Nigeria

(Random musings on an internet exchange between  two compatriots on “The Power of Science” ) Ours is a tragic case.  We are the most unscientific people on earth.                                              –    Bunmi Fatoye-Matory A ton of   thanks to Bunmi Fatoye-Matory and Omowumi Ayodele for their  insightful, provocative observations  on the Ekitipanupo Internet Forum of January. […]

The past year recedes like a chameleon’s tongue— a miss, I am not taken. Before my mirror, wiped with the nectaring newness of the year, I am the visage of a boy styling his life into a poem, resolute to say more, to do more, like a semicolon; Bryan Obinna Joseph Okwesili is a queer […]

One of the numerous reasons the German word, Kampf, has remained popular is its usage by the failed Austrian artist and dictator, Adolf Hitler. The word itself, ‘kampf’, from old High German, is borrowed from Latin, Campus; more familiar to us in its modern English form, ‘camp’. Camp—not a mode of sensibility as in Susan […]

Yabasi is Basket Mouth’s debut album of 10 high-octane tracks that feature a variety of Nigerian artistes who bring their prowess to bear on the project, culminating into a medley. Even though Yabasi is his first full music project, Basket Mouth, an established comedian and actor, is not a stranger to music. He recalls in […]

Siwo siwo siwo Siwooooooooooooooo He was Nigeria’s closest instance of the Renaissance Man: musician, sculptor, inventor, sportsman, architect, scholar, mythmaker, lay philosopher, folklorist, and culture ambassador/impresario. A true Jack of many trades who strove so hard to be master of all, he was a man of  many capabilities , with a voice that was admirably […]

When the thousands of mysterious Sumerian tablets were translated, they were thought to be business records, but what if they were poems or psalms? My love is the same as twelve Ethiopian goats standing silent in the morning light Shiploads of thuya are what my body wants to say to your body. — Jack Gilbert. […]

The searing reality of grief began to creep into my life the year I lost my friend to death. It was on a cold-ridden morning in Benue, when a phone call from a friend from home broke the news to me. Stunned by the gloominess that pervaded the voice that delivered the news to me […]

The power of our Muse lies in her meaninglessness – Gueorgui Pinkhassov I am on Instagram fiddling through images. I am looking at pictures by Fati Abubakar. The account @bitsofborno is titled Yerwa. Maiduguri, also called Yerwa by the locals, is the capital and largest city of Borno State in North-Eastern Nigeria. These images are […]

I’m doing something crazy. There is in fact no exact English word to describe it. It is called fait divers which is a French phrase for very brief newspaper reportage of unusual happenings and dark occurrences, like accidents or crimes, that befall ordinary, insignificant people. There are a thousand and one loose English translations of […]

i will leave the dead in your body some room to dance. i will sit beneath the baobab tree with drums of tulips by self-acclaimed craftsmen. i will call forth boneless children & make  seats from udala trees for them. we’ll sit, we’ll eat, & drink too. we’ll be the motivators the eyes of the […]