He took property that didn’t belong to him
He must be locked away
Justice must be done
She took a life just because she could
She must be hanged
Justice must be seen
He planned to oust the king
We shall throw away the keys
Justice must be heard
‘Coward!’ shouted the soldiers
He shall be killed by the firing squad
Justice must prevail…
(Available in the E-book)
Published here
There once lived a promising young lady who had absolutely no idea what she was about. Her name was Tinu. As a little girl, Tinu’s parents relentlessly compared her with her little brother Jide who was always at the top of his own class.
Her little brother didn’t help matters also. Rather than show his big sister study patterns to help her, he made fun of her both in school and at home. Because of this, Tinu withdrew both physically and emotionally from everyone around her. She had no friends both in school and at home; all she had left was her over-active imagination.
Tinu began to feel like a failure and a disappointment to her parents, and rued the day she was born. She hated herself and there was nobody around to bring her out of the rotten state of mind she was in. When she got into secondary school, she became a recluse and this didn’t help her school work. She only got worse academically. She barely scaled through junior secondary school.
In senior secondary school, Tinu only deteriorated. She dwelt inside her thoughts and this wasn’t good because they were terrible thoughts. She felt great shame because her parents weren’t proud of her and then she began to wish that she was never born. She didn’t pay attention in class and no attention was paid to her unless it was time to make jest; hence, she stayed back in the shadows.
Due to her non-participation in class, she failed her examinations and had to repeat that class. The school invited her parents and told them about it. Rather than see Tinu’s poor performance as a cry for help, all they could think about was the school fees they had paid and the fact that they had to pay for another full session. They were furious.
They bashed Tinu in the car on their way home and Jide was right beside her in the back seat snickering away. At that point, Tinu had made up her mind. She was tired of being a disgrace to the entire family. Tired of bringing shame and soiling the family name.
Considering the fact that her parents were scholars as well as her brother, she concluded that God must have made a mistake when he brought her into this world and placed her in that family. All that was said in the car to bash her character was the straw that broke the camel’s back because at that point, she made up her mind. She was going to remedy God’s mistake. She was going to take her own life.
When her father drove inside the compound, Tinu went straight to her room and locked the door. There she began to plot how she could end her life. She then got off her bed and stepped out of her room. She snuck into her father’s medicine cabinet and took as many pill bottles as she could find. She ran back into her room and began to stuff as many pills as she could down her throat. When she was done, she lay down in her bed waiting for death to come.
Life at every stage comes with trials, but what we must not forget is that it’s merely a phase and it would eventually pass. We may not be in control of the behaviour of others towards us, but we are in control of how we let such behaviours affect us. Do not give in to the negativity around you; remember always that you are your number one cheerleader and begin to see the light in yourself. Once you do that, others would have no choice but to see the light in you.
R.I.P Tinu, the young girl with a glorious future both she and the world never got to see.
Her mind was a clean slate and so pure
Not impressionable for she was yet unable to fathom
She was at her most vulnerable
Open to the good, bad and the ugly, her mind was unprotected
Her beady eyes scanned around her
Seeing all things but grasping nothing
Unable to plan ahead, others did so for her
Three plans, two in accord but one of discord
Two of love but one of hate and jealousy
She knew none and had no choice in the matter…
(Available in E Book)
Published here
Tension was everywhere in the reading room; so thick you could almost slice through.
Nobody wanted to be there, everyone wanted to part ways before things got out of hand. Whenever a chair was scrapped across the terrazzo floor, hairs stood. Nobody wanted to shed blood but as the saying goes, ‘when push comes to shove’…
Published here
Excitement is in the air and if you aren’t on that train, then you are already lagging behind in 2015. On social media, television, radio and every other platform, it’s all about new beginnings and rightly so.
This is literally a second chance for any and everyone to do better and be better. A new chapter in life. Many people believed that they would make it into the New Year but they didn’t. As a matter of fact, I just scrolled through my blackberry messenger feed a day to the end of the year and I saw sudden RIP to two young souls that were taken too soon…
(Available in E Book)
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Growing up, I never liked Mathematics.
Every Friday in elementary school, we were tested on all the subjects and I always dreaded the ‘almighty’ Maths test. Maths was a subject which was on the time-table more often than I would have liked it to be. Whenever the teachers came into the class, we would be asked to stand up to recite the mathematical times-table…
(Available in E Book)
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Ever wondered why you can’t keep track of the number of Mothers’ Days that are celebrated in a year? I always wondered myself until it became clear to me. They are super beings and I cannot emphasise that enough.
These women juggle everything. The onus is on them to hold down the home fort – a full-time job with overtime included – and at the same time go out and make a living. If they don’t qualify as beings displaying the gift of super powers in reality, then I don’t know who does. I would not go into the details because we all have grandmothers, mothers, sisters, aunts and female mentors and we have seen them in action and probably are beneficiaries of their feminine prowess. However, these women have what I have termed as their ‘Kryptonite period’. This is their period of vulnerability that comes with hard work and old age. That is when we need to don our own capes and be their super heroes and heroines.
The very popular poem ‘My Mother’ by Ann Taylor was quite an anthem whilst growing up. As a child, it was framed on the wall at home and whenever I saw it, I hummed a bit of the poem out loud. Yes, the general idea of the poem is about appreciation of mothers because they are saddled with a lifelong task that is just as important as sitting at board meetings of a Forbes listed company. But I tell you now, this poet revealed much more in the forth stanza of her six-stanza poem.
“And can I ever cease to be
Affectionate and kind to thee,
Who was so very kind to me,
My Mother?”
As the years go by, scientists, doctors, fitness experts and many more have been looking for ways to halt the ageing process, but this is to no avail. It is the cycle of nature; right from the time a child is born, it starts to age, which is why the question isn’t, “How young are you?” But it is asked in the reverse. The world has changed since when our mothers were young ladies and it is still changing, adding to the gazillion things that they have to keep up with.
Technology. Sometimes it seems like they don’t just want to learn. Rather than read the manual, she calls on you to come teach and the next day you find yourself explaining the very same thing to her. Or is it when you are already running late for a very important event for which you graciously decided to carry her along because she has been indoors all week, and she seems to be extraordinarily slow, making you wonder why she cannot keep up at your pace?
You attend a wedding, where she sees her old friends whom she has not seen for a long while, and then she’s just chatting away, while time flies. And you remember telling her earlier of your plan to go out for drinks with your own friends. She just can’t seem to remember everything she tells you and she ends up repeating everything she had told you before. Yes, you are impatient; why not? After all, time waits for no man. She would always be there when you need to find her, abi?
This impatient thing “get as e be oh but God dey”. Let’s take a look at this from another angle. Do you remember the time she carried you within her for nine months, sang to you in her belly, prayed for you and caressed your back? Or was it when you pooped on her right before she was able to saddle you in your diapers and she gave you a fat kiss on your lips right after and blamed no one but herself for not foreseeing such an event? Or was it when she packed your lunch bag with loads of love, never forgetting to put in your favourite snacks? Or when you were excited about the new song the music teacher taught,and everyday for one month, you did a presentation of the song for her?
I could go on and on but I will never finish. She has been, and still is, your super hero; are you her super hero?
It really doesn’t require much but your time, patience and support. All these can be summed up in one word, love. Love her more than you love yourself for such is the love that she had for you when she birth you. So, as we celebrate this season of love, let your mother be your number one valentine; spoil her as much as you can now because she would not be here forever, but those memories would last a lifetime.
Happy Valentine’s day!
I was happy and I was sad.
I was sad that I would never see my parents again, yet happy that I had been given another chance at family life once more.
From the back seat, I looked at my future. They were a replica of my parents, considering the love they showed each other. They finished one another’s sentences, loved unconditionally and were very generous. However, there wad something they did wrong that I never really understood up until this very second…
(Available in E Book)
Published here
This is what it had come to and I was going to end it.
I had thought of many options. Pills, jumping off a cliff, jumping off a skyscraper and even slicing my wrist.
I was filled with so much anger and hatred for myself that I wanted to carry out…
To be continued…
(Available in E Book)
Published here
Hi guys, I deeply apologize for the hiatus… been writing but surprisingly, I negligently left out my own blog!
On that note I would be posting stories every other day until you are up to date with my work…. Here’s the first, enjoy! Continue reading
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