Words Are Indispensable

*DESOLATION(2)* Four days later, Papa died in his sleep. Actually I had thought of more painful ways to make him pay,but Papa was a heavy man and at fifteen,I was no match for him. Two weeks after his burial,some elderly men I didn't recognize,arrived from the village to see Mama.I overheard them telling her that the doctor said Papa had died of poisoning and the village oracle pointed her out as the perpetrator of that act. Oh I missed the shock on her face at the news.I smirked and pressed my right ear closer to the door just in time to hear them tell her that we were to surrender everything in our possession that belonged to 'their brother' and vacate the apartment within two weeks.And that was how we found ourselves here;in this Face-Me-I-Face-You house in the remotest part of Ojede town,from the two-bedroom apartment we had been staying in. It was a single room,but with the help of a curtain,we divided it into two- a bedroom with a small mattress,a mat and a wooden cu

DESOLATION(1) The moment I walked through the door of our 'house',I locked it,fell on our rat-infested bed and began to cry. I was devastated. When I left this slum this morning, I had thought it was all over.I had said to myself,'Finally we're going to have a better life'.When I met Mr Onah,he treated me nicely,differently even;he made believe that there was light at the end of the tunnel and I had told myself that not all men were the same after all.But it is of course a lie,one I desperately needed to believe for so many reasons. Men are the same,every one of them. Following my appointment with Mr Onah that morning,I had worn what I regarded as my 'best' shirt and skirt and out of excitement, arrived at his office about ten minutes earlier than the scheduled time.I was asked to wait at the reception while the secretary informed him of my arrival over the intercom. I was then directed to his office where he was seated behind a table,beaming with smiles.

Aren't you tired?Yes YOU!Aren't you tired of putting the blame of every mosquito bite & skin itch on Nigeria? Every early or late rain, sunshine, harmattan, headache, runny nose, diarrhea.etc. on this "being" who can do nothing to defend itself. Have you ever paused even for a moment to wonder who or what is even this "Nigeria"?Well let me kindly remind you-Nigeria just like air,is an abstract object. You can't see it or point a finger at it and that's because,accept it or not, it is YOU and I who make up Nigeria.Yes!We are Nigeria.Year after year,on the 1st of October,the duty of most Nigerians is to sit down and begin to enumerate the problems in Nigeria.Have you ever asked yourself if Nigeria has made any progress so far?No!!!All we keep ourselves busy doing is finding excuses why we shouldn't be grateful for how far we have come as a nation. Believe it or not,if Nigeria is not doing well today,it is because YOU & I at the grass

  PET PEEVES (Eph 4:26) It was a lovely Saturday morning and students of Gracious High School busied themselves with their morning duties."Just what kind of nonsense is this?",Kayode,an SS2 student and inmate of Leonard hostel exploded."People won't just respect themselves in this hostel.This is getting out of hand and I can't take it anymore!" Kayode's roommates and classmates, Ekene and Malik stopped whatever they were doing and stared at Kayode who was busy rummaging through his small shelf of books in the room."K-boy,what's wrong? Why are you sounding all worked up?",Ekene asked. With a tone that came out more harsh than he intended, Kayode snapped "Nothing!", then muttered to himself "the next thing now, someone will say 'that Kayode boy is always hot-tempered.' Why won't I be when people cannot ask for permission before taking what belongs to another." Seeing Kayode at his 'boiling point',Malik

  Rape & Justification I grew up listening to some people blame dressing as being the primary reason girls/women are raped.I almost believed this lie. Over the years,I have felt outrage whenever I came across people who justified rape in any way.It is sad when people use dressing as an excuse for rape. How does anyone dare think that way?Tell me,did dressing have anything to do with a 7 year old being raped by a family friend?Oh,what about that 17 year old girl who was raped on her way back from church?Or the 15 year old who was raped by her secondary school teacher?Tell me about their dressing again. Hold on,what about our sisters up north who are mere digits in alarming rape statistics?What did that have to do with their dressing being that these ladies are usually covered from head to toe?Are you aware of rape statistics in countries like India? I remember having a conversation with a friend that has stuck with me for years. He said "one of the saddest things under t

  WE DIE EVERYDAY Do you know that we are dying? Oh yes we are! We started to die everyday from the very day we became old enough to make our own choices. That day was not today; it was the day we witnessed the truth but decided to go with the lie. It was that day. We die everyday we beat that 10-year old girl and accuse her of developing too quickly and seducing the "innocent" 38-year old man who forcefully violated her. We die everyday we set free a man guilty of multiple atrocities and take an innocent man in his stead,simply because the guilty man is the senator's son and the innocent man "has nobody". We die everyday we discriminate Ibrahim,Chinaza and Tope because they are not from our tribe,state and certainly not members of "our church". We die everyday we give special attention to Emeka because he is the minister's son, and to Aisha because her father was the former governor. We die every Sunday when we "dedicate" the front

IN MY DAYS What happened?Yes! What happened?What happened to the days when women were respected? The days when people got into relationships for the purpose of fostering love and the view of bringing forth children in the institution of marriage? When sex was deemed sanctified and marriage was honorable upon the bed undefiled. What happened to the days when people were loved for whom they are, not whom we think they are.Oh those days! In my days, people fall in love for what they can gain. People "love" others for who they think they are or who they want them to be. Ladies are "loved" for their body, men... for their money. The word "love" is now used to denote "lust" and "affection" to mean "sexual gratification". In my days, the word "love" has become trite, such that we no longer know when it is used in its literal form or when it is used to connote "I like the way your body looks in that dress" or "

 DO IT NOW!!!   Some recent happenings have left me thinking.If you want to identify a very brilliant,gorgeous/handsome,well loved,wonderful etc. person,read burial tributes. I'm gonna share an experience I had with you.Sometime last month,I saw a Facebook post saying that one of my childhood best friends was dead.You can imagine my shock when other people began to write similar RIP stuffs (about how much they loved her but God loves her most) and tagged her. Although we were no longer as close as before, I still cared about her but hadn't spoken to her in a while. I tried her line; it wasn't going through. I even chatted her up but no response. I was devastated. The only thing that was going through my mind was how she would never really know how much people(including those she might not have known) cared about her.Later that evening,I was able to get through to her and found out that she wasn't dead, but was VERY ILL. You can as well imagine my relief. What exactly

 These Clocks On The Wall   I've come to realize that while time itself was created by God, its perception was created by humanity and materialized by these clocks we've put on the wall You see,there is no place you would go in this whole world and not find a clock,and that's because we as society put them there to remind you. You see,society says you should brush your teeth for two minutes. Society says you should sleep for eight hours. Society says you should be done with school by twenty-two, have a career by twenty-five, a family by thirty, be successful by forty, and retire by sixty. You see,we've created this "one-size-fits-it-all" time light for life,thinking we could all wear the same clothes. And when we personally realize that they don't fit, we blame it all on ourselves acting like we've gained weight. Stop letting society's clock dictate when you show up. My time is different from your time,and just because you're not what soci