us for whom Yor\u00f9b\u00e1 was our primary language of communication bonded during lunch breaks, where we would discuss the musical interludes on television as it was in 1978. G\u00f2k\u00e8, whose contemplative nature even as an eight-year-old boy made him lean towards Ebenezer Obey, stood in one corner, while I pitched my tent permanently in the Sunny Ade corner. Interestingly, the only true critic among us was T\u00fand\u00e9, then seven years old. His musical pendulum swung this way today and that way tomorrow. In one of his more astute comments during one of those critical sessions, he correctly lampooned my KSA fandom for being overly partial to the choreography rather than the music itself. And even now, in our fifties, T\u00fand\u00e9 still taunts me for substituting spectacle for sonic substance. The moral of the story, I think, is that these artists found their way into the inner lives of children, and that is something worth pondering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With adults, KSA has had to negotiate his place in the modern world with a certain savvy. As a proud son of Ondo, a city-state historically renowned for lookili, the canine culinary treat, for example, elderly KSA has toned down the cultural specifics in this respect. Not so in his younger years. The Ondo are not alone here; all over the world, people of various ethnicities have at different times in history fed on the domesticated wolf. Well, in Ondo, where \u00d2g\u00fan is still the patron deity in the common consciousness, folks put their town special on the front burner still, as they blast various Sunny Ade licks on the speakers.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now that advanced age compels his once nimble feet to rest awhile during live performances, we have come across some true gems of the kind of musicality and amity that KSA\u2019s Yoruba world furnishes. In one recent example, illustrating what the scholar, Akin Adesokan, terms \u201clive sampling\u201d in his book, Everything Is Sampled<\/em>, Queen Salawa \u00c0b\u1eb9\u0300n\u00ed\u2014whose original genre is Waka\u2014serenades KSA with samples of his songs rendered in a Waka medley. A seated KSA hands over the microphone to Queen \u00c0b\u1eb9\u0300n\u00ed who kicks the singing into a higher key, always only referring to the Juju music legend by his honorifics, Alade, Isola, and so on. And when the medley ends, KSA reciprocates, also only regaling the Queen with her honorifics. I am glad that these artists lived long enough to give us these live sample performances, unrehearsed. These are not \u2018duets\u2019 in the music industry sense. They are sui generis<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Age has indeed mellowed the maestro. The older King Sunny Ade, whose smiling face onstage is only rarely inflected with irritation at any mistake from his band members, wasn’t always so even-tempered. The younger maestro didn’t always suffer mid-performance errors gladly. The seriousness with which the King of World Beats practised with his band, the unforgiving nature of analog studio technology and the necessity of catching a subject\u2019s ears mid-panegyric made it so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The many colours of the songbird<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
KSA named and renamed his band several times over the course of his career. It was The Green Spots in 1966\/67, the name under which he recorded his early hits. The name changed to African Beats in the early 1970s, for commercial reasons. This is the name under which he attained international fame: King Sunny Ade and His African Beats. Another era brought another change of name: Golden Mercury. He subsequently renamed the band New African Beats. Who knows what he will cook up next?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
KSA is a visiting lecturer at the music departments of The Polytechnic, Ibadan; and at the Obafemi Awolowo University. He is a patron of the Musical Copyright Society of Nigeria (MCSN), and has served in many advisory roles over the years. It\u2019s all in line with the Yoruba model of stardom, which is for life and good behaviour. With a massively impressive haul of songs in tow, King Sunny Ade has attained both critical and commercial success in music, home and abroad. His place in the pantheon is assured. Let the good times continue to roll for the King of World Beats, whose spirit of joy and song continues to soar into his eighth decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Tade Ipadeola<\/strong> is a Nigerian poet, essayist, translator and lawyer. He writes in both Yoruba and English. He has published three volumes of poetry \u2013 A Time of Signs <\/em>(2000), The Rain Fardel<\/em> (2005) and The Sahara Testaments<\/em> (2013). His collection
of North American poems, Cold Brew<\/em>, is due for local release in February 2027.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Download as PDF On the second day of September 2026, the U.S. Mission in Nigeria, through their official X (formerly Twitter) handle, published a hashtag-led tribute to a historical signpost in US-Nigeria relations. For archival accuracy, the post in part:\u00a0 \u201c#ThisWeekinUSNigeriaHistory in 1983, America\u2019s Billboard 200 welcomed a groundbreaking sound from Nigeria: King Sunny Ad\u00e9\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":2092,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[773],"tags":[487,931,930,46,32,929],"coauthors":[301],"class_list":["post-2098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-profile","tag-black","tag-icon","tag-juju","tag-music","tag-nigeria","tag-sunny-ade"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n\u00a0The King of World Beats at 80 - Olongo Africa<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/the-king-of-world-beats-at-80-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"\u00a0The King of World Beats at 80 - Olongo Africa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Download as PDF On the second day of September 2026, the U.S. Mission in Nigeria, through their official X (formerly Twitter) handle, published a hashtag-led tribute to a historical signpost in US-Nigeria relations. For archival accuracy, the post in part:\u00a0 \u201c#ThisWeekinUSNigeriaHistory in 1983, America\u2019s Billboard 200 welcomed a groundbreaking sound from Nigeria: King Sunny Ad\u00e9\u2019s […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/the-king-of-world-beats-at-80-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Olongo Africa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-09-22T02:47:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-09-22T08:53:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/09\/White-Modern-Geometric-Corporate-Business-Card-3.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1050\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Tade Ipadeola\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Tade Ipadeola\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"15 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/olongoafrica.com\\\/the-king-of-world-beats-at-80-2\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/olongoafrica.com\\\/the-king-of-world-beats-at-80-2\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Salawu Olajide\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/olongoafrica.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/a05585217b63e8584013634b1d6426bc\"},\"headline\":\"\u00a0The King of World Beats at 80\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-09-22T02:47:56+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-09-22T08:53:12+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/olongoafrica.com\\\/the-king-of-world-beats-at-80-2\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":3360,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/olongoafrica.com\\\/the-king-of-world-beats-at-80-2\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/olongoafrica.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/sites\\\/3\\\/2026\\\/09\\\/White-Modern-Geometric-Corporate-Business-Card-3.png\",\"keywords\":[\"Black\",\"Icon\",\"Juju\",\"Music\",\"Nigeria\",\"Sunny Ade\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Profile\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/olongoafrica.com\\\/the-king-of-world-beats-at-80-2\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/olongoafrica.com\\\/the-king-of-world-beats-at-80-2\\\/\",\"name\":\"\u00a0The King of World Beats at 80 - 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Spaces"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"pdfprnt-buttons pdfprnt-buttons-post pdfprnt-top-left\"><a href=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/?after=2026-08-06T00%3A00%3A00&print=pdf#038;page=1&rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fposts\" class=\"pdfprnt-button pdfprnt-button-pdf\" target=\"_blank\"><span class=\"pdfprnt-button-title pdfprnt-button-pdf-title\">Download as PDF<\/span><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/?after=2026-08-06T00%3A00%3A00&print=print#038;page=1&rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fposts\" class=\"pdfprnt-button pdfprnt-button-print\" target=\"_blank\"><\/a><\/div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It is midnight in 2025. On my study desk are books strewn over: Binyanvanga Wainaina\u2019s <em>How To Write About Africa<\/em>; Arundhati Roy\u2019s <em>The God of Small Things; <\/em>James Baldwin\u2019s <em>The Fire Next Time; <\/em>Richard Powers\u2019 <em>Overstory<\/em>; Damon Galgut\u2019s <em>The Promise. <\/em>My lamp pours its incandescent yellow over these books, over my pencil holder stuffed with different kinds of pens, over my flowery-patterned tea cup swirling vapour. I study the lamp: the inside is streaked with rust, the gooseneck stooped further with age. But the light still shines. Effulgently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">My laptop screen is blank white. My mind is a fog. Sentences swirl and dissolve into nothingness. The spirit tries to will, until it doesn’t. The silence in my study is so taut, void of those wary shuffles His tip-toeing made when trying to watch me write. Months have sprawled by, but this insanity, this liminal space, renews itself. He is still here, but He is no longer here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In my mind\u2019s eye, Seepersad Naipaul appears in the pages of <em>Letters Between Father and Son<\/em>, writing from Trinidad to his son at Oxford, where Vidia had gone on a government scholarship. Seepersad was a writer himself, and he read his son\u2019s stories with the seriousness of a fellow writer. \u201cI have no doubt whatever that you will be a great writer,\u201d he wrote. I think of the fortune of being believed in this way. Of being given, by another person\u2019s faith, a little more courage to persevere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In her essay, <em>Some Seasons I Have Known<\/em>, Kemi Falodun writes: \u201cA thing falls apart to reveal whose labour pillared it.\u201d It is strange: this discovery of how much one has been watered by another person until the watering stops. What drought is this, what thirst is this, for a watering I shall no longer receive?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>\u2014<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On one of my sporadic WhatsApp calls with O O, we pontificate about our favourite books, trawl through our arid love lives, probe faith, and laugh at life. Before we end the call, O O asks me about my novel; I respond with a long sigh; I say I\u2019m trying hard; he says he cannot wait anyway; I ask about his; he snorts and says his parents are already asking-asking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In that instant, seized by a wistful sadness, I think of Him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">My earliest memories of Him are of coloured pens and sketch pads: Him bringing home books for me, Him listening as I read aloud, Him laughing at the strange stories I made up and asking me to tell them again. There were Enid Blyton and Lewis Carroll, folklore and the stories of his boyhood re-spun for me until they became mine too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I am six when <em>Fellow Jesus <\/em>comes to me: in this story, the child is an unheard Narcissus; one day the world is suspended in its bustle, and ends; the child finds out he is Jesus; his friends and siblings who have wronged him grovel before him\u2014this is the end of the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I show Him these pages of jagged handwriting and hasty scrawlings of <em>Boy cum Jesus<\/em>, washed with gleeful pride; together we read them, pointing at sentences, at drawings. The next day, He brings me a pack of pencils, coloured pens, and a sketchpad, and says, \u201cKeep writing and keep showing me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I am eight in Primary Four when Mrs. Evelyn says I write the best composition essays in class. Mrs. Evelyn, the Ghanaian teacher who <em>eh<\/em>s and <em>ah<\/em>s her <em>ors<\/em>. Cherch. Werk. Brathar. Sisteh. Ancle. Mathar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On the chalkboard, she writes: Write to your father telling him how your holiday went; Write an essay that ends with All That Glitters Is Not Gold; You just moved to a new city, write a letter to your best friend telling him about what you like and what you miss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I score 9 out of 10 in most, the missing mark almost always for uneven punctuation here and there. Mrs. Evelyn tells Him I am bad at Math but unparalleled at English; she says to watch my performance in each assessment. To <em>do something about<\/em> <em>that math.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Mr. Obodo\u2014the wispy-bearded Lesson Teacher who taught my sisters Quadratic Equation and prepared my brother for Tertiary Exams\u2014resumes teaching me Math. Fraction. Algebra. Decimals. Ratio (which I call Rat Ten).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He\u2019s progressing so slowly, Mr. Obodo tells Him, shaking his head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He says, That\u2019s not what he likes, but let us keep trying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s the morning of Christmas Eve and He arrives home with a haul of second-hand books. Into The Water. Diary of A Wimpy Kid. Anne Frank. Harry Potter and the Philosopher\u2019s Stone. Chronicles of Narnia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When Ogbuefi and I were clearing some cars at the port, we found these books. Two women wanted to share them between themselves, but I told them I was taking them home for my son. They let me have them, He says to me as I inhale the must of their pages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Later, I will read Diary of a Wimpy Kid, struck by how Jeff Kinney can make the small, absurd dramas of boyhood feel worthy of a book. It will occur to me for the first time that stories do not always have to begin with the extraordinary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s prefectship election season. N and I are running for the Deputy Head Boy position. Before my manifesto interview, I rehearse and study hard for probable questions: current affairs, school history, leadership techniques. I memorize quotes from Henry David Thoreau. On the D-day, in the presence of stern-faced teachers and senior staff, I begin my speech, responding to questions flung at me, dissecting each one carefully.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Weeks later, when prefects are announced, I am not the Deputy Head Boy. N is. My stomach clutches; I can scarcely breathe. The sound of clapping and cheering seems to me like scraping fingers on a chalkboard. Like dragging wooden desks on terrazos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Later, the history teacher says, Oh, you\u2019re really smart but they think you’re so soft for the role.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When I return home crying that evening, He holds me to his chest saying Ndo, Ndo. Don’t mind them. When I am done crying but still gloomy, He says, You can make this a story like your other stories. Write about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In 2018 He comes home from work with a lamp. A shiny black lamp that blazes yellow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">No more rechargeable lanterns; use this instead for your night reading and writing, He tells me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">2019. Adichie is my new fixation. The new recommendation from Ms. Oge, my literature teacher in senior school. Adichie\u2019s sentences are predominantly long, winding, crisp. Her stories are saying something I recognize but cannot name. Months before, He and I were walking past bookshops, looking for <em>Purple Hibiscus<\/em>, until we found a smiling man who had the last copy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I watch her interviews from time to time. In one, she speaks about the danger of a single story, about the violence of allowing one account of a people to harden into the account of who they are. I am in love with that eloquent Nigerian contralto with which she speaks. I try to speak like her. At night, I conjure interviews in my head. On some nights He catches me talking to myself, he sniggers. He says don’t worry you’ll be like her. Even better. Even bigger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the following weeks, each trip to the bookshop with Him will introduce me to Achebe, Nwapa, Soyinka, Cole, Wainaina, Ekwensi, Emecheta, Okri, and so on. My own people. Slowly, my sensibilities will begin to resemble theirs, as Blyton and Carroll quietly take their leave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s early 2020, and the pandemic has shut us off from the rest of the world. I am reading and writing. More than ever. He stores packs of Lipton and mint gums in my study.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For night reading and writing. From time to time He tiptoes into my study, watching me, saying well done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the mornings I wake up in my room, swaddled in my blanket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You fell asleep while writing, so I carried you to the room and covered you, He says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Each publication comes with a cheer: Nwak\u1ecbbeya, no one can do it like you. This is great work. What does <em>punctilious<\/em> mean. \u1eca na-as\u1ee5 nnukwu Bekee!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When I win a prize, He shares my work with all his friends; He says, Oh I’m proud, so proud. My son is a writer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It is mid-2023, and I am working on a short story about Biafra. One evening, I ask Him, Can you tell me what happened in Ibadan before your father took you guys to Enugu when the war began?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ah, I have a meeting tomorrow. I won\u2019t be home, He says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The next morning, He is seated on the raven three-seater settee. I\u2019m staying back because of you. Sit down. Let me tell you the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Christmas in 2023. He is supine on the hospital bed. Nearly lifeless. Before the doctor says it, I know that the stroke has permanently altered him, that things are taking new shapes, bending into new forms. He will now live in the orbit of his senses, largely oblivious to the external world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It is 2025, and my days are blackened with episodes. Here is a picture: a little boy in the dark, looking for his father, weeping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I yearn for the Vast, Immense Yesterday. This ground I walk on is now unsteady, filled with stumbling blocks. Memorying is my only solace, but I fail sometimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As I watch the bent gooseneck of the lamp in my study, somewhere in my head, He is saying, Keep writing and keep showing me. And I think to myself: but I must try to write, in this new life, without Him holding my hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The lamp still shines. I begin a sentence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" \/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Chinonso Nzeh<\/strong> is Igbo first, then a creative writer and photojournalist. His work explores the intricacies of the human condition and has appeared or is forthcoming in <em>Evergreen Review, Isele Magazine, Agbow\u00f3, The Shallow Tales Review, Ibadan Arts, Mar\u00f3k\u00f3 Journal of African Poetry, Bounce Net, Witsprout Anthology, Sevhage Anthology<\/em>, and elsewhere. He is a prose reader at Beaver Magazine and an editorial assistant at Black Boy Review. In 2023, his essay The Slipping Away won the Isele Prize for Nonfiction. In 2024, he was a runner-up for the Sevhage Prize for Nonfiction. He is a law undergraduate at the University of Lagos.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Download as PDF It is midnight in 2025. On my study desk are books strewn over: Binyanvanga Wainaina\u2019s How To Write About Africa; Arundhati Roy\u2019s The God of Small Things; James Baldwin\u2019s The Fire Next Time; Richard Powers\u2019 Overstory; Damon Galgut\u2019s The Promise. My lamp pours its incandescent yellow over these books, over my pencil […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":2087,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[24],"tags":[48,240,478,32],"coauthors":[927],"class_list":["post-2083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-litpub","tag-family","tag-life","tag-memories","tag-nigeria"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Liminal Spaces - Olongo Africa<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/liminal-spaces\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Liminal Spaces - Olongo Africa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Download as PDF It is midnight in 2025. On my study desk are books strewn over: Binyanvanga Wainaina\u2019s How To Write About Africa; Arundhati Roy\u2019s The God of Small Things; James Baldwin\u2019s The Fire Next Time; Richard Powers\u2019 Overstory; Damon Galgut\u2019s The Promise. 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On my study desk are books strewn over: Binyanvanga Wainaina\u2019s How To Write About Africa; Arundhati Roy\u2019s The God of Small Things; James Baldwin\u2019s The Fire Next Time; Richard Powers\u2019 Overstory; Damon Galgut\u2019s The Promise. 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“Influence”: The Many Lives of Fuji in Afrobeats"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"pdfprnt-buttons pdfprnt-buttons-post pdfprnt-top-left\"><a href=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/?after=2026-08-06T00%3A00%3A00&print=pdf#038;page=1&rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fposts\" class=\"pdfprnt-button pdfprnt-button-pdf\" target=\"_blank\"><span class=\"pdfprnt-button-title pdfprnt-button-pdf-title\">Download as PDF<\/span><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/?after=2026-08-06T00%3A00%3A00&print=print#038;page=1&rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fposts\" class=\"pdfprnt-button pdfprnt-button-print\" target=\"_blank\"><\/a><\/div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In 2024, Asake released <em>Active<\/em>, one of the standout tracks from <em>Lungu Boy<\/em>. For many listeners, it was another demonstration of the sonic confidence that has come to define his music: log drums colliding with layered percussion, clipped chants giving way to melodic refrains, and a vocal performance that oscillates between swagger and supplication. Yet for others, particularly those who grew up within earshot of Nigeria’s southwestern musical traditions, <em>Active<\/em> carried a different kind of familiarity. Beneath the contemporary production was the unmistakable echo of another era. Adewale Ayuba’s voice, first immortalised in <em>Bubble<\/em> more than three decades earlier, resurfaced not as a nostalgic relic but as an active participant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It is tempting to describe moments like this with the convenient language of “influence.” We often say that Fuji influenced Afrobeats in much the same way that American soul influenced hip-hop or Jamaican dancehall shaped reggaeton. The word is comfortable because it asks very little of us. It suggests a vague inheritance, a stylistic resemblance that somehow survives the passing of time. But influence is an incomplete description for what is happening here. It tells us that one genre came before another, yet leaves unanswered the more interesting question: how does a musical tradition remain alive across generations?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Following a lineage that connects<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=wuYny56516U&list=RDwuYny56516U&start_radio=1\"> Adewale Ayuba’s <em>Bubble<\/em><\/a> (1991), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=bglVTDrbEIg&list=RDbglVTDrbEIg&start_radio=1\">Jazzman Olofin’s <em>Raise da Roof<\/em><\/a> (2004), and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=JRF_sdTXpGw&list=RDJRF_sdTXpGw&start_radio=1\">Asake’s <em>Active<\/em><\/a> (2024), this essay argues that such moments are better understood not as isolated acts of borrowing but as evidence of cultural transmission. Rather than merely asking whether Afrobeats has been influenced by Fuji, we should also ask how Fuji continues to move through contemporary Nigerian music. This movement seems to occur across three interconnected pathways: performance, collaboration and archival transmission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong><em>Fuji Was Never Meant to Stand Still<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One enduring misconception about Fuji is that it belongs to the past. One school of thought even classifies the genre as <a href=\"https:\/\/guardian.ng\/saturday-magazine\/weekend-beats\/why-fuji-music-is-a-dying-genre-emmanuel-daraloye\/\">dying<\/a>. Such a narrative is convenient, but it might misunderstand both Fuji’s history and the nature of popular music itself. Fuji has not survived thus far because it resists change. It survives because change has always been part of its identity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Fuji emerged in the late twentieth century from <em>w\u00e9r\u00e9<\/em>, the devotional music performed by Yoruba Muslim youths during Ramadan. These processions were deeply communal, their chants carrying through neighbourhood streets before dawn to awaken people for <em>sahur<\/em>, the pre-fast meal. Although rooted in religious practice, <em>w\u00e9r\u00e9<\/em> was never musically static. Performers constantly adjusted rhythms, vocal styles and lyrical content to suit changing audiences and urban environments. When S\u00edk\u00edr\u00f9 \u00c0y\u00ecnd\u00e9 Barrister transformed these traditions into what became known as Fuji in the late 1960s, he did not simply preserve an older musical form. He reimagined it for the rapidly modernising social landscape of Lagos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Oladele Ayorinde argues in his<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1080\/17411912.2023.2260405\"> study of Barrister’s career<\/a> that Fuji should be understood as an ambitious project of genre-making rather than the continuation of a folk tradition. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=NGI-JP40uj4&pp=ygUXc2FoZWVkIGFkZXJpbnRvIG1yIGZ1amk%3D\">Saheed Aderinto\u2019s documentary<\/a> on the genre’s progenitor explores this intention in more detail. Barrister deliberately positioned Fuji as modern music, capable of competing with j\u00f9j\u00fa, highlife and other commercially successful genres that dominated Nigeria’s entertainment scene at the time. The genre’s identity was therefore built on experimentation. New instruments were introduced. Recording technologies were embraced. Performance practices evolved. Rather than threatening Fuji’s authenticity, these transformations became evidence of its vitality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote\"><blockquote><p><strong>The adaptability of Fuji extends beyond technology to performance itself. At the centre of Fuji lies a particular relationship between performer and audience. The singer is not merely delivering lyrics but directing social energy. <\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The adaptability of Fuji extends beyond technology to performance itself. At the centre of Fuji lies a particular relationship between performer and audience. The singer is not merely delivering lyrics but directing social energy. Through praise poetry, spontaneous improvisation and carefully timed vocal interventions, Fuji musicians acknowledge patrons, celebrate communal identities and maintain the emotional momentum of performance. This tradition draws heavily on <em>or\u00edk\u00ec<\/em>, the Yoruba practice of praise poetry that, as<a href=\"https:\/\/www.taylorfrancis.com\/chapters\/edit\/10.4324\/9781003142805-9\/or%C3%ADk%C3%AC-karin-barber\"> Karin Barber posits<\/a>, functions as both artistic expression and social action. To praise someone publicly is not simply to describe them; it is to affirm relationships, status and belonging within a community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This performative logic has proven remarkably portable. Even when contemporary artists no longer perform conventional <em>or\u00edk\u00ec<\/em>, many retain its underlying principles. The repeated invocation of names, neighbourhoods, affiliations and personal triumphs that characterises much of today’s Afrobeats echoes Fuji’s understanding that music is a social encounter before it is an aesthetic object. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Equally important is Fuji’s rhythmic architecture. The genre is propelled by dense layers of percussion that create movement without depending on harmonic complexity. The groove is cumulative, built through the gradual interaction of talking drums, <em>sakara<\/em>, <em>agidigbo<\/em>, <em>g\u00e1ngan<\/em> and other percussive textures. Rhythm functions less as accompaniment than as the organising principle around which vocals, improvisation and audience participation revolve. This emphasis on groove over harmonic progression remains one of the most recognisable threads connecting Fuji to many contemporary Afrobeats recordings, even when the instrumentation has changed notably.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Seen from this perspective, the relationship between Fuji and Afrobeats becomes less surprising. Rather than inheriting isolated stylistic features, Afrobeats inherits a philosophy of musical construction. It adopts Fuji’s understanding that songs are living performances capable of accommodating improvisation, collaboration and reinvention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong><em>Three Songs, Three Decades, One Conversation<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If Fuji’s resilience lies in its capacity for adaptation, then the most convincing evidence is not found in broad historical claims but in the lifespan of individual songs. Music carries memory in ways that history books rarely can. A rhythm, a vocal inflection or a familiar phrase can collapse decades into a single moment, allowing listeners to encounter the past without necessarily recognising it as history. The relationship between Adewale Ayuba’s <em>Bubble<\/em> (1991), Jazzman Olofin’s <em>Raise da Roof<\/em> (2004), and Asake’s <em>Active<\/em> (2024) offers precisely such a history. Taken together, these recordings reveal that Fuji’s afterlife in Afrobeats is neither incidental nor nostalgic. It is cumulative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The chronology itself is significant. <em>Bubble<\/em> belongs to a period when Fuji had firmly established itself as one of Nigeria’s dominant popular genres. <em>Raise da Roof<\/em> emerged at a time when Nigerian hip-hop and urban pop were beginning to reshape the country’s musical landscape, bringing together artists from previously distinct traditions. <em>Active<\/em>, released two decades later, arrived in an era when Afrobeats had become a global commercial force, sustained by streaming platforms and international audiences. On the surface, these songs belong to different musical worlds. Yet listening across them reveals an unbroken thread of cultural continuity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong><em>Bubble and the Performance of Musical Authority<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To understand the significance of <em>Bubble<\/em>, one must first recognise that Fuji has always been as much about performance as it is about sound. Unlike many studio-centred genres, Fuji developed within live performance cultures where the relationship between artist and audience remained central. Songs were rarely confined to concise radio-friendly formats. They unfolded over extended durations, allowing performers to improvise, acknowledge patrons, respond to audience reactions and gradually build rhythmic intensity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Adewale Ayuba’s performance on <em>Bubble<\/em> exemplifies this tradition. His voice does not simply carry melody; it commands attention. The song opens with an imperative: <em>“Listen attentively, I am going to Bonsue Fuji Chambers”<\/em>. Before a story is told or a melody unfolds, Ayuba establishes a hierarchy between performer and audience, asserting the authority that has long characterised Fuji performance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Melismatic vocal runs weave through dense percussion, praise-poetic passages interrupt linear narration, and chant-like declamations blur the boundary between singing and oratory. The music continually negotiates between individual virtuosity and collective participation. Listeners are not positioned as detached consumers but as active witnesses whose attention, acclaim and responses are integral to the performance itself. It is precisely this performative logic, more than any particular rhythmic or melodic feature, that later reappears in Afrobeats artists such as Asake, demonstrating how Fuji has been transmitted through embodied performance practices rather than merely through stylistic imitation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong><em>Raise da Roof and the Politics of Collaboration<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By the early 2000s, Nigeria’s musical landscape was changing rapidly. Hip-hop, R&B and urban pop increasingly dominated commercial attention, particularly among younger listeners. It would have been easy for Fuji to retreat into its established audience. Instead, it entered into conversation with emerging genres. One of the first notable collaborations was Pasuma\u2019s collaboration with The Remedies on Jealousy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jazzman Olofin’s <em>Raise da Roof<\/em>, featuring Adewale Ayuba, is another notable marker of this transitional moment. The collaboration was more than a guest appearance; it represented a meeting between two musical ecosystems. Rather than asking Fuji to imitate hip-hop or requiring hip-hop to imitate Fuji, the song allowed each tradition to retain its own identity while discovering new points of convergence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ayuba’s contribution functions as both sound and symbol. His unmistakable vocal presence immediately carries the authority of Fuji into an urban pop context. Listeners familiar with the genre recognise not only his voice but the performance tradition it represents. His appearance legitimises the collaboration without overwhelming it, demonstrating that continuity can be achieved through dialogue rather than absolute assimilation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In retrospect, one could posit that <em>Raise da Roof<\/em>, alongside a handful of other songs from the period, helped establish a pattern that has since become increasingly prominent in Nigerian popular music: The routine crossing of genre boundaries through collaborations. The fluidity noticed in most of these collaborations reflects the realities of Nigeria’s musical life, where genres have always been porous despite the industry’s tendency to classify them as distinct categories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong><em>Active and the Archive That Sings<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When <em>Active<\/em> appeared in 2024, many listeners immediately recognised Ayuba’s sampled vocal. Others simply experienced it as another compelling musical hook. Both responses are important because they reveal two different ways in which musical memory operates; as nostalgia for older audiences who recognise the source, and as a fresh introduction for younger audiences encountering it for the first time. After all, cultural inheritance does not depend on conscious recognition. A listener need not identify the historical source for that history to continue shaping the present.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sampling has often been discussed as a technical production technique or as a legal question concerning copyright and ownership. Yet it is equally a practice of historical imagination. In <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1080\/21674736.2025.2475625\"><em>Everything Is Sampled<\/em><\/a>, Akin Adesokan explores how African cultural production has long been shaped by the appropriation, adaptation and transformation of existing media forms. Sampling, from this perspective, is not merely the reuse of existing material but a means of placing different cultural moments in conversation. Every sample proposes a relationship between past and present. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In <em>Active<\/em>, Ayuba’s voice is not reproduced only as an act of nostalgia. It is recomposed, reorganised and integrated into a musical environment that belongs unmistakably to twenty-first-century Afrobeats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This transformation illustrates the profound effect of digital archives on cultural transmission. Earlier generations depended upon physical media, personal collections and live performance for access to musical history. Today’s producers inhabit an entirely different landscape. Vast catalogues of recorded music are instantly searchable, endlessly reproducible and technically malleable. Recordings no longer function merely as historical documents; they become raw material for new acts of creation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Active<\/em> demonstrates precisely this transformation. Ayuba’s voice is no longer confined to the historical moment in which it was first recorded. It acquires a second life within a global Afrobeats economy, reaching audiences who may never have knowingly listened to a Fuji album. The archive does not preserve the past unchanged; it enables the past to continue evolving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Taken individually, each of these songs tells a different story about Nigerian popular music. Together, they reveal something larger. <em>Bubble<\/em> preserves a performative tradition rooted in embodied musical practice. <em>Raise da Roof<\/em> shows how collaboration lets cultural knowledge move across genres. <em>Active<\/em> demonstrates how digital archives transform recorded sound into reusable cultural memory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong><em>The Fuji Transmission Model?<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For decades, discussions of African popular music have relied heavily on the language of influence. Mapping the trajectory from <em>Bubble<\/em> to <em>Raise da Roof<\/em> to  <em>Active<\/em> unravels where the language of “influence” finally reaches its limits. Influence suggests that one song leaves traces upon another. These recordings point instead to something more dynamic: a continuing process through which musical knowledge moves between bodies, collaborators and technologies. To understand that movement requires a different framework altogether, one that treats transmission, rather than influence, as the central story of how Fuji continues to shape the sound of contemporary Afrobeats.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"501\" height=\"334\" src=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/09\/image.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2071\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The model proposes that Fuji continues to shape contemporary Afrobeats through three interconnected pathways: <strong>performance transmission, collaborative transmission and archival transmission<\/strong>. These are not successive stages that replace one another. Instead, they operate together, overlapping and reinforcing each other as music moves through time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Taken together, these three pathways reveal why Fuji has remained one of the most enduring influences on contemporary Nigerian popular music. Performance ensures that embodied musical practices continue to circulate within communities. Collaboration enables those practices to migrate across genres and generations. Digital archives preserve earlier recordings while simultaneously making them available for creative reinvention. Each pathway performs a different function, yet none operates independently of the others. A sampled recording carries the memory of an earlier performance. A collaboration often introduces future archival material. Every live performance may eventually become tomorrow’s digital artefact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The question, then, is no longer whether Fuji influenced Afrobeats. The more revealing question is what this model of transmission tells us about African popular music more broadly. If Fuji has travelled so successfully across bodies, collaborations and archives, might the same mechanisms explain the afterlives of j\u00f9j\u00fa, highlife, ap\u00e1l\u00e0 or palm-wine music? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" \/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>\u2019Joba Ojelabi <\/strong>is a Nigerian poet, writer, cultural critic, and marketing communications professional. He is the author of <em>The Ones Before You<\/em>, a poetry collection exploring memory, identity, and the textures of contemporary African life. His essays and cultural criticism have appeared in <em>The Republic<\/em>, <em>The Lagos Review<\/em>, and elsewhere. His interests include popular music, human behaviour, cultural memory, cultural patterns, and media. He lives in Lagos, Nigeria.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Download as PDF In 2024, Asake released Active, one of the standout tracks from Lungu Boy. For many listeners, it was another demonstration of the sonic confidence that has come to define his music: log drums colliding with layered percussion, clipped chants giving way to melodic refrains, and a vocal performance that oscillates between swagger […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":2072,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[578],"tags":[696,924,347,923,925,32],"coauthors":[926],"class_list":["post-2070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essay","tag-afrobeats","tag-archives","tag-digital","tag-fuji","tag-influences","tag-nigeria"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Beyond "Influence": The Many Lives of Fuji in Afrobeats - Olongo Africa<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/beyond-influence-the-many-lives-of-fuji-in-afrobeats\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Beyond "Influence": The Many Lives of Fuji in Afrobeats - Olongo Africa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Download as PDF In 2024, Asake released Active, one of the standout tracks from Lungu Boy. 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York Black and African Literature Festival Returns to Harlem This September"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"pdfprnt-buttons pdfprnt-buttons-post pdfprnt-top-left\"><a href=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/?after=2026-08-06T00%3A00%3A00&print=pdf#038;page=1&rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fposts\" class=\"pdfprnt-button pdfprnt-button-pdf\" target=\"_blank\"><span class=\"pdfprnt-button-title pdfprnt-button-pdf-title\">Download as PDF<\/span><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/?after=2026-08-06T00%3A00%3A00&print=print#038;page=1&rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fposts\" class=\"pdfprnt-button pdfprnt-button-print\" target=\"_blank\"><\/a><\/div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">From September 18\u201320, 2026, the New York Black & African Literature Festival (NYBALF) returns to Harlem for its second edition. For a weekend of literature at close range, the Harlem Stage will bring together writers, poets, scholars, artists, and public thinkers from Africa, the Caribbean, the United States, and the wider Black diaspora.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This year\u2019s festival is organized around <em><strong>The Village in the Book: Literature and the Near<\/strong><\/em>, asking what happens when the large forces of history become intimate: when questions of migration, political power, language, race, environmental destruction, memory, and belonging are encountered through the neighborhood, the family, the body, the reader, and the places nearest to us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>\u201cNew York is global because so many worlds are brought into proximity here, without losing their particular histories,\u201d<\/em> said <a href=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/the-new-york-black-and-african-literature-festival-aims-to-be-a-bridge-conversation-with-efe-paul-azino\/\">Efe Paul-Azino<\/a>, founder and director of NYBALF. <em>\u201cThis year we are interested in what happens when the large forces of history, language, politics, migration, and social change become intimate in the places and relationships closest to us, and how literature can remain more accountable to the worlds from which it speaks.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The second edition builds on NYBALF\u2019s inaugural 2025 festival in Harlem while expanding the project\u2019s central proposition: that Black literature is not one conversation but a field of conversations between languages, cities, political histories, generations, and forms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">NYBALF also announces a new presenting partnership with Harlem Stage, bringing the festival\u2019s three-day weekend of literature, performance, and conversation to the historic Harlem Stage Gatehouse at 150 Convent Avenue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The collaboration places two institutions invested in Black artistic life into a shared Harlem frame: one with more than four decades of presenting and commissioning artists of color and a young literary festival built to create sustained encounters between writers and readers across the Black world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For more information, contact them at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.blackandafricanlitfestny.com\">www.blackandafricanlitfestny.com<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Download as PDF From September 18\u201320, 2026, the New York Black & African Literature Festival (NYBALF) returns to Harlem for its second edition. For a weekend of literature at close range, the Harlem Stage will bring together writers, poets, scholars, artists, and public thinkers from Africa, the Caribbean, the United States, and the wider Black […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":2068,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[364],"tags":[768],"coauthors":[842],"class_list":["post-2067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-olongo-press","tag-new-york-black-african-literature-festival"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>New York Black and African Literature Festival Returns to Harlem This September - Olongo Africa<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/new-york-black-and-african-literature-festival-returns-to-harlem-this-september\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"New York Black and African Literature Festival Returns to Harlem This September - Olongo Africa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Download as PDF From September 18\u201320, 2026, the New York Black & African Literature Festival (NYBALF) returns to Harlem for its second edition. 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Flora’s Love Colony"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"pdfprnt-buttons pdfprnt-buttons-post pdfprnt-top-left\"><a href=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/?after=2026-08-06T00%3A00%3A00&print=pdf#038;page=1&rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fposts\" class=\"pdfprnt-button pdfprnt-button-pdf\" target=\"_blank\"><span class=\"pdfprnt-button-title pdfprnt-button-pdf-title\">Download as PDF<\/span><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/?after=2026-08-06T00%3A00%3A00&print=print#038;page=1&rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fposts\" class=\"pdfprnt-button pdfprnt-button-print\" target=\"_blank\"><\/a><\/div>\n<pre class=\"wp-block-verse\"><strong>Opobo, Notebook Island<\/strong><br><br>In the beginning was the rafting, too, before the empty ships made of conquest arrived at <br>the shore where Pepple was the king, where the world was one world, as soft as silk <br>moving the air. We, the sea-dwellers<br>were capable of love in the way the waters flow endlessly on their own axis. We<br> often look at the palaces that light the opposite beach, with sea-white eyes, the <br>abundance of literate fishermen, the scent in living the present, the African sail <br>smelling <br>of good history. We know history not read<br>in classrooms that fall asleep in the dim lights & are forgotten. Jaja didn\u2019t forget <br>this.<br>He was born in a boat to row the island he was given as a piece of gold. He played<br> politics with<br>joysticks & hollies, a flight of the actuality of dreams.<br><br>He stepped on the oceanfront to meet the Royal Niger Company. Neither handshake nor did <br>he look<br>in the faces of those who came with chains to lift his place of birth into a cargo. <br>Where he stood was where the Old Harbor was built, where he fought, valiantly, <br>against the things we were not taught<br>in school. How he sold as captives the sons of the man who raised him on the bay he <br>was captured. How he suffered the waters which surrounded his obduracy, his <br>love for the Englishmen seen when he looked at the post-colonial image <br>of himself in a mirror.<br><br><br><br><strong>Sea, Voyage, Love<\/strong><br>History is pre-colonial Britain, Nigerians in a room lit with oblivion. We, <br>the Queen & I, are holding on to the stern of the ship<br>going back to the times that were Noachian. I am headed to the ark, she, as<br> royal, faced heaven. The dove on the rings on her fingers,<br>laying as the turtles do, the eggs that will hatch the empires made of the golden <br>lights. I, in the dark belly of the blue whale plowing the ocean, deliberate as a <br>man stuck on his own political waters, muddling the depth of the small streams <br>rigging his own dreams. The man arrived at the<br>New Elmina Fishing Harbor, in 2030, in the likeness of skyscrapers built with tax-<br>payers money.<br>A crowd of emigrants, American, embodied the poetry of the sea, leaving. I wanted it <br>too. I wanted the big fishes to spurt me on shores that are not shores, they are the <br>houses in Tenerife in which Jaja was once a slave, the king of Spain bent under<br>his obeahs, this love was all he had to give. Worship.<br><br><br><strong>First Falls<\/strong><br>It started with the house by the shore,<br>the coming of the ship bound for wreckage, the arrival of Flora, her <br>childless looks, <br>the green end of the year, the light of conquest which signified love. In the <br>garden, man is given dominion over the Niger. I am less of a man.<br><br>I picked myself up & walked out of the river<br><\/pre>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" \/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tares Oburumu<\/strong> is the author of <em>Flora’s Love Colony<\/em>, which is shortlisted for the 2026 The Nigeria Prize for Literature.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Download as PDF Opobo, Notebook IslandIn the beginning was the rafting, too, before the empty ships made of conquest arrived at the shore where Pepple was the king, where the world was one world, as soft as silk moving the air. We, the sea-dwellerswere capable of love in the way the waters flow endlessly on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":2062,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[24],"tags":[81,921,32,365,26],"coauthors":[922],"class_list":["post-2059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-litpub","tag-crisis","tag-envrionment","tag-nigeria","tag-nlng","tag-poetry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Excerpts: Flora's Love Colony - Olongo Africa<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/excerpts-floras-love-colony\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Excerpts: Flora's Love Colony - Olongo Africa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Download as PDF Opobo, Notebook IslandIn the beginning was the rafting, too, before the empty ships made of conquest arrived at the shore where Pepple was the king, where the world was one world, as soft as silk moving the air. We, the sea-dwellerswere capable of love in the way the waters flow endlessly on […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/excerpts-floras-love-colony\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Olongo Africa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-09-03T23:10:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-09-03T23:10:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/09\/White-Modern-Geometric-Corporate-Business-Card-1.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1050\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Tares Oburumu\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Tares Oburumu\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/olongoafrica.com\\\/excerpts-floras-love-colony\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/olongoafrica.com\\\/excerpts-floras-love-colony\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Salawu Olajide\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/olongoafrica.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/a05585217b63e8584013634b1d6426bc\"},\"headline\":\"Excerpts: Flora’s Love Colony\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-09-03T23:10:09+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-09-03T23:10:11+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/olongoafrica.com\\\/excerpts-floras-love-colony\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":23,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/olongoafrica.com\\\/excerpts-floras-love-colony\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/olongoafrica.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/sites\\\/3\\\/2026\\\/09\\\/White-Modern-Geometric-Corporate-Business-Card-1.png\",\"keywords\":[\"Crisis\",\"Envrionment\",\"Nigeria\",\"NLNG\",\"Poetry\"],\"articleSection\":[\"LitPub\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/olongoafrica.com\\\/excerpts-floras-love-colony\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/olongoafrica.com\\\/excerpts-floras-love-colony\\\/\",\"name\":\"Excerpts: Flora's Love Colony - 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Release: The New Anthology of Young African and African American Poetry"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"pdfprnt-buttons pdfprnt-buttons-post pdfprnt-top-left\"><a href=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/?after=2026-08-06T00%3A00%3A00&print=pdf#038;page=1&rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fposts\" class=\"pdfprnt-button pdfprnt-button-pdf\" target=\"_blank\"><span class=\"pdfprnt-button-title pdfprnt-button-pdf-title\">Download as PDF<\/span><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/?after=2026-08-06T00%3A00%3A00&print=print#038;page=1&rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fposts\" class=\"pdfprnt-button pdfprnt-button-print\" target=\"_blank\"><\/a><\/div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">OlongoAfrica Press is pleased to announce the publication of<em> The New Anthology of Young African and African American Poetry<\/em>, a collection that galvanizes emerging poets from Africa and the African American community\/diaspora in a shared literary space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Since its inception, OlongoAfrica has recorded different literary successes and publications of new books as part of its vision in promoting African literatures and cultures. This includes a new edition of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/African-Abroad-Annotated-Olabisi-Ajala\/dp\/B0BMDKMQGB\/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=an+african+abroad&qid=1668625536&sr=8-1\"><em>An African Abroad<\/em><\/a>, the terrific travelogue of <em>Olabisi Ajala<\/em>, OlongoAfrica Multilingual Anthologies <a href=\"https:\/\/lingua.olongoafrica.com\/\">Vol. 1<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/lingua.olongoafrica.com\/\">Vol. 2<\/a>.  In 2026, we began another literary initiative of chapbook series for young African writers.  <em>The New Anthology of Young African and African American Poetry<\/em> is our inaugural chapbook for the series to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u200b Edited by Prosper Ifeanyi and Abdulkareem Abdulkareem, this anthology centers the diverse and multifaceted experiences, histories, identities, language, and imaginative world of young Black poets in the contemporary world. Featuring writers from the African continent and its diaspora alongside African American poets, the collection explores the connections and tensions that shape Black identity across geographical and cultural boundaries. In lieu of highlighting Africa and African America as separate literary traditions, the anthology presents an overlapping sphere of histories of migration, memory, race, displacement, belonging, resistance, and cultural inheritance .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u200b The project crystallizes as a desire to amplify young voices and challenge the limited ways African and African American literary traditions are often positioned in relation to one another. Through its range of poetic styles and perspectives, the anthology demonstrates the vitality and complexity of contemporary Black poetics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u200b OlongoAfrica Press presents <em>The New Anthology of Young African and African American Poetry<\/em> as a new circuit in new-generation poetic experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Download the book <a href=\"https:\/\/drive.google.com\/file\/d\/1-Waum2B6_EXD4IgwyFSMSXwJpT2T1TT3\/view?usp=sharing\" id=\"https:\/\/drive.google.com\/file\/d\/1-Waum2B6_EXD4IgwyFSMSXwJpT2T1TT3\/view?usp=sharing\">here<\/a> and an ePub version <a href=\"https:\/\/drive.google.com\/file\/d\/1C6qab7q3oVKNaaMW46xurGek4li2k_Y8\/view?usp=sharing\" id=\"https:\/\/drive.google.com\/file\/d\/1C6qab7q3oVKNaaMW46xurGek4li2k_Y8\/view?usp=sharing\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Download as PDF OlongoAfrica Press is pleased to announce the publication of The New Anthology of Young African and African American Poetry, a collection that galvanizes emerging poets from Africa and the African American community\/diaspora in a shared literary space. Since its inception, OlongoAfrica has recorded different literary successes and publications of new books as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":2056,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[364],"tags":[51,669,487,920,95,26],"coauthors":[842],"class_list":["post-2053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-olongo-press","tag-africa","tag-anthology","tag-black","tag-chapbook","tag-olongoafrica","tag-poetry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>\u00a0Press Release: The New Anthology of Young African and African American Poetry - Olongo Africa<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/press-release-the-new-anthology-of-young-african-and-african-american-poetry\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"\u00a0Press Release: The New Anthology of Young African and African American Poetry - Olongo Africa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Download as PDF OlongoAfrica Press is pleased to announce the publication of The New Anthology of Young African and African American Poetry, a collection that galvanizes emerging poets from Africa and the African American community\/diaspora in a shared literary space. Since its inception, OlongoAfrica has recorded different literary successes and publications of new books as […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/press-release-the-new-anthology-of-young-african-and-african-american-poetry\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Olongo Africa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-08-28T17:28:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-08-28T17:33:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/Brown-Blue-Vintage-Illustrative-Book-Style-Earth-Science-Structure-of-The-Earth-Presentation.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1920\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1080\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Olongo Press\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Olongo Press\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/olongoafrica.com\\\/press-release-the-new-anthology-of-young-african-and-african-american-poetry\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/olongoafrica.com\\\/press-release-the-new-anthology-of-young-african-and-african-american-poetry\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Salawu Olajide\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/olongoafrica.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/a05585217b63e8584013634b1d6426bc\"},\"headline\":\"\u00a0Press Release: The New Anthology of Young African and African American Poetry\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-08-28T17:28:44+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-08-28T17:33:48+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/olongoafrica.com\\\/press-release-the-new-anthology-of-young-african-and-african-american-poetry\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":296,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/olongoafrica.com\\\/press-release-the-new-anthology-of-young-african-and-african-american-poetry\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/olongoafrica.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/sites\\\/3\\\/2026\\\/08\\\/Brown-Blue-Vintage-Illustrative-Book-Style-Earth-Science-Structure-of-The-Earth-Presentation.png\",\"keywords\":[\"AFrica\",\"Anthology\",\"Black\",\"Chapbook\",\"OlongoAfrica\",\"Poetry\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Olongo Press\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/olongoafrica.com\\\/press-release-the-new-anthology-of-young-african-and-african-american-poetry\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/olongoafrica.com\\\/press-release-the-new-anthology-of-young-african-and-african-american-poetry\\\/\",\"name\":\"\u00a0Press Release: The New Anthology of Young African and African American Poetry - 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class=\"pdfprnt-buttons pdfprnt-buttons-post pdfprnt-top-left\"><a href=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/?after=2026-08-06T00%3A00%3A00&print=pdf#038;page=1&rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fposts\" class=\"pdfprnt-button pdfprnt-button-pdf\" target=\"_blank\"><span class=\"pdfprnt-button-title pdfprnt-button-pdf-title\">Download as PDF<\/span><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/?after=2026-08-06T00%3A00%3A00&print=print#038;page=1&rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fposts\" class=\"pdfprnt-button pdfprnt-button-print\" target=\"_blank\"><\/a><\/div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You can\u2019t afford to miss Jomo by 7am. In a school where Mrs. Nwokejiegebe was more feared than the Headmistress, you\u2019re better off missing school for the day than turning up late. We lived in the suburbs. But if you made it to the bus stop early enough to catch Jomo, it was a one-way ride to my school\u2019s flyover. My school was in the heart of the capital, directly behind our state\u2019s government house. I do not understand why they called it \u2018government house\u2019 since one can clearly see that there were many buildings inside the fence. Mrs. Nwokejiegebe taught us that anything that was more than one was no longer singular but plural. I wondered why she had not bothered to correct us to start calling it \u2018government houses.\u2019 I could clearly remember the day she taught us that the plural of \u2018stadium\u2019 was \u2018stadia.\u2019 Before then, she had taught us to add \u2018s\u2019 to any word to get the plural. So, we argued that it should be \u2018stadiums.\u2019 One of us, Dikeocha, sprang to his feet, his right hand shooting up with the swagger of certainty. He told Mrs. Nwokejiegebe that she was wrong. That the correct answer was \u2018stadiums.\u2019 That there was nothing like \u2018stadia.\u2019 We unanimously agreed and roared a \u2018yes\u2019. My \u2018yes\u2019 was weak because I could clearly see the sting on Mrs. Nwokejiegebe\u2019s pride. She became red with disgust, and you could see that the pancake she used to plaster her face was beginning to crack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018Are you sure?\u2019 She asked us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018Yes!\u2019 We chorused.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018Okay, if you are sure, stand up and move to my right-hand side. If you are not sure, stand up and move to the left. If you agree with me, remain in your seat.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We were forty-six in our class. Primary 5B. Thirty-nine pupils moved to the right. They agreed with Dikeocha. I agreed too but my daddy, who was also a teacher in another school, had told me and my siblings that at our age, our teachers knew better and were always right. But since it didn’t make sense to me that the plural of \u2018stadium\u2019 should be \u2018stadia\u2019 instead of \u2018stadiums,\u2019 I chose to go to the left because I was no longer sure what to believe. Five others went with me to the left. Only Ukachi\u2013\u2013the shortest, the fairest and the youngest of us whom Mrs. Nwokejiegebe had dubbed the most brilliant girl in Nigeria\u2013\u2013remained in her seat. Seeing Ukachi sitting back, I grew restless. I wanted to return to my seat but under Mrs. Nwokejiegebe\u2019s watch, there was no room for double standing. \u2018If you choose something, you stick with it, that\u2019s why I give you enough time to decide,\u2019 she had told us in the early days of our meeting with her. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Mrs. Nwokejiegebe reached under her table and produced three long, fresh canes. She gave Ukachi one and held two in one hand. For not being sure, after all her sweat to drive home the point, she asked Ukachi to deal us six strokes each. To the team on the right, their problems were many. They did not just disagree with her, they were so sure that she was wrong and Dikeocha, our fellow pupil, was right. She gave them twelve strokes each and gave Dikeocha extra six, for leading a pack of blockheads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jomo was our unofficial school bus. A long, white 14\/14, thirty-two-seater bus. I do not know why it was called 14\/14. My daddy does not know either, but he said that Jomo was a coach not a bus. He said coaches were designed for long distances and buses merely plied up city roads, picking and dropping passengers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018But that is what Jomo does. Picking and dropping passengers along the road,\u2019 I argued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018Yes, you are right. But it was formerly a coach. It is still a coach though, but the new owners now use it for aka n\u2019elu,\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">His explanation did not entirely make sense to me. But my daddy was a teacher. He was right. But aka n\u2019elu\u2013\u2013pick and drop\u2013\u2013was not a befitting description for what Jomo does. Jomo was more prestigious than that. It was our unofficial school bus. Although Jomo was a thirty-two-seater, it did not carry thirty-two persons. It carried more than hundred. Each seat was initially designed to contain two persons, but the owners fixed a flat, wooden slab under each seat on one side of the aisle. When drawn out, it stretched to close the gap with the seat on the opposite aisle. This enabled two more persons, making a total of six seaters in one row. Added to the initial thirty-two, the number became forty-eight. The forty-eight sitting were under obligation to lap another pupil, making a total of ninety-six sitting. Then over twenty stood. Anywhere there was a space, was stuffed with a human, a pupil. The fare from the suburbs to the capital where many of the state\u2019s schools were located was ten naira. If you sat and lapped someone, you shared the fare in half. If you were standing, you paid five naira. If the person you lapped was your sibling, you paid the exact fare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There were only two Jomos in the state. Both were milk-coloured and were aging too. They plied the road like every other bus but because the government was yet to provide school buses for school children, the Jomo drivers decided that their first two morning trips would be solely to ply pupils to schools after which they would return to their normal businesses. The first trip was made by 6:15am and the last by 7:00 am. If you missed any of these trips, you were surely going late to class because you either joined normal buses with their incessant drops and pickups along the way, or you waited till a good Samaritan in a private car offered you a lift.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Inside Jomo, the drivers kept long canes. Even though the bus was not free, they felt compelled to use the canes on us, on their customers. The fixed wooden slabs in the middle of the aisle squeaked and had no back rests like the main seats. And because they were hard surfaces, they were a real pain in the ass. This made them undesirable. To avoid sitting on them, struggles always ensued each time we were going to or returning from school. The bigger or older pupils, who were always quick to get into Jomo, blocked spaces until their younger ones or the ones they would lap boarded. This led to fights and quarrels. And the drivers always intervened with intense whipping. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018Children raised in Owerri are very stubborn, I don\u2019t know why,\u2019 the driver of my favourite Jomo cried one afternoon after using the canes to design the bodies of pupils whom he felt were obstructing the boarding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That afternoon, one orobo girl that liked doing selense used her entire body to block the bus\u2019s single entrance. She claimed somebody pushed her from behind. When she turned to enquire who pushed her, everyone looked away, including me. I saw the boy who did it, but he was from Shell Camp, and the girl was from Alvan Ikoku, so I was forbidden from telling on him. So, she insisted she would not move an inch from the doorway unless the person who did it stepped forward. The queue began to stretch. Time was going fast. The driver shouted at her to move away to let others enter. She refused. He produced the cane. She did not flinch. He went ahead to lash her many times on the head before she caved in and gave way. The caning led to a pandemonium and the driver stepped forth to flog more pupils. When he was done restoring calm, he was panting and heaving and sweating like a petty criminal that escaped from a mob of irate killers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Beside my school was another school called Shell Camp Primary School, Owerri. Their uniform was red shorts or skirts with red check shirts. The name of my own school was Alvan Ikoku College of Education Demonstration Primary School, Owerri. Our uniform was also red shorts or skirts but with plain white shirts. Across the flyover by the main city road, was the famous Alvan Ikoku College of Education. In it was the staff primary school called Alvan Ikoku Staff Primary School. Their own uniform was purple shorts or skirts with purple check shirts. There was fierce animosity and competition among us. But because my school and Shell Camp were immediate neighbours, we agreed between us to always side with one another whenever there were problems involving the three primary schools. It was not like we held a meeting anyway. It was informally agreed, and the reason was simple. Aside from being immediate neighbours, pupils of Alvan Ikoku always carried themselves like their parents worked inside the government house. They believed they were rich kids because their school was the staff primary school of a big university. Whenever we crossed paths, they looked at us with big man\u2019s face, with mpompo. Inside Jomo, they have said it, many times, to our faces that we smell poverty poverty, and they show it by always trying to sit away from us. If any of us was unfortunate to sit beside them, they\u2019d pretend to close their noses until they alighted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We resorted to calling them umu nde big man\u2013\u2013children of big men. And we did that with all the indignation the phrase carried. We gravitated towards each other, Shell Camp and Demonstration College. Although we also fought and beefed within us, but we united whenever umu nde big man were involved. For instance, pupils of Shell Camp mocked us for the mouthful that was the name of our school\u2013\u2013Alvan Ikoku College of Education Demonstration Primary School, Owerri. They said the founders of our school were undecisive whether they were to name us after Alvan Ikoku or something else. Some wondered why they didn\u2019t just call it Demonstration Primary School. One jagajaga-teeth boy, pained by the many goals they conceded during one of our friendly matches, said that the \u2018Demonstration\u2019 in our name showed that the founders were just testing if we were to be a school or not. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018My daddy said your school\u2019s name\u2013\u2013Shell Camp\u2013\u2013was an afterthought. He said that that was the first headquarter of shell oil company when they first came to Nigeria. That was where oil was first discovered in Nigeria before they relocated to Bayelsa State. You see, your own school was a mistake.\u2019 That was me. With a history my father told me about the name of the school. I converted it to a banter weapon, and it worked. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018Your daddy does not know anything,\u2019 the boy fired back at me, if our school was an oil company before, does it not show we are important?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018It is your own father who did not teach you how to listen,\u2019 I fired back. \u2018My daddy did not say it was a former oil company. He said the white men lived around there when they were digging for oil. It was their former apartments that were converted to school blocks, including Shell Camp Police Station,\u2019 I responded sharply, irritated that he had insulted my father.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018Because your father is a teacher, we will not hear word,\u2019 he said in a tone that sounded like defeat. \u2018Why are you not in Alvan sef?\u2019 He fired angrily, his voice rising.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018It is because we don\u2019t have money to go to Alvan, but I swear, none of them can win me in a debate or letter writing.\u2019 I boasted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018Yes naa. Most of us from Demonstration and Shell Camp are more brilliant than them. Is it because they always carry heavy bags of notebooks and they feel they know something?\u2019 another boy chipped in as the banter quickly moved to a conspiracy against our enemies across the flyover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So that afternoon inside Jomo. A serious banter ensued after the bus took off. The girl who blocked the entrance was crying when someone from Shell Camp said something about plumpy girls feeling they were big girls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018You are just an orobo\u2013\u2013an English fowl. See how you are crying like a baby because of five strokes of cane on your head. Your body size makes you think you are a big girl,\u2019 he teased.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Stung, she raised her head and turned towards the direction of the speaker. \u2018Akpa ushi you cannot even speak simple English.\u2019 She fired back at him, calling him smelly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018It is your mother\u2019s vagina that is smelling. You like doing selense but you don\u2019t even have your own car to bring you to school,\u2019 he doubled down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018My daddy has a car that brings me to school. I only take Jomo when I\u2019m going home because I cannot wait for when he will finish from work and come and pick me. You are jealous because your father can\u2019t even buy wheelbarrow,\u2019 she taunted him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018I\u2019m not the one they flogged on the head,\u2019 he mocked. It seemed to have worked because the girl flew into a bout of raging and cursing and crying, to the amusement of Shell Camp and Demonstration pupils.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018Every time they will be doing mpompo as if they don\u2019t use to shit, but just a small yabbing, they are crying,\u2019 someone from Demonstration resumed after the driver shouted at us to keep quiet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018Your school is full of housemaids from bush villages, that is why you people always use Igbo words inside English. Bush people.\u2019 A fair boy from Alvan Ikoku replied. He wore glasses, the type that rich men\u2019s children wear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018Mr. Blind man, I know your glasses makes you think you are Professor Chike Obi, okay, what is the meaning of mpompo in English.\u2019 I joined the war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018First of all, I am not blind. Is just that I don\u2019t see far things,\u2019 he retorted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018It is still the same thing. Glasses are for blind and blinding people.\u2019 I replied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018Answer the question. What is mpompo in English?\u2019 someone insisted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018It means pride,\u2019 the fair boy said casually. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018It is a lie,\u2019 I shouted. \u2018Mpompo is arrogance. Pride is the one that is selense. You people just carry big bags, you don\u2019t even know anything.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One morning, an unusual thing happened. The road was blocked. Cars moved slowly. Drivers were honking and hissing. The sun was slowly picking up. It was nearly 7:30am and Jomo was just on its first trip. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018Nna ehh, what is causing this go-slow? It has never happened before on this road,\u2019 the driver said in a loud voice. He wasn\u2019t speaking to anyone in particular but he was speaking to everyone. In a city as small as Owerri, that was how people made small talks. Other road users joined him in nagging. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The returning lane flowed normally. But for the heavy blocks that demarcated the lanes, drivers would have found their way on the free lane. We kept crawling and wondering and worrying. Mrs. Nwokejiegbe will have a field day today, I cried in my mind. I feared for my life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018O boy, what is causing this go-slow?\u2019 the driver hollered to a colleague of his that was returning from the other lane. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018Na from FMC. Dead body full for their gate. Una don de reach na, you go see,\u2019 he said and drove on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018Dead body kwa? So why is it now causing go-slow? Did they drop the bodies in the middle of the road?\u2019 our driver wondered aloud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After what seemed like eternity, we eventually crawled to the Federal Medical Centre. They shared fence with Alvan Ikoku College of Education. We were close. At the FMC gate, we could see corpses, about four of them, all male. They were gigantic, dressed in black and boots, their faces covered with ski masks. We learned they were armed robbers and had been killed during a shootout with police the previous night. They looked menacing even as they lay lifeless on the floor. They were huge huge and I wondered how many bullets it took for each of them to fall and die. Aside from the cars slowing down to watch, there were crowds at the gate and at the opposite posts. In an instance, it seemed as if the dead robbers will jerk back to life with quick reflex and shoot everyone. The thought terrified me. I turned my face away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018But why will police or whoever brought them here drop them at the gate. Is here a mortuary? Look how them useless my work this morning,\u2019 our driver nagged aloud and moved on, unconcerned about the incident. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In school, there was no punishment for latecomers that day. Even Mrs. Nwokejiegbe and the Headmistress was late. Many teachers were late, including those that have their own cars. The news of the incident was all over the state and the excitement carried on through the rest of the day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Later that afternoon as we rushed to the junction where we waited for Jomo to pick us up, we saw the image that will remain with us for a long time. To get to the junction, we must descend to the foot of the flyover that demarcated our school and Alvan Ikoku College of Education. She was sitting on the floor, a few meters away from the foot of the flyover. She was emaciated, almost bony, and we could see she was a fair, beautiful lady before whatever that was wrong with her began. A greater part of her body had open sores. Her lips were dry, and flies perched on the sores by the corners of her mouth. The sores were red with blood, and she had a sachet of water on her fragile hands. Her dress was a worn-out gown, pink in colour and dirty from long usage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Her presence disturbed us. We filed past her hurriedly. She did not beg us for money, but she looked like she\u2019d be happy with some food. She was unperturbed by the way we looked at her. The next morning when Jomo dropped us at the other side of the road, in front of Alvan\u2019s big gate, we heard people talking about a dead woman on the flyover as we ascended the stairs. They said she ran away from the hospital where she was being treated for AIDS. They said she looked like she died the previous night and wondered if government would come early to pick her corpse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When we crossed to the other end and turned to descend into our school, we could see her body on the other end of the descent. The image terrified me. I was seeing a dead body, up close, for the first time. The dead bodies of those four thieves were far from me, from us. They were thieves and we had seen them through the windows of Jomo. But this one shared our flyover with us. It lay on the path we must cross to reach Jomo on our way home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In class that day, Mrs. Nwokejiegbe taught us the meaning of AIDS. Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome. She said there were two of them, and that the other one was HIV, Human Immunodeficiency Virus. Most of us were hearing of these diseases for the first time and their names terrified us. She said that AIDS happened when the HIV infection had advanced too much in the human body and weakened the immune system. She said that for that woman to die of AIDS, she must have had HIV and refused to take her antiretroviral therapy seriously. She said it was the treatment for HIV, but that you had to take the drugs for everyday of your life to avoid dying. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018How then is it a treatment if somebody has to take it everyday unless they die?\u2019 Ukachi had asked her. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Mrs. Nwokejiegbe smiled. She always loved it when Ukachi asked her questions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018We call it treatment, but what it actually is, is management,\u2019 she said. \u2018It has no cure, that is why all of you must be careful. Do not share sharp objects with anybody. And make sure to keep yourselves until you marry. Am I understood?\u2019 she asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018Yes Antyyy!\u2019 we chorused.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When we were going home that afternoon, we ran. Nose covered, eyes to the left, and with full speed, we took turns crossing the spot where she lay. She was beginning to bloat. The sun was mercilessly crushing her skin against the hard surface. Water was dripping from under her. An elderly woman who sold oranges by the foot of the flyover said she\u2019d decompose fast because of her illness. Many of us were gripped with terror when we descended the flyover and quickly, Jomo arrived and we scrambled to get it. A girl turned to the gutter and retched. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jomo had barely moved when we heard gunshots from behind. We panicked, screamed and ducked as the gunshots got closer. A V-boot Mercedes Benz overtook us with speed. The gunshots were coming from the open roof of the car. It got to the gate of FMC and the three occupants descended and opened more fire in the air. The pandemonium worsened as people scampered to safety. Every care to a half, causing a serious traffic jam. The shooters seem to have a boot-load of ammunition. But what were they shooting at? People wondered. They just blocked everywhere and continued to bombard the sky with bullets. From inside Jomo where we crouched, and where many of us were wailing and calling for our parents, we could hear the shell casings of the bullets hitting the tarmac. Bullets rained heavily on car roofs and nearby zincs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After what lasted like eternity, they got into the car and sped off towards the direction of where we were headed. Dazed and shaky, many drivers managed to start their vehicle and began to move. Just then, a police Hilux arrived the hospital gate with many policemen jumping about to control the traffic. They cleared us to the end of the lane and commanded all cars to stop. Then a Pajero SUV screeched into the hospital, followed by more police vans. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That evening, during the six o\u2019clock news on Imo Broadcasting Corporation\u2013\u2013IBC\u2013\u2013the newscaster announced that <em>the former commissioner for Commerce and Industry, Chief Ogbonnaya Uche, fondly known as OGB, was assassinated the afternoon of today being the 4<\/em><em><sup>th<\/sup><\/em><em> of February 2003, in his Owerri residence. The assailants barricaded the gate of the Federal Medical Centre, Owerri, with gunshots, to bar him for receiving urgent medical attention. Chief Ogbonnaya was the senatorial candidate for Orlu zone in the forthcoming election and had resigned his position as commissioner to run for senate under the All Nigeria People\u2019s Party (ANPP)\u2026.<\/em> The announcer\u2019s voice tailed off as my father\u2019s scream overtook the sitting room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018They have got him! They have got him! Those bastards have got him!\u2019 he screamed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" \/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>If\u00e9sin\u00e0chi Nw\u00e0dik\u00e9<\/strong>, poet and playwright, is the author of two poetry collections including How We Became Heroes (Noirledge 2025). His debut poetry collection, How Morning Remembers the Night, was Longlisted for the Pan African Writers Association Poetry Prize in 2022. Some of his poems, essays and reviews have appeared in\u00a0<em>Maroko, Olongo Africa, Nokoko, Kalahari, Brittle Paper, Ake Review, Ngiga Review<\/em>, and elsewhere. He was an Inaugural Fellow of the Black Orpheus Exploration Residency in 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Download as PDF You can\u2019t afford to miss Jomo by 7am. In a school where Mrs. Nwokejiegebe was more feared than the Headmistress, you\u2019re better off missing school for the day than turning up late. We lived in the suburbs. But if you made it to the bus stop early enough to catch Jomo, it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":2051,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[539],"tags":[80,919,104,918,32],"coauthors":[346],"class_list":["post-2049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","tag-childhood","tag-epidemics","tag-fiction","tag-mobility","tag-nigeria"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Jomo - Olongo Africa<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/jomo\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jomo - Olongo Africa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Download as PDF You can\u2019t afford to miss Jomo by 7am. In a school where Mrs. Nwokejiegebe was more feared than the Headmistress, you\u2019re better off missing school for the day than turning up late. We lived in the suburbs. But if you made it to the bus stop early enough to catch Jomo, it […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/jomo\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Olongo Africa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-08-21T20:24:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-08-21T20:24:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/Untitled-design-3.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1567\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"996\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ifesinachi Nwadike\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Ifesinachi Nwadike\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"18 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/olongoafrica.com\\\/jomo\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/olongoafrica.com\\\/jomo\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Salawu Olajide\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/olongoafrica.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/a05585217b63e8584013634b1d6426bc\"},\"headline\":\"Jomo\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-08-21T20:24:44+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-08-21T20:24:45+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/olongoafrica.com\\\/jomo\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":3980,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/olongoafrica.com\\\/jomo\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/olongoafrica.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/sites\\\/3\\\/2026\\\/08\\\/Untitled-design-3.png\",\"keywords\":[\"Childhood\",\"Epidemics\",\"Fiction\",\"Mobility\",\"Nigeria\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Fiction\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/olongoafrica.com\\\/jomo\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/olongoafrica.com\\\/jomo\\\/\",\"name\":\"Jomo - 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Olongo Africa","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/jomo\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Jomo - Olongo Africa","og_description":"Download as PDF You can\u2019t afford to miss Jomo by 7am. In a school where Mrs. Nwokejiegebe was more feared than the Headmistress, you\u2019re better off missing school for the day than turning up late. We lived in the suburbs. But if you made it to the bus stop early enough to catch Jomo, it […]","og_url":"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/jomo\/","og_site_name":"Olongo Africa","article_published_time":"2026-08-21T20:24:44+00:00","article_modified_time":"2026-08-21T20:24:45+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1567,"height":996,"url":"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/Untitled-design-3.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"Ifesinachi Nwadike","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Ifesinachi Nwadike","Est. reading time":"18 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/jomo\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/jomo\/"},"author":{"name":"Salawu 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and Its Botanical Revolutions"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"pdfprnt-buttons pdfprnt-buttons-post pdfprnt-top-left\"><a href=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/?after=2026-08-06T00%3A00%3A00&print=pdf#038;page=1&rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fposts\" class=\"pdfprnt-button pdfprnt-button-pdf\" target=\"_blank\"><span class=\"pdfprnt-button-title pdfprnt-button-pdf-title\">Download as PDF<\/span><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/?after=2026-08-06T00%3A00%3A00&print=print#038;page=1&rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fposts\" class=\"pdfprnt-button pdfprnt-button-print\" target=\"_blank\"><\/a><\/div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Photography by Gabriel Whenay\u1ecdn Louis<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you grew up around Badagry, you likely learned to read the coastline like a timeline chronicled in familiar plants\u2014along, of course, with its rich aquatic life. And if you are familiar enough with its affairs, you would perhaps agree that the vegetation of this historic port has witnessed several remarkable transformations with time. In this photo-essay, as an environmental historian and nature lover, working together with a documentary photographer, I present to you the main revolutionary changes to the floral profile of Badagry\u2019s Atlantic and lagoon shore that I have been interested in lately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Badagry experienced its foremost botanical shift with the arrival of the coconut palm on its shores. Historically, the coconut is not indigenous to the Nigerian area or even the African continent. <em>Cocos nucifera<\/em>, known locally as Agunk\u1eb9 or \u00c0gb\u1ecdn, was introduced into the West African coast from the Indian subcontinent by Portuguese traders and missionaries in the early 16<sup>th<\/sup> century, some 500 years ago. Once it began to take root and tower above the native plants along the seaboard, the coconut palm completely reshaped Badagry\u2019s shore economy and ecology, giving communities a lucrative cash crop, essential food and drink, a sturdy building material as well as an annual cultural festival. This prized \u201cTree of Life,\u201d whose every part\u2014from its husk, coir, shell, and kernel, to its water, leaves, trunk and sap\u2014commands significant value, turned long stretches of sandy beaches into the coconut groves everyone still associates with the town today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"749\" height=\"500\" data-id=\"2033\" src=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image-9.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2033\" srcset=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image-9.jpeg 749w, https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image-9-600x401.jpeg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 749px) 100vw, 749px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Coconut groves at Gberefu beach<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Another watershed in Badagry\u2019s littoral flora came centuries later, swaying defiantly across the calm waters: the water hyacinth. Known as Gb\u00e9bor\u00f9n [depicting an unwelcomed busybody] and Togble [literally town-wrecker] in the local Yor\u00f9b\u00e1 and Gun languages, <em>Pontederia crassipes <\/em>drifted into the Badagry lagoon system in the 1970s and 1980s from inland waterways to the northwest. Historical photographic evidence from the landscape and aerial imageries of the Badagry waterfront shot by British expatriate officer and documentarian E. H. Duckworth lends credence to the fact that the water hyacinth was absent in the area until after the mid-twentieth century. The free-floating freshwater weed only took over large swathes of the channels later, buoyed on by its spongy, air-filled stalks. Within just a few seasons, this bright-green invasive plant rapidly began to choke boat routes, disrupt fishing activities, and forced locals to rethink how they interacted with the lagoon. The water hyacinth is a rapid coloniser whose rosette forms a dense mat that blocks out sunlight and depletes oxygen for every aquatic life beneath it. The plant also clogs fishing nets and boat engines, making waterway and shoreline access difficult. A similar scenario was captured by Duckworth in his 1951 article on the Aiyetoro seashore community published in volume 36 of the now-defunct <em>Nigeria <\/em>magazine. He documented how hordes of water lettuce (Oj\u00fa Or\u00f3 or <em>Pistia stratiotes<\/em>) blocked significant sections of Mahin Creek during his visit to Ilaj\u1eb9-land then under the colonial Ondo Province (see images below). That\u2019s not all, water hyacinths also provide a breeding ground for mosquitoes and snails that transmit different kinds of diseases including elephantiasis, schistosomiasis, and paragonimiasis. However, this problematic weed also carries some potentials as it can be repurposed into compost, biogas and different kinds of handcrafts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped wp-block-gallery-2 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-style-default\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"713\" height=\"476\" data-id=\"2036\" src=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image-12.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2036\" srcset=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image-12.jpeg 713w, https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image-12-600x401.jpeg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 713px) 100vw, 713px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>An infestation of water hyacinths on the Badagry lagoon<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1400\" height=\"933\" src=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/3a-1-1400x933.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2038\" srcset=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/3a-1-1400x933.jpg 1400w, https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/3a-1-600x400.jpg 600w, https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/3a-1-800x533.jpg 800w, https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/3a-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/3a-1-2048x1365.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1400px) 100vw, 1400px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Badagry\u2019s plant ecosystem experienced yet another turning point with the colonisation of Gb\u1eb9r\u1eb9fu and other coastal communities by the Cocoplum <em>(Chrysobalanus icaco). <\/em>Known locally in Gun as Ah\u1ecdkun, this shrub, which is native to the sea beaches of West Africa and other tropical areas, has in recent years escaped cultivation to become a problematic invasive. Over the past couple of decades, the cocoplum has been rapidly advancing across the coast, competing with the coconut palm for soil nutrients, and choking up other plant and animal species in the area. While much about its spiralling takeover of the beachfront remains unknown, I would argue that the cocoplum was almost completely unknown to me as a kid growing up in the town. The Duckworth Photograph Collection also supports this position; no cocoplum bushes can be observed in the aerial images from the collection. Lately, however, every time I go to unwind at Gb\u1eb9r\u1eb9fu Beach or to reconnect with my extended families there, I see extensive, dense bushes of this wild plant spread across the area. This ongoing challenge calls for urgent research and intervention!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1400\" height=\"934\" src=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image-13-1400x934.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2039\" srcset=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image-13-1400x934.jpeg 1400w, https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image-13-600x400.jpeg 600w, https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image-13-800x534.jpeg 800w, https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image-13.jpeg 1430w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1400px) 100vw, 1400px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>Extensive cocoplum thicket stifling other life forms at Gb\u1eb9r\u1eb9fu.   Above: Cocoplum leaves and fruit.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1400\" height=\"788\" src=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image-7-1400x788.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2030\" srcset=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image-7-1400x788.jpeg 1400w, https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image-7-600x338.jpeg 600w, https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image-7-800x450.jpeg 800w, https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image-7.jpeg 1431w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1400px) 100vw, 1400px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Aerial view of vast cocoplum sprawl along the Badagry shoreline (Dec. 2021)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Today, we\u2019re at the cusp of a fresh botanical revolution in Badagry as Ad\u00f9n Resorts, an innovative ecotourism project, plans to introduce managed bamboo groves into a section of Badagry\u2019s littoral landscape. Done carefully, the \u201cGreen Steel\u201d could be the first intentional, restorative planting at scale here with its high tensile, fast-growing, self-regenerating, and carbon-storing potentials. While it affords enchanting boardwalks and birding trails for tourists and visitors seeking relaxation, serenity and wellness in nature, this high-performance grass also has invaluable potentials in construction and craft production. If a Bamboo Grove can thrive within the complex of the Olu\u1e63\u1eb9gun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL), there is no reason to think that a similar project in Badagry would fail.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"457\" height=\"609\" src=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image-14.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2040\" style=\"width:396px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image-14.jpeg 457w, https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image-14-450x600.jpeg 450w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 457px) 100vw, 457px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Bamboo Grove at OOPL (Nov. 2021)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To sum up, this is a portrayal of a coastal town and three critical plants in its environmental history. First, it was the coconut that built a livelihood; then came the water hyacinth and cocoplum that are presently threatening its sustenance. While much effort is now urgently needed to keep these invasives in check in many parts of the West African coast, we cannot wait to see what would become of Ad\u00f9n Resorts and its bamboo initiative. One can only hope that the project becomes a reality soon and that it endures for many generations to come! And may Badagry\u2019s tourism and littoral ecosystem be better for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Images from the E. H. Duckworth Photograph Collection held in the Digital Collection of the Herskovits Library of African Studies at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, USA:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1400\" height=\"1069\" src=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image-4-1400x1069.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2027\" srcset=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image-4-1400x1069.jpeg 1400w, https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image-4-600x458.jpeg 600w, https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image-4-800x611.jpeg 800w, https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image-4.jpeg 1460w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1400px) 100vw, 1400px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Landscape shot of the Badagry lagoon front at Ganho area.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1311\" height=\"1021\" src=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image-6.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2029\" srcset=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image-6.jpeg 1311w, https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image-6-600x467.jpeg 600w, https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image-6-800x623.jpeg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1311px) 100vw, 1311px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Coconut Plantation and Cattle on the Catholic Mission Farm at Topo beachfront.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1282\" height=\"975\" src=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image-8.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2031\" srcset=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image-8.jpeg 1282w, https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image-8-600x456.jpeg 600w, https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image-8-800x608.jpeg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1282px) 100vw, 1282px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1358\" height=\"1049\" src=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image-2.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2025\" srcset=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image-2.jpeg 1358w, https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image-2-600x463.jpeg 600w, https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image-2-800x618.jpeg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1358px) 100vw, 1358px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Aerial imageries of coconut plantations at Gberefu Beach.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1142\" height=\"1160\" src=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2023\" srcset=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image.jpeg 1142w, https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image-591x600.jpeg 591w, https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image-788x800.jpeg 788w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1142px) 100vw, 1142px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1126\" height=\"1146\" src=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image-1.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2024\" srcset=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image-1.jpeg 1126w, https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image-1-590x600.jpeg 590w, https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image-1-786x800.jpeg 786w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1126px) 100vw, 1126px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Negatives of aerial shots over Badagry lagoon and town, notice the Colonial District Officer\u2019s Residence in the middle of the shot.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1156\" height=\"1159\" src=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image-5.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2028\" srcset=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image-5.jpeg 1156w, https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image-5-598x600.jpeg 598w, https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image-5-150x150.jpeg 150w, https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image-5-798x800.jpeg 798w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1156px) 100vw, 1156px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1126\" height=\"1142\" src=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image-3.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2026\" srcset=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image-3.jpeg 1126w, https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image-3-592x600.jpeg 592w, https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/image-3-789x800.jpeg 789w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1126px) 100vw, 1126px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">The Mahin Creek in Ondo State choked up by water lettuce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" \/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>\u1e62eun Sed\u1eb9 Williams<\/strong> is a One Health historian and multispecies scholar based in Dublin. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Gabriel Whenay\u1ecdn<\/strong> <strong>Louis<\/strong> is a Badagry-based documentarian and founder of the Badagry International Photo Festival.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Download as PDF Photography by Gabriel Whenay\u1ecdn Louis If you grew up around Badagry, you likely learned to read the coastline like a timeline chronicled in familiar plants\u2014along, of course, with its rich aquatic life. And if you are familiar enough with its affairs, you would perhaps agree that the vegetation of this historic port […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":2038,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[39],"tags":[915,917,916,47,32],"coauthors":[912],"class_list":["post-2022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-journalism","tag-badagry","tag-fauna","tag-flora","tag-home","tag-nigeria"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Badagry and Its Botanical Revolutions - Olongo Africa<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/badagry-and-its-botanical-revolutions\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Badagry and Its Botanical Revolutions - Olongo Africa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Download as PDF Photography by Gabriel Whenay\u1ecdn Louis If you grew up around Badagry, you likely learned to read the coastline like a timeline chronicled in familiar plants\u2014along, of course, with its rich aquatic life. 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Speech and Gender Relations in Achebe\u2019s Things Fall Apart"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"pdfprnt-buttons pdfprnt-buttons-post pdfprnt-top-left\"><a href=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/?after=2026-08-06T00%3A00%3A00&print=pdf#038;page=1&rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fposts\" class=\"pdfprnt-button pdfprnt-button-pdf\" target=\"_blank\"><span class=\"pdfprnt-button-title pdfprnt-button-pdf-title\">Download as PDF<\/span><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/?after=2026-08-06T00%3A00%3A00&print=print#038;page=1&rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fposts\" class=\"pdfprnt-button pdfprnt-button-print\" target=\"_blank\"><\/a><\/div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cAmong the Igbo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten,\u201d says the narrator of Achebe\u2019s <em>Things Fall Apart<\/em> (<em>TFA<\/em>). Here is the place of speech (and its absence) in Umuofia, the fictional Igbo community where <em>TFA<\/em> is set, since conversation is the art of speechmaking and exchange. This implies that the proverbs provide values to understand the issues that <em>TFA <\/em>portrays. The Igbo world that Achebe constructs through Umuofia registers Achebe\u2019s feminist politics. Reading <em>TFA <\/em>again, I am drawn to the fact that proverbs raise a lot of questions about African literature and the image of women.  Therefore, to understand how masculinity and femininity are constructed and perpetuated in <em>TFA<\/em>, it is necessary to mine through the words and silences in the novel, and what better way to start than through \u201cthe palm-oil with which words are eaten\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cNwata a t\u1ee5\u1ecdl\u1ee5 ilu k\u1ecdwara ya, \u1eca mara na ego e jiri l\u1ee5\u1ecd nne ya nara n\u2019iyi,\u201d is an Igbo proverb that questions the usefulness of the bride price paid for a mother for whose child a proverb has to be explained. As is the nature of proverbs, this is more about what is unsaid than what is said. It maps gender relations among these people in a complex and complicated way. It places the education of children\u2014at least as it concerns the learning of proverbs\u2014within their mothers\u2019 huts, where they are told folktales and the moral lessons as proverbs whose meanings and wisdom the mothers draw out from the tales. The concept of <a href=\"https:\/\/library.oapen.org\/handle\/20.500.12657\/25767\">Matri-Archive<\/a> as theorised by such scholars as Laura Grillo is relevant here for its framing of mothers as repositories of cultural norms and values, wisdom and sensibilities, and practices that have sustained the community, including the accounts of wars that ensured the survival of the community, and the warriors whose heroism distinguished them. These matrilineal repositories go beyond just containing knowledge, but also play a vital part in its oral transmission to the future generation\u2014their (grand)children\u2014through such means as the narration of folklore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"> In this regard, the maternal nurture of the future of Umuofia comes not just from breastfeeding and cooking, but also in the form of intellectual enlightenment. If we ignore the presentation of the bride price as money paid in exchange for a product and service (which is why the usefulness of it is questioned when the mother cannot provide the educational service that is considered part of the package), the proverb in question paints an empowering picture of women as the moulders of the future of the community. But can we really ignore it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Maybe we could if, throughout the novel, we do not see Okonkwo, the protagonist, degrade the Matri-Archive by constantly dismissing folktales as women\u2019s and children\u2019s stories, unfit for <em>real<\/em> men who must only recount tales of valour and might, tales of war, and of blood, of sorrow and deaths. The proverb presents women as indispensable educators, but for Okonkwo, \u201cwomanish wisdom\u201d is cowardice; he uses the descriptive \u201cwomanish\u201d as an undesired which, when added to the desired \u201cwisdom,\u201d makes it less desirable; womanish, thus, qualifies wisdom negatively. Femininity is by such a frame rendered incompatible with wisdom, an indictment on a society that expects women to train their kids into adept conversationalists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Okonkwo considers the orator Egonwanne the opposite of the singer, Okudo. Okonkwo admires the latter and despises the former. These two men, for whom words (spoken or sung) are their primary tools of operation (and even weapons), present examples for examining the place of speech in Umuofia. Okudo is not a fighter but is considered one for his voice raised in a war song \u201cturned every man into a lion.\u201d Egonwanne, on the other hand, has a \u201csweet tongue [that] can change fire into cold ash. When he speaks he moves our men to impotence.\u201d Driven perpetually by \u201cthe fear of failure and of weakness,\u201d Okonkwo does not see complementarity in these men. Maybe he should have paid more attention to those nights in his mother\u2019s hut when she told him folktales, for he would have learnt that, \u201cIfe kw\u1ee5l\u1ee5, ife akw\u1ee5debe ya.\u201d The law of complementarity demands that if Umuofia has (or had had) a singer whose songs flame the passion of men to unsheathe their machetes, it also needs a man whose measured words can douse those flames so that disputes can be solved without drawing blood, when possible. Umuofia needs its Okudo; Umuofia also needs its Egonwanne.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Okudo\u2019s position in the masculinity discourse of Umuofia further shows the complicated and complex nature of speech and gender relations in Umuofia. Okudo was not a fighter, yet the warriors regarded him as an equal for his songs, which they consider as much a weapon as their guns and machetes. These same words are viewed differently when used by women to recount and document tales of these exploits, not minding that without such stories told, the collective memory of Umuofia suffers, and the warriors will be most affected since the younger generations will have no reason to revere them, for they are ignorant of what these warriors have achieved. When the proverb \u201cNwoke n\u1ee5chaa \u1ecdg\u1ee5, nwaany\u1ecb e nwere ak\u1ee5k\u1ecd\u201d is used, it is to suggest that a man is driven to action while a woman is driven to words. Words, otherwise elevated amongst these people, are here trivialised and considered frivolous. Maybe the only words to be considered as <em>art <\/em>are words spoken by men in support of violence. And was Okonkwo a violent man!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201c[Okonkwo] had a slight stammer and whenever he was angry and could not get his words out quickly enough, he would use his fists,\u201d the narrator says in the opening page of the novel. Here, Achebe begins the complication of silence and strength in <em>TFA. <\/em>Okonkwo\u2019s speech impediment leads to an unintentional creation of silence on his part, and is a weakness. But Okonkwo must never be thought of as weak. He seeks \u201cstrength\u201d in his fists. (An earlier complication of silence and strength in the novel is when the story of Okonkwo and Amalinze\u2019s iconic wrestle is recounted. The arena is so quiet that \u201cone almost heard them stretching to breaking point.\u201d Strength is trying to burst through silence, to break through it, but is also enhanced and amplified by the same silence). <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Throughout the novel, speeches and silences are sites where masculinity and femininity, agency and its lack thereof, are contested, (re)negotiated and (re)affirmed. In his family, Okonkwo subjugates and strips his wives and children of the strength that comes with speech, denying them the agency to self-define: \u201cThey dared not complain openly.\u201d When Okonkwo thunders \u201ca hush fell on the compound immediately,\u201d a form of silence active with fear. To break this hush, to bring forth speech, is to court danger. That was the case of Ekwefi, one of Okonkwo\u2019s wives, who Okonkwo almost shot dead for speaking up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The infantilisation of women is rife throughout the novel, especially in Okonkwo\u2019s household, where no matter their age and position, they are still regarded as children. They are to be <em>controlled <\/em>and a man\u2019s strength measured, in a significant part, by how effectively he brings <em>his <\/em>women under his absolute control. The highest insult to be given to a man, therefore, is to question his manhood, to call him a woman<em>. <\/em>When Okonkwo challenges a kinsman, Osugo, by saying \u201cThis meeting is for men,\u201d the unspoken words are that Okonkwo had called the man a woman because he has no titles, thus lessening him. When Okonkwo says, \u201cI will only have a son who is a man,\u201d he furthers that narrative, rejecting Nwoye\u2019s alternative (receptive) masculinity, enthroning the type of masculinity where \u201cTo show affection was a sign of weakness; the only thing worth demonstrating was strength.\u201d Crude, raw, visceral strength.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In <em>Masculinities in Nigerian Fiction: Receptivity and Gender <\/em>(2025)<em>, <\/em>Peter Umezuruike argues that Nwoye is a fully masculine character, even though his masculinity may differ from that of his father, Okonkwo. Nwoye\u2019s is an alternative masculinity, one that makes him, having been on the receiving end of the sort of masculinity Okonkwo espouses, more receptive and understanding and thus, out of empathy, seek to undermine norms that impede the \u201cviability of every life.\u201d One therefore expects to see in Okonkwo this alternative masculinity, but Okonkwo\u2019s own childhood humiliation as the son of a lazy poor man seems not to be strong enough to engender an alternative receptive masculinity. His contempt for his father is the stronger driver. He tries everything to not be like his father, Unoka, just like Nwoye tries to not be like him, Okonkwo. I suspect that Nwoye\u2019s rejection of Okonkwo\u2019s type of masculinity does not just come from the empathy of one who has suffered under the regime of that masculinity, but also from contempt\u2013the determination not to be like the father, something father and son share.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The gender formulations are in some cases fluid. The fluidity is more noticeable in the spiritual realm, where Ani is a goddess, but the priest who serves her is a man, and the priestess of Agbala, the Oracle that must be consulted before Umuofia can embark on any war, \u201cwas a woman called Chika. She was full of the power of her god, and she was greatly feared.\u201d It is only Chielo (who took over from Chika), who as a woman can scream Okonkwo into submission: \u201cDoes a man speak when a god speaks?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The night and its darkness \u201cheld a vague terror for these people, even the bravest among them,\u201d such that the night was \u201calways quiet except on moonlight nights,\u201d yet Chielo habitually (\u201cThere was nothing new in that\u201d), \u201cwith a loud and high-pitched voice,\u201d breaks \u201cthe outer silence of the night.\u201d There is also Nwayieke, a woman unbothered by the terror of darkness. The sound of her wooden mortar and pestle has become part of the \u201cvibrant silence\u201d of the night in Umuofia. What is generally considered a bad habit of late cooking becomes an act of bravery, an act of resistance. Chielo, empowered by her spiritual position, and Nwayieke, by (maybe) just sheer choice, challenge the auditory composition of moonlight-less nights in the community, a challenge to societal, cosmological, and maybe even cosmic conventions. Two women showing strength where even the bravest of men cannot, by not being silent. (Interestingly, the narrator says that every woman in Umuofia knows the sound of Nwayieke\u2019s mortar. One wonders if the men are deaf on these nights, or there is something that comes with being male that prevents them from recognising the source of a noise, once it is a kitchen utensil\u2014an object that belongs to a space Okonkwo\u2019s sort of masculinity insists no man has business with).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">However,  Chika presents a case of internalised misogyny. When it is said that Chika, like all Agbala priestesses, while possessed by Agbala, becomes a \u201chalf man, half spirit,\u201d it is taken for granted that <em>man<\/em> here substitutes for humans. But it may as well mean that she sees herself partly as a spirit, and partly as a man, in the masculine sense. If not, what informs her charge to Unoka, \u201cGo home and work like a man\u201d? <em>Work like a man<\/em>, as against working like a woman? This is a (slight?) case of the (privileged?) marginalised reinforcing their marginalisation to maintain the status quo (think of all the instances of mothers telling their daughters, \u201cDon\u2019t you know you are a woman,\u201d which carries with it the unspoken never think yourself equal to a man).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This reinforcement of the status quo is clearer in how Ekwefi got married to Okonkwo. It is easy to read that silent divorce by Ekwefi who left her husband\u2019s house \u201cearly in the morning\u201d and went to Okonkwo who wordlessly \u201ccarried her into his bedroom and in the darkness began to feel for the loose end of her cloth,\u201d as a feminist act, especially considering the current reality where Christianity has made divorce a dirty word\u2014mostly on the part of women\u2014amongst the same Igbo people (which means more women silently suffer in their marriages for they cannot walk away). But if we pause to consider why she had married Anene (\u201cOkonkwo was too poor then to marry\u201d), and Anene whose wife just up and left like that (an act that could only be read as irresponsibility should it be done by a man), the problems with such a reading emerge. One might argue that Ekwefi is a product of her society, a society that makes man the provider, but it is the same society where Unoka\u2019s wife was, at least before their son\u2019s maturity, his provider (\u201cShe could not be expected to cook and eat while her husband starved\u201d). <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In its complications of gender relations through its deployment of speech (and silences), <em>Things Fall Apart<\/em> urges us to rethink gender relations, not in terms of superiority\/inferiority, or as a war (as we are wont to in our interactions on social media today), but in terms of complementarity. And solidarity. Nwoye\u2019s mother takes care of Ojiugo\u2019s children in the latter\u2019s absence, and even lies \u201ctrying to minimise Ojiugo\u2019s thoughtlessness.\u201d In that sisterly solidarity that exists between co-wives, Achebe presents a model of cooperation that we must today adopt in our relations. It is a model that exists because Nwoye\u2019s mother sees Ojiugo as a co-equal and collaborator and not as one with whom she competes for the affections and love of a man. This model thus requires the genders to see one another as co-equals, faced with the task of surviving (and conquering?) the(ir) world as against manipulating and controlling one another. Makana ife kw\u1ee5l\u1ee5, ife akw\u1ee5debe ya. Egbe bel\u1ee5, ugo ebel\u1ee5. Nke s\u1ecb ibe ya ebela, nku ama kwaa ya. For every yin, our Chinese siblings teach us, there is a yang.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" \/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ugochukwu Anad\u1ecb<\/strong> is a volunteer contributor at\u00a0<em>The African Theatre Magazine<\/em>\u00a0and has undergone editorial and publishing internships at Narrative Landscape Press,\u00a0<em>Counterclock<\/em>, and Griots Lounge Publishing, Canada. He also served as an associate editor at\u00a0<em>Iron Horse Literary Review<\/em>\u00a0and is currently an African Liberty Writing fellow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Download as PDF \u201cAmong the Igbo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten,\u201d says the narrator of Achebe\u2019s Things Fall Apart (TFA). Here is the place of speech (and its absence) in Umuofia, the fictional Igbo community where TFA is set, since conversation is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":2020,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[725],"tags":[207,12,813,914,169],"coauthors":[913],"class_list":["post-2019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-review-criticism","tag-achebe","tag-gender","tag-igbo","tag-proverbs","tag-world"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>On Speech and Gender Relations in Achebe\u2019s Things Fall Apart - Olongo Africa<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/olongoafrica.com\/on-speech-and-gender-relations-in-achebes-things-fall-apart\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"On Speech and Gender Relations in Achebe\u2019s Things Fall Apart - Olongo Africa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Download as PDF \u201cAmong the Igbo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten,\u201d says the narrator of Achebe\u2019s Things Fall Apart (TFA). 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