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MUSINGS OF A NIGERIAN VOTER

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Your Vote Counts. For the apolitical, fence sitters, prayer warriors and silent supporters of bad governance, Its 4 years for the politician VS 4 years of your life. Four years of life ebbing out slowly, From building a thriving career well into yours 30’s in the good years, Only to wake up at 40 and realize you’re mostly alone as all your friends have relocated. Then realize at Night, family events may never have all siblings in attendance however hard they try. It’s realizing bad governance is eating its people at home, as organizations exit the country, friends lose jobs and their long-time businesses gasping for life. Then your once stable friend has to beg for their needs, and you can’t pray school fees, bad roads or inflation away. Then you are lying in bed at year 50, and it slowly dawns on you, you’ve been hustling on a hamster wheel. You believed your votes don’t count, yet they intimidate, buy, and give palliatives for them. Look, the apathy towards the ba...
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IN LOVING MEMEORY OF OUR DEARLY DEPARTED FRIENSHIP

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Why are the shutters down? Where has all the laughter gone? Why are the couches empty?  The gods are no longer at ease in each other’s company. What happened to the voices of soulful chatter?  Even while the graves are still empty. Who took the beauty of peaceful silence?  When you became a hunter for my words. Where is the Love in service?  When gods steal what we give freely. Where went the counsel in our communion?  When wisdom is your sole possession. How did hope walk out of sight?  When the bookshelf keeps history of wrong. How did we let one little fox grow an earth?  When we sought the comfort of temporary malice, and safety beneath the carpet for our disagreements.      The feeling of being de-spitefully used kept us at sunset, even when dawn came in all its’ glory. Slowly the burden of resentment crept in, and the flowers of f...
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I MISSED THE BUS

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I got to the bus stop at my usual time, hoping to beat the morning traffic. My usual five minutes wait for the bus gradually stretched fifteen minutes now going on forty, I was already tired of the wait and standing and I was running late… did I say running late? When I’m still at the bus stop a few minutes to resumption time I’m so late it makes a mockery of my effort of waking up early. As the waiting time increased even so the number of folks waiting on the bus did. Then in the distance one of the Yellow Hunchy is approaching the bus stop, rather than heave a sigh of relief, I’m hoping its empty so we can all get in. the Bus had barely stopped when the struggle to get in started, a struggle that had no regard for gender nor what folks were wearing. From the sight I was better off looking than get in the struggle, and yet not get in the bus. And those bus stop agbero just hop on the bus to collect their #50 without even coordinating the madness, “well that’s Lagos for you” th...
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CAREFUL!! You'll lye on it.

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The alarm rang and i decided snooze a very little bit before getting up, and that was it, next thing i found myself jumping off the bed rushing off to get out for work ... OMG!! how did i do this to myself?? I barely put my makeup on, before heading out the door without even laying my bed, i had to be in the office to pick somethings and catch up with a meeting on the island. well the rush paid off and i made it in time for the meeting that was delayed by thirty minutes, after which we headed out of town for a site appraisal  meeting. The ride to the site was a long journey, well we eventually got there and did the needful and embarked on the journey back by the time i got to the office it was so late i barely scribbled a report down, picked up my bags and hit the road. only to get into one of those spiritual traffic situation of Lagos for which there is no cause. Looking at my wristwatch, it was 10:10pm just as i slot my key into the door to make my way into the house. ...
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WREN & SWAN

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Like the beautiful colors of the rainbow, the green and yellow combination of her dress made her silhouette so striking I wanted very much for her to come closer so I could see this beauty closely, as the music wore on I knew I had to move closer if I would ever get the opportunity to see her face and in that moment she turned and our eyes met, and I quickly turned away. But the harmony of my heart beat needed a minute to get back in rhythm, boy! Her dark eyes were subtle yet striking, I felt she saw me. That’s how my journey to be with Swan began. My days were filled with the thought of her and the music inside of me burst with rhythm and blues for the Swan of my life . From passing by and staring, I got close enough to mutter a hello, until I could smile and say hello without fainting, with little confidence I was able to move from hello to a few lines of conversation without skipping a heartbeat…I knew I was becoming a man. After many days of “muscle” building I was...
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MY SUNDAY BEST

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It was one of those Saturdays where I was feeling ginger having completed all my chores, my back towards my bed, crouching over the table with novel in hand and laughing to myself in the quiet of the room, it suddenly occurred to me that I had not ironed my clothes for Sunday service, I quickly got up just before PHCN strikes the power out. While on the ironing board, Ovie called asking about our class schedule for Sunday to which I paused to take the call and forgot to turn off the iron. On returning to the board the first stroke of the iron left a burn the shape of the pressing iron on one arm of my dress. The emotional pain of losing a dress during the recession wasn’t funny; I felt like cancelling church just to mourn or call Ovie back to lash out what damage his call had caused, instead I searched and found another outfit and ironed it quickly, lest my pain get the best of me. Nikolay Dimitrov-ecobo/Shutter-stock After my morning routine, I barely made it out of the ho...
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BREATHLESS, SPEECHLESS…. FRIENDSHIP

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Today the blazing sun of Minna is still lazying in bed past its bed time, struggling to sneak a peek at us through the cloudy blankets, a feeling i totally understand. But it’s about the most beautiful weather we’ve had in more than three weeks of this semester and perfect for a walk. From a two man walk out of campus the number increased till there was about eight of us guys just gisting about lectures, lecturers and their style of delivery, assignment, cars and you know the other things boys like to talk about. Amidst our walk filled with talk and laughter, one after the other the number reduced as each one got to the closest ally leading to his off-campus condominium.  The number declined till it was shadow and I left, we lived the farthest of the group I guess. Shadow and I got talking and the connection was PAW!! We talked and laughed all the way, as we got close to my place I remembered I haven’t seen Miss Becky in days so I told Shadow I was going to ...
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THE AGE

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Here I was standing by the rack of a gift store seriously trying to figure out what present to give a One year old. After walking that aisle twice, surfing layers of shelves, touching a few things, I settled for an interactive book and a card. It had been a while since I attended such social outings, as work always overcame my weekends. I had no idea what a one year old’s birthday was going to be like, because it’s been ages since I attended any. My friend who invited me said it wasn’t anything big just a little get together to mark the day. On getting there, very few people had arrived so we exchanged pleasantries with the celebrants’ parents and we were seated. I was startled by the loud music blaring from the woofer speakers and other kids and their parents started trooping in. soon the MC got the party started with prayers, ushered kids to have their faces painted, then they started playing games, some jumping in the bouncing castle, Mascot’ teasing some children, o...
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FINDING ALEX 2...Knocking again

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3 months later, slight headache and cramps in the office, bleeding by the time I got home, it was gone. I cried my eyes out, prayed, even lost my appetite. my mum had to come and stay with me. This was one of my lowest moment, felt like I took a hit and didn’t know how to get up. After a while, I got better and resumed work.   One beautiful Saturday morning, while I was cashing in on extra morning sleep, my cousin Larai called and was sharing something from her devotion; she said “God will do things at his time, not by how much you pray and fast” . I almost wished she never told me that, but I never lost my faith, i consoled myself that she meant it from a good place. Towards the end of that year my parents went to Shiloh and I knew they were praying for me, they returned reassuring me, that it will be well. This was my seventh year, towards the end of January, a pastor friend of mine came visiting while he was on an assignment in town. He prayed and said this i...
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FINDING ALEX...

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It was another late night, trying to submit an assignment and term paper. Ignoring the sound of my alarm and snoozing on, I barely made it for the last 15minutes of the first lecture but just in time for the submissions. I struggled with sleep for most part of the lecture, my delight came as the last lecturer for the day left the class, I sluggishly got up to keep my appointment with my dissertation supervisor . I knocked on his door after exchanging pleasantries with his secretary.  just then power went off and he said come in, I stepped into his office, my eyes struggling to adjust to the dimness and unable to see much but figures ; slowly moving closer to his table when he called my name “Murna” and tapped me on my shoulder from behind, I trembled in utter shock, shouting “Jesus” and almost stumbling . T he lights came on and my old school Jeff was on one knee, talking but I only heard “right where it started”. And there goes the sleep I was hoping to get after seeing...
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