MY ENCOUNTER WITH MRS ANNE (a cancer patient)

I have always said and believed that life is dark. It has nothing to do with fairness. Life is a black man with long legs living in some slum in Kenya or Zimbabwe.
Author of countless best sellers Dean Koontz opined that life is what happens while we wait for our appointment with the mortician.
Yesterday, I had a burial to attend in Uke. Some tiny village in Anambraa state. It was the burial of Chief Innocent Ofojee the CEO of Pierre Cardin West Africa. Now, I left where I was for Onitsha. On my way, my phone beeped, it was a message from my mother. She said that I should come home quickly that my younger brother was going to meet with a woman who wants to start a cargo business and wants my brother to be involved. Mother wanted me present in their discussion for many reasons.
My brother and this woman met in his work place. He serves as a lobby host in one of the eateries in Shoprite Onitsha. The day he met this woman, he felt fulfilled because of the character he displayed that earned him that woman’s respect. They exchanged numbers and next thing the business was underway.
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Last week, I asked my brother what the position of the business was and if he has heard from his prospective business partner. Then, a shocker came. “Junior she has cancer” he said. My heart caved in, my ears tingled. Cancer is a synonym to death but I held on for the woman In my heart. The hunger to pray for her was eating me up already like ulcer. I am not a religious kinda person but I pray for people and God answers. My earnest desire was to pray for that woman.
Yesterday, as I got to onitsha to prepare for the burial, my brother called me. I picked “Junior junior! I have been in that woman’s house and she is having crisis at the moment please can you come to Leeds Hospital?”
In this life of mine, I have seen cancer take my dad’s bosom friend, I have seen cancer walk into a family and go with them in dribs and drabs, I have seen cancer steal the flesh of a chubby woman until a bag of bone is remaining. I have seen cancer!
After the call, I was torn between two decisions. I had a man I needed to block in that burial, I needed to see how this man would be buried. But then, I thought that woman needed my prayers. I washed up, left for Leeds hospital.
Getting there, I called my brother to direct me to where they were and he came out. I looked on his face as he walked towards me. I saw frustration and pain on his face but not death. I knew she was still alive.

ON THE CRUELTY OF HUMANITY

Location : Onitsha, opposite Crunchies.
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Time : 7.45pm
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Date : 20.08.2016
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I am walking to my house from my uncles place, walking on the tip of my feet, like an excited ostrich.
The gridlock is un-serious. Although serious enough to keep you there for minutes but not as serious as Lagos own.
Cars are scattered on the road with headlamps trying to outshine themselves, horns making a symphony of something disturbing.
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I walk through a cramped part. I hear shoutings, I hear disagreement – it is a difficult man. I hear pleading amidst the growing stubbornness.
I try to walk past, I look well, a well built woman, maybe what we call elegant walks out of the passenger seat in a jeep and kneels before a young man. Rubbing her palms in a pleading gesture.
The young man looks nonchalant and not ready to hear a sentence from her.
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I go closer, it isn’t enough, I go very close and ask with a British accent that is on life support “what is going on here my people”
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The kneeling woman gets to her feet and adopts me without my consent. She says “my son, biko my husband is sick and was transferred from Fmc Asaba to a hospital in Akokwa. Our driver mistakenly scratched this boys motor and her said we must repair it tonight”
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I look at my phone, it’s going to 8 and this dude is talking about repairs. Ok, scratch that. Even if it was 11 in the afternoon and there is a dying man behind the car, can’t he leave them to get him to hospital first?
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I walk to the car and greeted the man. Very elderly and sickly. He brandished his weapons. Weapons that should conquer any human with a conscience.
A urinating aide. That pipe like something connected somewhere for overly sick folks to pee when they will.
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The other is a proof of prostrate issues. A swollen scrotum.

MY PROBLEM WITH MANY HOMOSEXUALS

First and foremost, I am not homophobic. I do not hate gay men. In fact, I do not have a singular reason to hate a guy because of his sexuality. (I could detest him because of the way he goes about his sexuality but not to hate him for his choice of sexuality) And, again, where I come from, we don’t do hate.

Let’s see what Hermann Hesse the great German writer and philosopher has to say about hatred. “If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us”

You’ve heard that yea? Whatever we hate in a person is in us. Anyways, scratch that!

The first time I heard of the word ‘homosexuality’ was sometime in 2004. I was done with primary school and secondary school was before me. I hadn’t gained admission yet into a school. One evening, a humid evening, my mother called me into her room. Getting there, I saw her with a bible, an eyeglasses sitting on her nose. I can’t remember what scripture was that she read but I remember she didn’t keep the bible there as a costume.

She began in a hushed tone and then loud whispers. She reminded me of how I was no more a child and how the devil was after every child of God. Next, she began to warn me about boys. I waited for her to explain herself well. I mean; few years back in primary school, it was a strict warning about girls. Few years later, it’s about boys now. I thought that maybe in the next three years she would warn me about women or grand fathers. Who knows? I felt there were different people to avoid as you strike different ages.

What was I saying? Her warnings yes!

She warned me never to let any boy touch me too much or dare to touch my penis. She said God would do many things to me if I let these happen. Who wants God to do him/her many things?

NIGERIANS, SOCIAL MEDIA, SHADES, SUBS AND COUNTER SUBS.

Sometime ago, commonsense decided to take a flight out of the Facebook walls of few social media giants. Wait! Do you think common sense only means the “buy Nigerian products to grow the Naira” mantra? If yes, grow some sense. Even if is not a common one. Being a professor has absolutely nothing to do with owning a common sense. Being this or being that also has nothing to do with ownership of common sense. It is not learned, it is not earned. It is developed; it is fed, nurtured and bred specially. Listen, commonsense is having a sound judgment, it means putting your brains to work, and it means denying your tongue that urge, that verbal libido that emanates from listening to the moans of people who are giving themselves a verbal screw or peeking at the nudity of peoples senselessness. Common sense means many things of which making uncalculated statements are obviously not in the many lists. However, when people throw shades at people, I see not only fifty shades of cowardice but many shades of fear, lack of brain juice and lack of every other good trait. Why do you want to throw a shade on somebody who you probably haven’t met, on someone you barely know or on some celebrity who isn’t dancing to the beats of those evil drums on your head? You read those shades, you can smell hate, and you would possibly see the frustration in those lines trying to crack the screens of your phones or PC to jump inside you to posses you. What Nigerians forget is that social media isn’t the real life. Social media is different from the village square of life. Social media is that place where people live fake lives and kill their true self until their lives becomes as dead as that fig tree Jesus cursed saying “no man shall eat of thee”. Truly, no man can eat of those people. The other day, somebody slept, woke up and felt like the best way to thank God for giving him/her the grace to see a new day was to cook up a half-baked lie saying Linda Ikeji was owing tax worth several serious millions. Then, some full blown agents of wickedness on Facebook began to flaunt their prowess in wickedness. I saw comments like “It serves her right” “I know say that geh no hold money” “Shebi na we she dey buy Hermes bag for” “Linda gaan pay your tax and stop snapping pictures”… Then, you are left to wonder if these people saying these truly came out of a woman’s vagina or if they were brought out of a games reserve and handed a phone to express wickedness. I just feel Nigeria is the hub of wickedness. I don’t know why I feel this way but I know what I am feeling and it’s not a small child’s feeling. A perfect display of wickedness can be seen in the case of Ben Murray Bruce. Immediately AMCON abi AFCON announced the seizure of his properties, Nigerians once more ran to social media like mad dogs saying painful and hateful things about Senator Ben. And then again, I come up with another ideology that is simple: nobody truly wants you to succeed in this country. Forget those flashes of teeth and fake love they show you when your stuff is working well. Just make a mistake and slip. All Nigerian-made-hell will be loosed on you. As a Nigerian chasing your dream, never make the mistake of mistaking ass-licking cum sycophancy for LOYALTY. Nigerians are not loyal. They walk with you when the road is rosy and when the thorns are there, they disappear with a speed their shadows can’t catch up with. As a social media savvy person that I am, I have grown to learn words like ‘clap-back, subs and counter-subs’ to my utmost helplessness. I don’t know how exactly I feel about these things but I feel somehow when that person you’re clapping back at is that person you once shared a drink with and even cheered from the crowds. These days, even if you refuse to turn your back, backstabbers will arrange for your back to be turned for them to stab you unapologetically. The other day, the writers’ community on Facebook was smeared with a display of wickedness and half-done gossips. My problem is not in the beginning of the issue but the sustenance and the fanning of the flames by so called social media giants. An adult isn’t supposed to join children in the shabby exercise of sticking a finger inside their butthole, bringing that same finger 4 inches away sniffing it to check if maybe the normal unpleasing smell has turned to raspberry flavor. As writers, paragraphs and paragraphs of hate lines were being updated as status for Nigerians to read. And as usual, every reader came with the remains of fuel in their generators to pour into the issue. It was a bonfire of hate. Nigerians who due to the political situation of the country have learnt how to share themselves into camps easily and skillfully shared themselves into two with reasons other than hungry sentiments. Joy Isi Bewaji the afro-headed tiger went head to head with Nk’iru the dreadlocked swordswoman. I have never met any of them in my life. I have seen their pictures and read great things they’ve written. The only thing I owed them was respect. I gave them the respect when I still had it but I ran out of respect when I saw their display of madness. Joy Isi Bewaji inhumanly dragged Nk’irus yet-to-see two year old daughter to the matter using her present predicament to get the attention of a loving mother who cannot help but love, support and fight for her daughter. Nk’iru ran mad for that.(Who will not? I mean bringing up a baby’s problem to use it against the mother! If it were a lion Joy tried that thing with, she would have been torn to unequal parts) The dreadlocked swordswoman in order to ‘clap back’ described Joy as someone in a dire need of love. She insinuated that love was the only antidote to Joy’s issue. Joy doesn’t practice safe sex because she screws verbally without protections. The protection used in verbal screwing is commonsense and courtesy. Painfully, they aren’t sold in sex shops, having it isn’t a walk in the park. I think I wouldn’t want to continue with the fight that ended in an if-not-for-this-person type of apology. Joy apologized because Toni Kan instructed her to do so. I read the apology on her Facebook wall and could sniff pride from the screen of my PC. That is not an apology. But then, what do I know… They might get along tomorrow and become friends as before but the truth is that they have made a mark- An ugly one. Just like David is a man after Gods own heart but we can never forget the way he killed a man to sleep with his wife. Once again, let us never forget that social media isn’t real. It does the job of a boutique mannequin. It can be used to show customers the shape of the clothe but that mannequin cannot buy the clothe. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and all these things will not die with you the day you will die. The day you die, these social media platforms wouldn’t die with you. Then why do we dig our graves on social media? Just why? Finally, with all these said, what Nigerians need isn’t fuel, isn’t light, isn’t good road but only common sense. Just like the bible said; seek ye first the kingdom of God and every other thing shall be added unto you. Seek common sense and you won’t just have the time to come and advertise your wickedness in Clap backs and those nonsense subs that I see as a SUBstraction of peoples thinking faculties…. . . Mr banks!

MY FATHERS DEATH WAS MY RESURRECTION

PART 1

My father knew I was a man before I became a man. The act of becoming and the reality of becoming may be used interchangeably. Stories have it that I was named immediately my mother took in. My father defied the odds of “what if it is a girl in there?” and went on to give me a masculine name and not even a ‘unisex’ name that will fit whatever the outcome was. He named me Obumneme and Mark Anthony which conventionally are masculine names.

According to the story of my birth by my mother, she said she began to have pre-labor pains and signs in her hostel in the University of Nigeria Nsukka and there was no phone to call my father who was in Onitsha to come and help carry the cross which he was in fact the chief carpenter. My mother’s roommates took her to bishop Shanahan hospital and left her there to go and prepare for their final examinations. My mother who was a finalist too was in the hospital preparing to skip the FINAL hurdle of child bearing which I feel was a better final exam. Nobody in Onitsha was aware of my mother’s present predicament. No phone (I wonder how they coped) to call grand ma or even her elder sister.

Mother said that the next morning, my father had already boarded a bus to Nsukka to visit his wife without the knowledge of her state. Getting to her hostel, her friends told him she had been in the hospital since yesterday. He asked for the hospital and rushed to the address given to him. He walked in when I was deflowering my virgin eyes with its first droplets of tears. The doctor walked out of the room as usual leaving the room for the nurses and mother. My father walked up to him and asked him if his wife was as healthy as his son who was just crying. Doctor was confused and asked who he was. Father said “I am the father of Obumneme the boy crying now. Can I go and see my wife?” the nonplussed doctor Okayed and he went into the labor room…

PART 2

April 17 2013, at around 3pm, I called my father on the phone and he was sounding like an extroverted introvert. Read our conversation;

Father: hello! Junior kedu ije gi?

Junior: (Whenever he spoke Igbo to me, I felt important. Because I and my siblings saw Igbo as ‘big peoples’ way of communicating) I chuckled and said “ Adim mma”

Father: how was today’s paper and what do you have tomorrow?

Junior: today’s exam was ok but I have GS 101 tomorrow. Daddy you know I don’t know anything in math. I am scared.

Father: junior kwusi your nkoyeri and go and prepare for tomorrow. I will call when I get to Onitsha. I am in Awka now.

Junior: hahahaha(you need to hear how my father said ‘nkoyeri’. You will keep doing things that will elicit the word) I hung up.

That was practically the last time I spoke to my father in my life. He didn’t call again; I was busy engaging in group readings where I mocked mathematics and the students who knew it too well. I never knew God had excused my dad from the world. Night fell and I got tired of mocking people or was something inside inside telling me to be calm that sorrow awaited me? I can’t tell now. Out of the blues, a friend who doubled as a family friend had been called from home to stay with me throughout the night without telling me how fatherless I had become. He called and asked where I was. I told him and he walked up to me all smiles and a lively gusto. He

SHADES OF OUR PAST

SHADES OF OUR PAST

Flipping through the musty pages of your past this morning, you smile at every event remembered. You remember those days when time was still young, very young. Before time struck puberty and everything stiffened. The time when it took only one sweet to become ones friend and one nod of disagreement to lose your entire clique. These memories come to you with certain alienated majesty.

You look at this picture here and it rings a bell. It reminds you of how you, Tope, Wole and Ifeanyi loved rainy season to bits. How Ifeanyi with his deep igbo accent would say “lain want to fall”. The entertainment he gifted all of you with his mother tongue interference still tickles you till this day. You look at Wole and his drenched pants and laugh. You laugh because that was the pants he wore the day aunty Bimbo caught him peeping through the hole of the bathroom while she bathed. You smirk at the statement his father made when aunty bimbo reported. Wole’s father; that short man who didn’t go to school but loved blowing grammar. He said it with a tone of pain accompanied with the musicality of his Yoruba accent. “ Ah! Wole my son. Shebi you want to start having erections before common sense” you shout “Wole my man!” You pick up your phone and search for his number, you dial it and the lady inside your phone starts her big grammar, you kill the line.

You think about the escapades that bonded the friendship you shared. The tiptoeing missions to Aunty Bimbo’s window when her boyfriend comes.

CHRISTMAS

Tomorrow is Christmas, I am lying down on my scattered bed rolling on it like a rolling stone. My head is not on the pillow- the pillow is in-between my laps, my head is everywhere on the bed. I am trying to remember my fondest Christmas memory and it is running away like a prodigal memory. I cuddle my pillow, close my eyes and pout my lips and I remember what I want to remember.
Growing up, the fastest means

SHOELESS NIGHT REVIEW

 

It is needful to say that Oluwafemi Oloidi’s “Shoeless Night” possesses maverick features which are unconventional to the Nigerian style of literature. The 33 chaptered book is that which encompasses all the misdoings that has shrouded the country Nigeria. One would not be wrong if they say that shoeless night is a lecture on the overlooked mis-happenings in the country.

The length and breadth of the story is a true life story

BECOMING MOSES (PART1)

BECOMING MOSES (Part 1)

My life remains a puzzle, a hard nut to crush and a difficult Rubik’s cube to fix. My name is Moses; I was born in Egypt sometime in history. Although, I am not an Egyptian- I am an Israeli; our village people were held captive and turned to slaves who were subjected to hard labor.

Their backs bled daily from the unnecessary whipping of the Egyptian task masters. They were mud mashers, brick layers and every other menial thing.

The week I was born, pharaoh made a

OPEN LETTER TO ANAMBRA STATE GOVERNOR

Dear Governor Obiano, with tears in my heart and pain in my eyes, I wish to ask you some questions.
Your godfather Peter Obi gave you power few months back and within your first 100 days you made wonderful achievements like making me see the first set of working street lights in the state. Everyone prayed a positive prayer for your government and prayed a negative one for your enemies. As time went on, the drumbeat changed from that fast rap track to a slow R&B track. Things have halted, those praises have gone sour, countless tantrums have been flung in your direction, and your name elicits hisses, shoulder heaving and finger snapping. The truth is; over sixty percent of the masses cannot be lying against you and your sycophantic aides. It is true! This is not what we bargained for at all!
I want to know why you have decided to frustrate lawyers in your state and subject them to a state of professional