Segun Ozique

Actors: Dimi; the tired woman. Massy; her inquisitor. A woman arrived a group gathering early before the meeting started, very tired and just starting to doze. Massy: Dimi hi. What are you doing? (ASKED SMILING). Dimi: Massy, boo, don’t mind me o. I’m so tired. Massy: Why are you tired? Dimi: We had some visitors last night and they stayed on drinking and partying till late. Massy: Wow! You really must have had a good time... Dimi: Oh, no, do not misunderstand me. I was not part of it. I mean, I was there, but it is my place to prepare and serve the food and drinks. They were my husband’s friends and they all stayed up very late and then when they were done and went to bed, I had to still stay up tidying up after them. Plus of course, since they were so noisy, they kept the children awake and I also had to stay up till they, the kids, particularly the last one that is only a year old, slept. Massy: Oh, don’t I know how those gathering can be. Just rest a while more before others come. ...

I am sitting in front of the head psychologist waiting to begin what he had called me to his office for. He rubbed one hand against the other, and smiling gleefully, said ‘hey Al, how are you feeling today? Good?’ I shrugged but said nothing. ‘Good?’ he said, ‘you should be because it’s good news, really good news - trust me, it won’t be long now before we’ll be talking about the last session. I’d hate to let a client like you go, particularly because over these past,’ he looked down the papers in front of him, up again and then asked, ‘two years?’ then answered, ‘yeah, two years it is. In two years, you’ve become my most interesting client and a friend.’ He then went on to inform me of how through personal observations and reading through the transcripts of all the other doctors, he has noticed remarkable progress. I want to believe him, I really do. Because that would spell the beginning, a new start to my freedom; to reclaiming all that I have lost through one night of drunken mi...

By SIMEON .U. CHARLES There is a slender line between the promise of making it through short cut to success and the reality of moral breakdown, spiritual emptiness and systemic destruction of true values. In this very important book, the author, Simeon makes a compelling and well-documented case that fraud in form of cheating is actually delivering a fatal blow not only to our individual lives but also to the family value system and societal well-being. Radical as such declaration seem, they actually reflect process that had steadily gained momentum around the country. ‘YOU CAN SUCCEED WITHOUT CHEATING’ provides an overview of what this situation is, of the actions needed to reverse the trend and what are the best alternatives for the individuals, as well as a detailed agenda for social change. Simeon shows that to have a virtuous, humane, and progressive society, cheating and malpractices as embodied in the craze for short-cuts, must be eliminated in favour of endeavour based o...

By DUL JOHNSON 1. I want to start from the very beginning – the opening; What does a reader want in an opening? First is to have the writer introduce the main character(s) and intimate something about the situation she/they are in-i.e the conflict that will provide dramatic twine for the story; (2) to get us interested and involved; and (3) to do it all in a timely fashion, i.e. it stops being an opening as soon as possible and gets on with the story.... ‘WHY WOMEN WON’T MAKE IT TO HEAVEN’ succeeded in doing just that...it introduces us to the characters, showed us where they were, and showed that they’ve gotten concerns or problems. And it does all these in the first page; starting with a long paragraph and quick five short paragraphs. After this, the story is up and running as the conflicts between a husband and his wife, then similar issues between other husbands and their wives escalates with disastrous consequences. The second story is more leisurely, comparably. Reading throug...

By Faithful Ohiani In my opinion, it is best to, from the start, talk about the books in the context of books on the shopping list of those looking for something on morals rather than on form; meaning, books that purely written as art for art sake; i.e. though thematic, simply stylistic and artist writing. The importance of contextualising here is that unless we do so, and see beyond literary critical response, the connection between the lessons we are presented books and them making contribution to literati tends to disappear. A formalist approach will serve as a distraction from what is ‘really’ at stake in the text. The approach based on the ethic of human relations allows us ask the following questions and for Faithful Ohiani books to answer them: Are the books morally uplifting? Are the Issues addressed; i.e. Adultery, homosexuality, lesbianism, faithfulness; attraction and affection, prayers before the choice on who to marry, commitment; the use of the words; I love you, t...

Have you absolutely loooooong for something you couldn’t, never have? Counting, waiting, expecting, imploring, exasperating, disoriented That certain, sort of expectation, the ones that keeps you up as infantile Of the nature once it sucks you in sends you on the trail of mysteries and lost winks That was it of her I inhaled with us at the playground, and never found enough air Spending days at the library, the beach, cooling off at bars, sailing the ocean, since air sick I was the perfect undergraduate for everything they say about the devoted and the longing Imagination ever wired, stuporous daydreaming: lips spouting; rhythmically synching When I think now about her, that very tinny play chum with the long raven hair Of her rosy, mouthwatering, chubby cheeks, her freckles, her red-earth spattering face The lips, as they lusciously, luxuriously move; at masticating, conversing, revealing Her eyes; the sparkling in amazement, excitement, adoration; piercing,...

So came the day we were in procession Of craniums hung, bowed Watching helplessly, Our mildewed buds of love, fallen Like pollen blown On perched earth, withering Like a drop of rain in the desert; Like the hot tears that challenges A dried and fevered pit Like seeds planted on burnt moorland Or process pouring of water to chill a hearth Here I memoir acting for everyone, left back, you felt affection for. I pray, like you, it is quite simple: Crafting it was a delight: Seasoning, too much seasoning Had shrivelled our petal, Unspent, charred ether, Sprinkling through the acreage alcove Adieu, Itoya, we miss you like famine: As when to earth pellet the petchary As when, the kin’s china is broken; You, the source of desire was wrenched; And the Pervading passion of feasting, lost. Adieu, adieu Alabi Itoya Ejedenawe. Though your passage was of God’s while, It was too soon: a li.

I looked hopefully to the wise for answers To quench my taste and hunger For knowledge, insight and direction But the wise, elected and selected Spent their time running helter and skelter In food, wine, gold, and silver pursuit Churches opened their doors offering succour Making promises of paradise lost to gain And like the desperado I was, I’m lured in, jubilantly expectant But promises of come with nothing Became punctuated with the compulsion of Offerings, ten percentages and of a life no longer mine Mortally; strained, resistant and estranged I was accused of non conformity, undedicated, Faithless...dialectical and worldly Dragged I soon was before the altar To answer to his most rostrum high, Pontius Pilate.

The natural ontological make of mankind is creativity Every human aspiring to transform their world Exploiting, exploring ever new possibilities Searching for richer, fuller prosperities To which they can relates and accept But to which they must be cautious A task, they must, with care, perform That is why, woman, you must act, and now, you must React you must to transform your environment Tear down the wall, the shackles and cuffs The manacles, the fangs, the battalions That is perpetually in wait to keep you caged Yes you do have your doubts Yes you do have your hopes Yes, your seeing of the other side maybe skewed You seeing only the perception of the limitation of you Based on your religions, beliefs, laws and all the other baggage and bandages But must, you must still, everyday and under every circumstances Strive to use materials at your disposal To perform, overcome and recreate history To impel, negate and reorder the present order ...

I grew, finely groomed Taught the notion of the importance of good family values Of the need to make something good of my life A life that should transcend immediate bodily material things And on leaving home, made society my extended family And on her behalf, at rooftop, screaming, scribbling, scripting An occupational hazard that apparently pitched me head on With authority that thought I should I be humble, subservient I could not restrain me, so in shackle, they provided me a boarding Within a wall barely 2.00 x 0.9 metres And under a coarsish, rough, rouge and nightmarishly plight A chunk of my life living with moths, lice and mice My youth defined by the many daily and nightly push-ups But the push-ups gradually faded with age, leaving time to ramble and ponder And then, my mind began to wonder fonder It began with the realisation of the loss of youthful years Of the years of dreams deferred but later dumped And once i began to go that path ...

Eddie Onuzurike There is that certain sort of book, the type that you read when you are outside a particular area where you grew up or have lived, which when you then come across, you absolutely love it because it sends you back on memory lane. That was what the book ‘The Stable Tripod’ did to me when I first read it – it sent me back to the streets of Lagos; reminding me of some of the girls I knew, the things they did to survive, of the one room dwellers, nosey neighbours, Lagos victims of lynching, the intrigues, sometimes bloody intensity of chieftaincy or royalty rivalry, the police and their bias role and, you know, that wish ( I still do) that somebody, anybody incorruptible would someday come up to clean-up the police establishment. So, if I could do it I would send copies of this book to every Nigerian embassy in the world - it is the perfect bit of writing for the nostalgic who long, absolutely for something to remind them of the magic, intrigues and weird, real weird happ...

Helon Habila The novel is essentially about the time and life of a family – the Lamangs. It follows the birth and growing-up process of two twin brothers; Mamo and Lamamo – how their mother died while giving birth to them and the role their father played contributory to her death. It showed the bitterness that grew in them when they heard all the exploits of their father and how their mother, desperately in love, was ignored by him. This bitterness would define their path and shape their character in life. Lamamo was the more vibrant, ‘strong’ and extroversive of the two brothers. His dream of fame and wanting to escape from home leads him into series of adventures outside his village where he joins rebel groups fighting in various part of Africa as volunteer soldiers. In the course of doing so, he losses an eye, then marries in far-away Guinea but eventually returns home to lead a revolt in the village. His brother Mamo, though equally ambitious and also eager to escape the clu...

By Ngozi Onyioha-Orji So, what are the questions at the heart of The Knots of Karma? Ask almost any parent about love, and they'll probably describe to you of the ultimate love sacrifices by them to their children like, the skilfully crafted sacrificial, all suffering love of Romeo to Juliet or, - vice versa depending on your side of the divide. But their kids, sometimes, particularly, as in these instances, often, have different views. So, the questions are; do these parents know that by their very idealistic love, insistent on channelled paths to ‘ideal proper life style’ etc, that these children may get affected unhelpfully? As Kubie is dead, your answer, is in the game played out in the stories the other five girls told of their teenage years arising from misguided parental misconceptions, ignorance, overzealous love, faulty upbringing, psychotic conceptions and, of course, the beautiful strokes of Ngozi’s imprinted words. Thematic ideas of loved, suicide, solitude and s...