Essay

It started with a panic that spread over a bright day and blurred visions. Then an unknown rattling came from behind. They heard the gunshots. Terrified, they sat still, waving the Nigerian flag and chanting. They didn’t know who had fired those gunshots. Some would say they were soldiers. Others would reckon they were police. […]

How Nigerian Charismatic Christianity Became a Thing It takes two hours to get past Third Mainland Bridge when traffic is thick. I am squeezed beside a petite woman in a congested bus. Her head hangs over the phone screen. A young preacher vibrates on the screen, and she mutters along.  Amen. Amen. I look in […]

[Lecture delivered on September 1, 2023 at the Freedom Park, Lagos.] ÌSẸ̀ṢE has come, but not gone. We salute all those – human rights activists, community leaders, affronted citizens, advocates of equity, and all –  but the state governors most especially – who have taken history to task and boldly formalized a level praying ground […]

To do good is one thing. To know what it is that is good to do is another. The former can easily be determined by the value of its consequences while the latter might pose as a palm kernel in a person’s cognitive processes. It is an uneasy epistemic process because of the skepticism that […]

We have published a lot of incredible stories this year spanning different tastes and genres in African literature. As we approach the year’s end, we have compiled a list of our top stories for 2022 strictly for your leisure reading this holiday. At the top of our list is this piece by Mọlárá Wood which […]

If it wasn’t obvious enough that the leading poetic voices on the continent now belong to a new generation of writers bred in the jungles of the internet and raised in the angst of 21st-century dilemmas and preoccupations, the new NLNG prize shortlist has made it clearer. The three writers currently on the shortlist — […]

[NOTE: I first learnt of Biyi Bándélé thanks to Ayọ̀ Arígbágbù, who never stopped gushing over The Man from the Back of the Beyond. I took interest and sought out the writer. When his book, Burma Boy was published in 2007, I reached out to him that I had written a review of the book […]

by Tade Ipadeola When news broke late on 22nd April 2022, that Ọba Ọláyíwọlá Adéyẹmí III, the Aláàfin of Ọ̀yọ́, had joined his ancestors at the ripe old age of 83, there was a sense in the entire Yorùbá speaking world that a truly regnant king had departed the realm.  Ọba Adéyẹmí was born on […]