Time is motile; it is irreverently so. Man, in a bid to undo, in his best way, this attribute of time, came up with an invention that stills it. Hence, in as many clicks and flashes as possible, time is shamed as it stays frozen in our hands.  Time could be regarded as the clit or un-clit of our emotions. It could be pleasure-giving. Or otherwise, hence the necessity of the coinage, ‘un-clit’. Whichever way it goes, we cannot but stroke it to a climax when we feel like doing so. But that is only when we have access to that sleek, long-gone phenomenon; when it has been embalmed on some card, album or storage device.

Photographs remind me of my wisdom, and most times, my foolishness. It’s the age of selfies and photographs sometimes remind me of my solitude - maybe narcissism is a better choice - as well as my ability to fit into groups. Photographs remind me of frowns, smiles and tears that may not be seen again. They often make one conscious of the nudity and arbitrariness around. What is Kim Kardashian’s nude without a camera?

Poetry performs almost the same functions, for me. The words of the poet are the clicks of the camera. They are more. More than a refrigerator for time. They are beyond a mortuary for that motile, ‘long-gone phenomenon’: time. Poetry, because of its devotion to imagination - unlike photography which gives us what used to be and is - creates its own space and time. Poetry is such a vast cosmos and the work of the poet, huge. You should read Emmanuel Iduma’s preface to Dami Ajayi’s chapbook, Daybreak and other Poems as well as Umar Sidi’s The Poet of Sand.

The interactions of the written word and stilled time have been explored in the digital age and the literature of the age. Both have been channelled into the pursuit of similar courses. This line of thought takes me back to Between Art and me, a piece on the interaction of different art forms and the significance such mergers birth. In the case of Sandstorms in June, both offer a memento, a generation’s. It’s a memento capable of contributing in its little way to the traditional publishing versus internet literature discourse. In terms of production, Sandstorms in June identifies with the novel of the two though, while the reader may choose to shred the collection of its virtual-ness by not reading on a screen but by printing it out. 

Sandstorms is how a generation has decided to venerate its alma mater, the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, on the wings of an eclectic art form. This generation – the same which birthed the likes of Dami Ajayi, whose collection of poetry, Clinical Blues, was released not long ago, Emmanuel Iduma (author of Farad) and Kayode Taiwo Olla (author of Softlie) - has one thing or the other that ties it to the supposed Africa’s most beautiful campus. This appellation may not be wholly right. No? The beauty of great Ife no longer lies in its structures – they’re still there though. It’s now a thing of the mind and Ife writers don’t fail in romanticising their identity. Hence, one would notice convergences in the portrayals some of these writers conjure in their individual works. Take this quote from Iduma’s Farad as the first sample of this convergence: 

Night time on the campus was usually quiet, but as she approached the major lecture halls, she heard, faintly, the praying voices of students. The praying voices came, no doubt, from the Sports Complex – almost all parts of the complex were being used as prayer grounds. Not even the main football field was spared. She imagined being in a prayer ground – would she kneel or lie down, or maybe stand? Being a Sunday-only Christian, her prayers were restricted to silent mutters she often felt were not fervent enough (135).

These lines from Dami Ajayi’s Clinical Blues say nothing different from the above:

Wee hours in Ife,
Secluded in the Geology wing of White House,
My head nestled on Bailey's surgical account,
Neurons swirling with stuff, symptoms and signs,
My mind is tucked in the recent past,
Bailey's on the rock and the thrusting
Tunes of New Buka, a few paces and hours away.
…
The soft flap of a Bailey and Love page
Slow dancing to August's gust or Damian Marley's
Patience is reminiscent of knocking Mercy's door
At Uncovered Pavilion.

masu pri ka ta ska ba ba

Who is dancing on this tapestry of words
That the wind lifts for my arousal? (62)

This stanza from Tobi Adebowale’s ‘Flock of Tongues’ in Sandstorms further reflects the intertextuality that the quotes above invoke:

An infantry of saved souls file out,
Hewing and mowing the enemy,
Undulating arms and a staccato of voices;
       I think of the squash duel near IGI,
       I turn, feeling a riot within;
       I sense I must leave to well up (29).


The uniqueness of Sandstorms is in its apt representation of the Ife reality. Ife is a world of its own: its wars and victories, its love and trysts, its deaths too.  Its aluta consciousness and the faults therein. Its strength too. Hence, we find each of the six poets addressing whichever of the Ife realities that catches his attention.

Damilola Yakubu’s ‘We Do Give a Fuck’ is one of my favourites. It beams a poetic light on how death is taken in Sandstorm’s setting. It reminds me of Vero’, a friend I lost a year ago and the power of death to unite the living.

Death is here, everywhere
Regardless of what our mantra is,
We do give a fuck.

I hear:
Wole ran amok before his God,
Yet Ara never came back.
A car’s tire hit Tayo into oblivion.
Dipo made poison his friend.
A friend of a friend
Of a friend died.

Our candles are not for reading alone (77).


Victor Olusanya’s ‘Aluta Market’ is another reminder of the power death wields over the animate and inanimate. Aluta Market used to be like the university community’s mammy market. For no defined reason, it’s now like a wasteland and has been taken over by nature’s emissaries: overgrown bushes. Close to Aluta Market is the school’s nightly love market, the one no Ife student can deny ever patronising. Here is what I mean: when you don’t take part in the trysts of Anglo Moz, you either feed on the sights they offer or be engaged in a conversation about the going on at the location. Sandstorms would have been incomplete without referencing this location. Gbolahan Badmus’ ‘September Rush’ and Victor Olusanya’s ‘Anglo Moz’ are apt renderings of the location. Samsudeen Alabi’s ‘Moremi and the Sojourn of Hands’ and Tomiwa Ilori’s ‘The Pit’ bare the intricacies of sex, maybe lust too.


The complexities that surround the Ife reality may not be understood until one sets one’s feet into the vast murk that they are. The beauty that lies in setting one’s feet in that murk is in the beauty that comes out of it. Contradictory? Such is Ife. Life is not unlike that too. Going through Ife is like a sandstorm, one that leaves not just its good marks on you. There are scars too. Whichever, all are mementos.

The voices that echo in the pages of Sandstorms are fresh and real, very real. 

 ***

 Download Sandstorms in June HERE

Three Poems

Posted by Lit 'n' Life comments (0)

Of the Thriving Frond
(For 'lakunle)

When the next eid arrives
And the next
The next
And the next
A thousand eids and more
When each arrives
Its baggage and rams
Hopes and aspirations with it,
I’ll rip semi-healed scars
And serve memories of wars, ours,
With death’s spite.

To them that care,
I’ll tell of mon pere
And ma mere.
Palms hacked at noon.

I'll tell the tale of a thriving frond
Watching sleeplessly over a hacked palm
And its plain
I’ll tell my tale
And theirs
For a greater them glows in me.


Sunday Talk
(for 'Deola)

The last time we talked was on a Sunday
Talk of you and I
Bards’ phalluses and cunts
And wine
Love and hate
And friends
We spoke of death, you started it
We ran out of airtime.

More Sundays will come
And we’ll talk
And run outta airtime
And talk some more
For death’s scared of you.


November Pour

Clop Clop Clop
The puddle behind my room weeps
As drops of cum baptise it
Water washing water

Heaven’s a fucker this November
Fucking bad
And with no ending
No rush
It often orgasms with a rumble

And resumes the do.


Source: thatgirlbelle.wordpress.com
It annoys! Yes, it does! Was I an American, I would say fuck, and fuck, and fuck all over again! I would even put shit as jaara. Waking up to father playing Louis Armstrong’s What a Wonderful World makes me want to do some outrageous thing. I want to lift the DVD player off the scarcely filled shelf. I want to fling it at someone, anyone across the room. There is no other person but father and I want him to see that the world is indeed far from wonderful. It is only wonderful when he sinks his butts into our malnourished sofa. Good sofas, I know, are stuffed to fullness: their bums, cheeks and all. They don’t creak like ours, even when you do it on them. I know that because I have done it so many times with our landlord’s son on their couch. Ours is not a couch, it is a three-sitter, one that could take five medium-sized people. Father sits proudly in the middle of the three-sitter every morning while his poverty occupies what is left of the spaces to his right and left. It’s a wonderful world.

Father’s pipe toes and froes the path from his fingers to his lips as he hums Armstrong. Father’s all I’ve got, and his absence when I need him most proves why he has no woman in his paltry life. He has whores though, the one-night stand types that quell his lust only for his poor man’s recompense. There are times I feel I am no different from these women; that I have the same blood flowing in me. One of them probably had me and ran away. Dad is not a keeper.

I am like dad’s women; we rarely act differently. Where we do, they are inconsequential. Segun, our landlord’s son, after thrusting me back and forth always has the naira note that removes the fear of hunger-stricken days from my mind. Twice a week. He slips a crisp note into my bra before I leave his room each time. Father knows this though he pretends not to; I don’t feed off his money.



The morning’s light is not done sweeping the night’s shadows. I walk past father and towards the window to part the blinds. The new day shoots its gleam into the room and the room is awash with brightness. The shadows lost their nerve and they, with astonishing immediacy, begin to seek refuge wherever light was shy of. Under the chairs and shelf. Into father’s pipe and through it, into father. I press my head to the iron proof by the window while the breeze of the morning flushes into the room. My eyes traverse the street before them. The road, clothed in tar runs with a snake’s ambiguity, bending that way and this till it glides into obscurity. On its two sides lay houses of different sizes and oldness. Our street is a mixture of time’s binaries. Where we live is not one of the recent ones. Its landlord is its second and it is certain it would have a third. Our society could be embarrassingly philanthropic. Nothing is too small, bad or hard for it to pass down. Wives. Religion. Material things. Feud. So, father would, when in a sober mood, blame his father for handing down a voracious libido. I’ve got an ample share of it too. 

I detach my head from its embrace with the iron proof for some time to check if normalcy, like always, has happened. It is normalcy that is at work when father sleeps off, pipe in mouth as Louis Armstrong’s song remains on repeat, every morning. Father leaves home every afternoon to join other men, jobless like him, in filling potholes. They eat off the failed system that is our government. I glue my head back to the iron proof as I observe what is normalcy on the street. Everything, like Father is following a pattern. A routine. The drainages on both sides of the road, always fuck-thirsty, have opened their laps to the penetration of the morning sun. The sun, known for its dexterity in giving a head, laps up all the slimy liquid in the orifice.  Most houses around have their windows agape like ours, spit and other trash flying out. Garbage bins spill their guts into the drainages. That is man at work. The drainages exercise absolute perseverance while they wait for the day of reckoning, when they would pay men back in worse coins. When such times come, the atmosphere is bathed in the putrid smell of waste. Houses like ours vomit water and other belongings with every heavy downpour. The street is alive with its folks and their routines with them. Those who work do so, day and night. Those who steal do too. I do my thing too. We love. We cry and make love. We kill. We die. It’s the same life and the same people in pursuit of more. More money. More cars. Life’s luxuries and no lack.

Lack could be so daring; it sticks up a middle finger in the face of some of us. We don’t watch it do just that, we hustle. We hustle and yet lack. So while cars, new and tattered, rightly acquired and otherwise, impose their frames on the road every morning, children, poor like their parents, sac bags on their backs scamper to the sides of the road. Some fall into the drainages. It’s just the beginning of their hustle, a lifetime of it. When they climb out, their plates remain clutched to their chests. The chests brim with fear. I see its excess pour with the timid smiles they flash at their mates, as they press on their way. It’s not the fear of the rich. It’s the fear of obscure tomorrows; one which I share in.

I turn back to gift Father a full gaze. He is in the middle of a throaty, croak-like snore.  His sleep is like death, a peaceful one. Nothing but him could wake him. It’s his world, just his. So wonderful and yet, not one bit so to me. I know what I want; it’s the converse of what seems wonderful to father, a life so different, so fulfilled. And I’ll get it.

I’ll just take a walk, with my Ghana Must Go bag of course.

This is probably going to be the most random post I have ever published on this blog. I don’t remember ever doing this before on this space. No, I don’t. Every post, no matter how boring or dumb (yeah, I know I have been forcing them down your throats) chops, I mean chops so amply into my time. The writing and the days of proofreading and proofreading and proofreading that follows. Don’t mind those times I open with something like ‘This morning’ or ‘Today’, I don’t start writing such posts the same day. I don’t give up that easily on my posts; I brush them again and again till they are almost-okay. They are never okay. That confession, I’m sure, must have got you wondering what big deal it is to blog. As I write this, I know this post is going to be an exception. It’s going to go up on the blog, hours at most, after I’m done writing. Why? I think I just need to fill this space with my sincere and raw thoughts NOW. This urgency didn’t just come of its own will. A couple of the blog’s readers in the past few days have quizzed me on the deafening silence here. My conscience too.

Let me say this, it is not for want or lack of things to write. There are always things to write, to blog about.

Courtesy: http://www.influenceexpansion.com/

To say there aren’t things to write is some kind of tough thing for me. I may not be the wittiest writer, but to pen a small ode to either momma’s dishes or Umar Sidi’s poetry chapbook; a rant of a few-hundred words; to do a shikini appreciation of Asa’s Dead Again or to just talk on and on about how much I love to hear Tye Tribbett scream; to address incessant pesterings by friends and foes alike to go get a girlfriend; to whine a little about T. B. Joshua or do some erotica story, aha, ought not to be a problem. But what happens when doing all that is a problem? What happens when one realises that sitting behind a computer all in the name of blogging isn’t all that is to being fulfilled, that there is more to getting a life? What happens when you realise that blogging does not foot your bills; that it rather adds in its own little way, to the bills to be footed?

Yet, there are always things to write…

There are always things to write though the nudge, passion or encouragement to write them may not always be present. Hey, that’s me admitting what’s been happening to me in the past weeks. The reality of trying to settle down in a new phase of one’s life is enough to overwhelm one till that nudge, passion or encouragement recedes into some box. You remember the Martian child and his box?

But I’m breaking out of the box, I mean it.

That said, there are times blogging serves an escapist function. Call it a needed distraction from reality if you like. Now is one of such times. And what I feel now, just one thing, is that I’m filling a blank space, occupying it with thoughts, raw, and maybe anger. Just me filling this space with me. And knowing that you are somewhere there to tolerate me.

All I’ve said here and now is a build-up to the purpose of this soooo random post: I appreciate everyone who has at one time or the other come to read from this my small room and parlour on blogosphere. Thanks for enduring my vewi vewi vewi boring, inconsistent and emotional self. 

Okay, I took a break last week. I’ll just go ahead to confess that nothing happened to me and no, it was not Ebola-phobia. I was just errrm busy. I have been doing some things and I want to get them right. However, I could have posted something. I was lazy. No vex abeg. *prostrates*


There is no other way to start this week's post than by saying that there are blogs I love reading. When I say that, here is what I mean: not reading any of their posts is like asking me to strip before five year olds which should make any teen uneasy. There are many of them. I can’t list them all but I think a post on my top *** (no number yet) blogs and websites should come soon. Atilola’s World is one of them. So, two weeks ago, Atilola wrote a post, Cascaded Little Things, where she examined why the Nigerian situation is such a bad one. She attributed this to our resolve not to do some supposed little things right. Things like jumping the queue at ATM outlets, running red lights, littering public spaces and so on seem our true nature. See, you should read the post yourself; it’s something little too. 

 See this person o. Yes, you! You want to say you didn’t read the last sentence abi? Oya go back and click the link. Haha.

This post is not in any way different from Atilola’s; just a shikini addition. Do you know the supposed small people in the teeny-weeny imagination of some Nigerians are the ones who run this country? I wonder what this nation would look like without all those ‘small’ people whose contributions to life and living we don’t value. I’ve got nothing much to write, but take this from me: it is when we begin to value the gatemen, the cleaners (yes, the OYES people), housekeepers (like me), all them Mallams and Yellow Fever people, the ‘risky’ sellers around and their substantial contributions to our lives that we’ll learn to do things right. Think of the doro-mega-superlative mess the poo you just emitted would have become before the cleaner arrives and you’ll learn to flush public toilets after use. Was your mother or grandmother the one assigned to cleaning your street, you’ll not finish doing it with your one-night stand babe by some street corner while you leave your used condom on the same spot for your servant(s) to pick the next day. True? Say false make I...

A couple of Nigerians have it wired into their genes that doing these little things are not for them. I loathe how the supposed big people do theirs more. Here is an example: some son of a big man is willing to coerce a bank’s doorman into granting him access into the banking hall, the long queue on ground notwithstanding. So he walks up to the latter and expects him to begin to cower before him because of the son of who he is. He threatens to put mechanisms in place and make sure the doorman is sacked. So, the supposed ‘small’ man, torn between doing his bidding and facing the wrath of the people on the queue, begins to beg. Oga Rich Man’s Son on most occasions joins the queue, but he basks in the euphoria of having been able to assert his authority on someone.

Someone once told me that the first set of people he sends new month messages are the supposed ‘small’ people in his life: his messenger, mechanic and his wife’s baby-sitter. We may not be doing that, but we ought to at least do things - the little ones especially - right. We know them. The supposed ‘small’ people should earn our compassion and appreciation too. They are not shit. Don't treat them like such. 

And I said there was nothing much to write o. Kai! See what Naija matter can cause. Ayam sorry.

***

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Those times come when you find yourself helpless in the fangs of boredom. At those times, you discover that your desire to get out of it is not quelled by any of the things you love: books, music, movies, not even the chit chats you get into every now and then on your chat apps. For me, such times birth reminiscences. Yesternight was one of such. So, I decided to lie on the bed, flipping through my phone’s gallery, something I do when I need to update my profile pictures on WhatsApp and BBM. Then, I found this image. Irrelevant image, one will say, but it evoked a memory, a not-so-important yet very important one.  

Agege Bread
The image reminded me of hunger. Yes, that Agege bread reminded me of nothing but hunger. Hunger, after a day, a whole day of scanning through PDFs, feeling relieved when the relevant ones appeared and hitting the delete button as I discovered some weren’t just going to do the work. It was one hell of a day, of copying and pasting, and drawing conclusions (and previewing movies too). It was my long essay; it was worth it. But hunger visited when I least expected, late in the night. I had not thought about it until it struck. So, I shut down Tobby and headed for my room. I hadn’t walked too far before I remembered that there was nothing to eat in the room. Being the person I am (I rarely eat out), and in that condition, I would have gladly eaten anything, and from anywhere. But there was none. It was past twelve, there was no eatery. I accepted my fate and continued trekking.

You know me? I am 'risky'!
Minutes from getting to my hall, there was this flicker. It was not far. Something to eat, I hoped. I trekked in the direction with the mind of trying my luck. It was food.  ‘Risky’ (not sure this is the correct spelling but it sha sounds like that), that’s the name. ‘Risky’? Oh yeah, R.I.S.K.Y. I don’t know why it is called that. Moreover, I cannot deny that the name chased me away from the delicacy until that night. I had no choice; I needed to feed the worms threatening to rip my tummy into shreds. I placed my order: seventy naira bread and one egg. I paid and the seller went to work. He cut the bread into two and fried the egg, which he did kind of hastily. He performed some other culinary juju and whisked the whole thing into the middle of the bread’s mouth. He put the bread back into the frying pan and pressed it down with his knife. Seconds after, I was on the way to my room with ‘risky’.

Getting to my room, I splayed ‘risky’. I was not moved by its good smell; I took shots of it. I did that with the mind that in case I died before daybreak, someone looking for pictures to be used for obituary posters would find them.

My ghost didn’t write this post. I did. I didn’t die. And I regret my years of dodging ‘risky’. Here’s what I typed on my phone’s note after eating ‘risky’:

 Four years, I considered it what it was really called. ‘Risky’ is its name. It’s one egg or more fucking bread, seventy naira bread... It’s a union of some sort; pleasurable to the eater who orgasms in belches. It’s actually not risky eating ‘risky’. (7/6/2014)

The ‘risky’ experience happened some two months ago and while typing this post, it dawned that there is something to pick from it. Life could be like ‘risky’, the strange, un-tasted and un-tested. Trying out new things could come with fear and risk. I agree, but with it also comes new, worthwhile experiences. You agree?



This morning, you remembered how you felt some years ago when you were told that your cousins, Josh and Wale, would be spending their three months long break at our place. You considered the little space J and W would have to share with you and your brother. The room was too small and you two always blamed your parents for lack of foresight while putting up the structure. ‘The rooms could have been bigger or we could have more rooms for visitors,’ your brother said every time someone visited. There was a visitor’s room, but grandma was its permanent resident. *Caseclosed!* So, you started cleaning up for J and W’s arrival. You would pair for each bed and the only two sockets the room had. The one table you and your brother fought for would be shared too. You remembered that while you thought about these, all these, an idea seeped into your head. It made sense. What you remembered were the chores you and your brother have had to contend with since you returned from boarding school. The two cars to wash every morning. The dog – Peggy – to feed and clean up. Laundry… You smiled, thinking J and P would ease the burden…

You are now grown, and the only thing you remember about J and P’s visit, aside the fun you all had, was that rather than ease your burden, they swelled it. Guy/babe, that is how life happens. Most people, like you did and still do, believe that two heads, or more are always better than one. In fact, they reference it more when an assignment is about to be taken up, and they feel such assignment would fare better with more hands. I think so too but it is not always true; there are times when two heads could just be worse than one. I have proof.

Some days ago, my brother and fellow housekeeper, Bobo B, had to travel.  I returned home some weeks before this and I am sure the boy must have been thinking the arrival of the Housekeeper in Chief, which I have always been, would open more space for him to savour his sessional break. However, it happened that the reverse was the case. Mum, a teacher, leaves home early every morning hanging some left-over chores on our necks like medals. I don’t blame her really; it’s her turn to get back at us. Me, I mean. I did same to her sometime last year. So, she leaves home and unfortunately comes back to meet most of the chores, left-over chores o, undone. What do we do when she’s gone? We act like this chore and that chore should be for one person and so we pass the buck until we end up doing nothing. Was either of us the only one at home, that wouldn’t have been the case, I am sure. Hence, whenever she returns, we point accusing fingers at each other. But, you know what? I am the bad boy, most times. Bobo B could be sooooo enduring.

As I write this, Bobo B hasn’t returned, but I have been pretty effective without him. Mum, since schools are on break, has been very helpful too. There are times I wish that boy would just stay wherever he is; my days have been without any plate of buck or query being handed to me.  And that is where the moral of this post is. There are times when we should count ourselves lucky to have a partner or more in discharging a responsibility. It shouldn’t be an excuse to be lazy. If the partner happens to be diligent, we would escape being smeared with shit at the end of the work. But when the reverse is the case, we can only land our bad heads and butts, all of us, in a whirlpool of shit. So, when next you are commissioned for an assignment, have it at the back of your mind that the result may not get better with more people. What it takes to have a good result may be for you to be a good head. 

PS:
1. This post was meant to be published last week but my housekeeping thingy stood in the way. Bobo B is now back and I have been really nice to him.

2. Happy new month friends.

The idea of housekeeping came up in a chat with a friend a week and some days ago. Having just concluded a phase in our lives and subsequently parted, we had no other means of interacting but via chats. But this phase that brought us together was a remarkable one, if for no other reason, the fact that it lasted a year than it was expected to last on paper. Yes, it took us five years to complete our four-year degree course.  This friend of mine left school before me because I was not as fast as she was with the completion of my long essay. Caring babe, she thought it good to check on me and my work. On telling her that I was already home and on the verge of spending my second week at home, she said that thing that has got me thinking since we ended our chat. 'Welcome to the club of housekeepers,' she said, and added a LOL.

So there is such thing as the Club of Housekeepers? It was a joke, or it sounded like one. But it is true. Whatever she meant by 'housekeeping' or by extension, 'housekeeper', I established my own meaning for the term. For me, being called a housekeeper does not necessarily have some denigration attached to it. You may disagree, but I think this is where the idea of things being relative to different people comes in. So, what does housekeeping mean to me?

I will start with what it is not. Housekeeping is not waking at 10am and going straight to the dining table for breakfast. It is not sitting all day with African Magic and its ilk while you punch LOLs and OMGs over Instant Messaging applications. It is not having the whole night to dream and fantasize about your crush. It may not be attending all church services there are. And it would definitely be stepping on toes and learning to tender warm apologies…

Housekeeping is having the burdens of a whole household – Oga (your dad), Madam (your mum) and their pikins (your siblings), as it is in my case - on your neck. God help you if yours is a lanky one. Hence, housekeeping is waking before the first cock crows to have your devotion. It is not dozing while the devotion lasts because another round of sleep might spell doom.  Another round of sleep kwa? OYO is your case if you do that. Housekeeping is taking extra time on the toilet seat just to make sure you read blogs and know what the latest from Sambisa is. It is cooking up your next blog post, in your mind, while washing Oga’s car. It is enjoying Norah Jones, John Legend or Gladys Knight while making toast for breakfast. It is reading Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah and Charles Bukowski’s Women, and typing your blog post. You would rather do these than have a nap at that time when everybody is out. 

Housekeeping is resolving to delay your nap till later at night. It is also taking selfies and attending to your Facebook, Twitter and Blogger accounts while munching on your toast. It could be flouting table manners. Housekeeping is preparing for better days, and with a good job. It is making the right connections. Housekeeping is cooking lunch and swaying your cute bum to Dorobucci. It is cooking dinner, your ears and mind plunged into your pool of downloaded podcasts. Housekeeping is joining Oga and his family in watching evening soaps, for just one hour o. Housekeeping is preparing for another day. It is going to sleep early, and happy that you have maximised a day. It is calling your girlfriend and asking how her day went. It is muttering that ‘I love you’, just as it is hearing her do her favourite ‘kiss kiss kiss’ before closing your eyes.

Housekeeping is multitasking; it is getting the most out of the moment while you clear the path that leads to your comfort zone. As at present, housekeeping is what I do. My comfort zone - getting a better engagement - isn’t far away. I know. Yes, I’ll just maintain my reputation as a good housekeeper, till I can gladly sing Suurulere.

I don’t know what all the fuss about getting married is these days. Like it is easy to be married. All these yeye boys, they have nothing else in their heads but to imagine walking along some aisle with their beloved, extravagantly gowned and smiling like a boxer short that is torn somewhere around the crotch, with a/an something something karat diamond ring glittering on her finger. To do all that is easy, they should ask Japheth Omojuwa. He is not even married yet, but he knows how easy it is to propose with an 18 karat diamond ring.  It is as easy as giving a head on the night of your wedding. But, to be a father, ehn, is not a joke. If you have decided, like I did decades ago that you’ll be a father, or you are one already, then you will be doing yourself great disservice by not reading this.

First, you don’t need a job to be a good father. Your being a father does not begin until the day your wife breaks the news that she is pregnant. That is the day you take on a new career, fatherhood. Hence, you are meant to resign from whatever job you are doing. Fatherhood is an occupation, a good one. Your years of experience in it begins from the day your wife announces that she is heavy with her first child. You shouldn’t worry about financing the home. I heard there is a Bank of Industry in Nigeria. You could apply for a loan from the bank. Make sure you give the bank’s officials an apt review of what your business, fatherhood, is all about. Thunder fire anybody that does not value such business. I have told a couple of men this, but all I get is a nauseating ‘Ehen?’ They come back later, after regrets o, to attest to how valuable my little kobo of advice was to them. You will come back to share your testimony too. By the time you’re done fathering all your twelve kids (by ‘fathering’, I mean training them up to university level as well as marriageable ages), you should be getting close to being a septuagenarian. Then, you can start applying for jobs in different big firms: Shell, Total, Glo... Your years of experience in fathering will fill in the gaps of the Masters and Ph.Ds. other applicants may come with. In fact, that you raised a dozen kids could be equivalent to being the MD of twelve different branches. Just make sure you document your achievements in fathering well. What else do you want as a father? 

 Your loan? Don’t worry about it. Your daughters’ bride prices will cater for it. You should also be smart enough to decide at the appropriate time, what percentage your sons will contribute from their salaries to the family pocket every month. Who says having a family is not a business?

In the business of fathering, I have come to realise that there are principles that work in the raising of some children that don’t work for other kids. The moment you raise a child that does not respond to the style of child nurturing that you have adopted, I have a mechanism that would work. All the mechanism needs is you, your wife and a bed. A bed is even a luxury, you can do it – you know what two adults do with a bed - without one. And no condoms will be needed. I call the mechanism GBB: Going back to the Bed. It’s an adaptation of the ‘going back to the drawing board’ expression business men use after a plan falls flat. This is the gist: you keep giving birth to kids and adopting new nurturing techniques for each of them until you get it right. The moment you get it right, you can begin to adopt the technique to raise other kids. However, try as much as possible not to exceed twelve kids. Anything above a dozen will make people say that you have turned your wife into a baby-making machine.

Since you are not going to be the kind of father who will wake up in the morning with the mind of rushing to office with some Jehovah’s Witness’ bag and poise, there are things you dedicate your mornings to. The most important of them all is teaching your children the word of God. Your children ought to be vast in scriptures or else, the future of your profession isn’t good. Some children are born to be impervious to instructions. Hence, you must beat the scriptures into their heads from childhood. The best instrument for that is a rod. The scripture asks us to employ this instrument regularly. You should also note that it is Western madness - yes, I call it madness – not to beat your children for their wrong deeds. The other day, a friend of mine told me he would like to be the kind of father Luther Vandross sang about in his ‘Dance with my Father’. Rubbish! Mumu! *I hope he isn't reading* What African dad father does that? I can’t imagine myself swinging my hips to some club banger all in the name of being a father. God forbid! A black father is like Okonkwo, Achebe’s Okonkwo. He should be ready to yank skirt or short – whichever - off any ass for serious spanking. Your children should be in perpetual fear of your fatherly anger.

I’ll also advise that you don’t give your children sex education. Don’t even mention sex! I’ve heard so many parents say sex education starts from making one’s children call private parts their real names. Don’t do it. Our fathers didn’t. Stick to calling them thing or kokoro. You know how much sex sells these days. So, be wary of selling sex to them. No romance novels. No magazines. No TV for them too, except it is to watch Super Story and Pastor Chris. Only Pastor Chris o, because he will help them develop good English fone (pronounced /fone/) and enough holy swag.


I can’t teach you all you need to know about fatherhood, but I am sure these should be enough in helping you start out as a father. Good luck.

When we were boys, boys living in hostels, we woke to chimes for devotion. Nobody wanted to arouse the sentimental anger of the seniors, so we all obeyed except for the few ones who were down with recalcitrance. Those who were denied the boarding experience, either by ‘condition’ or parents’ reservations also had their fair share of boyish experiences. For instance, we all experienced the thrill of early morning erections, just as boys still do. Boarding school boys found it more commonplace since they had many hard-ons to see. And compare. It seemed like heaven! When we became men, we knew it cost days and nights of good labour to satisfy erections. A lazy man ought not to have one, and when he does, he should spank some sense into his thing. As men, we know if you must bed, not like a rapist, you must work. The men we are today laugh at boys who gift trivial commodities to fellow boys, and girls, to be voted into political offices. They look for shortcuts. All boys want is to eat, dream, and follow the nudges of their small blokos. Men work.

When we were boys, we sang in the choir and attended all prayer and Bible Study meetings. In fact, we prayed that God would wipe mucus from noses; that he would make us pass, even when we had not done our arithmetic well. We mastered scriptures and devoted little time to study. God must have been a fool to answer such prayers. Yes, I did say that. That was what we took God for. A fool. On becoming men, we knew we are the architects of our destinies.

As boys, we all thought Nigeria was wack. We knew it, we were right. We were wrong too. We felt we were all born to be her president, each boy o. We were silly, like boys of course. Thank fate, we grew into men and not the presidents we desired. We turned out better. We’ve had presidents. Yes, president upon president, we’ve had, and our national shit has clung to our bums. Un-shat, and with flies hymning around. We’ve had boy-presidents.

I know a president. He used to be a boy like we were. But poorer. The church rat’s wealth would have dwarfed all he had and ever thought he could. Of course, he had no shoes. No liver. No head. No mind, prick…nothing. He lacked so many things. But he became a Dr so and so. He became a president too, no thanks to fate and umbrellas that manipulate polls. Now, he has tonnes of shoes. With them, he shoos us, men, and our sons, and daughters away like houseflies. He had no fez as a boy. Now, he is a rich boy, with hats he flaps over his ears like a hijab. He is deaf. So deaf to cries and pleas! I don’t blame him. He’s just a boy.

They are just boys too, the Boko people. They should be men, but they still play like boys, and with toys of mass destruction. A pack of boys, unlike us, they would not taunt girls. They would rather seize them, girls in their teens. Their erections are directed at these babies. It is babies that fuck mothers in the making. Men wait to prove their manliness, in yam tubers and wads of hard-earned dough. These boys would rather steal into spaces where men work and worship. They would blow them up thereafter. Once in a while, they blew one of their own alongside. What more can one expect? They are boys, clueless and veiled by fanaticism. Clueless as they may be, they are nothing like the boy-president. His ineptitude and his Patience are both too nauseating. ‘Keep doing it!’ Some sycophants egg him on. Boys teasing boys! Keep doing what? What does he do? What does he do but watch like dodo? Keep doing it! Keep watching while people get roasted in the millions, daily. Keep watching while boys your age abduct and exploit your own. Keep watching while he is emasculated, he and his nation together… ‘Keep doing it’ is what men like me should not say. When we do, like I will, we prophesy doom, but in the language boy-presidents like him would understand.

When we were boys, we recited Humpty Dumpty. We never saw beyond the rhyme:

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall;
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.


Now that we are men, we see there is more to Humpty than its rhyme. We see Humpty in our boy-president. Above all, we see an impending fall, one beyond repair. 

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