A.M.A Writes

I set off a liberal snowflake's trigger senses a few days back when I noticed a picture of two gay men and in the usual fashion of what I did when I saw something interesting, brought it to my WhatsApp story with a caption that showed how annoyed as heel I was that those two gorgeous men were gay and how it was a 'waste'. The person went off on how they were on their own, minding their business and I decided to shame them. Not in the mood to get into a ruckus with the person, I just said okay and let it pass. However my own trigger senses were set off. What had intially been meant to be a joke on how fine the gay men were and unavailable to women, turned into something else. It had turned into a wake-up moment for those who were able to look past the wool of liberality cloaking their eyes, those who were not just jumping on the bandwagon of being 'woke', to analyse these things critically. The liberals are fond of asking everyone for tolerance and acceptance of ...

What are you grateful for today? Life you'd probably say amongst other things . It would likely be at the top of your list. Relatively good health too might likely come after. Your family too maybe. How about those little things that usually go unnoticed? What kind of  little things you might ask? I would give you an example: You have this sumptuous plate of sizzling hot Jollof rice in front of you. You've said your meal time prayers, next you pick up your spoon, take a spoonful of rice and boom! It goes inside your mouth, you don't think of it. It's comes naturally. Same thing goes for a glass of water. You place the cup close to your lips and down the water goes. Again it comes naturally. Another one: You are at the bus stop, you're waiting for a bus going to Iyana paja. A bus comes. You want to ask the conductor if he's headed there. You shout 'Iyana paja?' Again you are able to do it naturally without any stress. It comes quick as lightni...

Hi guys. Welcome back to my blog. It has certainly been ages since I was here and I am certainly sorry for that. Today however, I would be sharing the story of an incident that occurred to me some weeks back. It was shared on my private Twitter account but no one seeemed to appreciate it there so I am bringing it to you guys instead. So here's what happened. I and my dad were heading back home one day on that road that leads to Oko oba from Ile zik just before Ikeja. If you stay around, you'd know that that place is a hub for traffic jam, slow moving vehicles and hawkers. So we were on this medium pace moving traffic flow, the driver keeping to his lane, a lane before the last lane on the right side, when suddenly out of nowhere comes this seemingly crazy danfo driver almost scratching the side mirror. The driver was fast enough to have avoided collision in that side of the car after which he gestured towards the danfo driver hands pointed to his head turning back and forth...

The Voice Season 2 has finally come to an end. After weeks of training and performances and voting, we finally have a winner. Idyl. Definitely not who I had predicted would win but at least he’s way better than the other option. He’s a great singer. Ebube on the other hand though… I don’t know what to say at this point. I guess I could start by asking these salient questions. How the hell did Ebube get selected over Yimika? Who did the voting? Did those people have ears or did they vote primarily based on sentiments? Who are his sponsors? He definitely has to have someone sponsoring his voting or something because Yimika is a far more better singer when compared to Ebube. He’s also a better performer and has better charisma and packaging . Did you guys notice how Ebube went off key in his supposed finale performance? Celine Dion could sue him for ruining that beautiful song. The song he sang, had no semblance to the one Celine Dion made. Also, how did he make it to the top 2 f...

We left the zoo at about 2:30pm and headed towards our lodge for the holiday. The amazing place I spoke of earlier. It’s the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture IITA. They don’t seem to really like adverts but this is not one though. It’s an expose on my Salah break or holiday. Anyways, less than 20 minutes later, we arrived there. It’s said to be a diplomatic facility so you kind of expect some really serious security measures in place and they really took it seriously.  There are two gates, one nested within the other at the entrance of the facility. At the outer gate your vehicle gets screened for bombs and whatnot and then at the inner one where you sign in and present your valid means of ID. In our case my dad used his national passport since he was the one who made the reservations. Check in was smooth and the rooms were magnificent. Well considering the fact that they waiting lounge was wonderful, I kind of expected such excellence when I got to the room...

Eventually we got to Ibadan and headed to University of Ibadan. The zoo was our first stop. I remember visiting the zoo once but I was quite young at the time. I was probably 8 or 9 at the time. I don’t recall much from that visit but a few memories stood out. There was a gorilla there at the time that was definitely not camera-shy. It knew how to pose for a picture and kept giving the person taking its pictures different styles and postures. My brother, Kachi who was about 4 or 5 then, was terrified of the gorilla and refused to walk beside the gorilla enclosure. On the other hand, my other brother, Ifeanyi who was about 2 years old or less then had engaged in a stare down challenge with a lion whose roar was shaking its enclosure to the foundations, making grown men fret. As we got closer to the zoological garden, I knew a lot of things were definitely going to change as it had been 12 years since I was there last but I hoped it would be for the better. The walls looked new...

I like vacationing. The sights to see, the sleep to catch up on, the foods to eat, pictures to take people to relate with etcetera. The travelling though is what I usually don’t fancy. In fact, I loathe travelling. That was why as we prepared as a family to go to this amazing place my dad had reserved for us at Ibadan, I mentally braced myself up for the journey ahead. I packed packets of chewing gum to help with my motion sickness as I packed the clothes I was going to use there. I wasn’t about to start hurling with all that fancy make up I was going to wear that day. Finally the day came, Friday. The beginning of the public holiday that marked the Salah celebration for our Muslim friends. At about 8:30 am, we left the house. Immediately I got in to the car, I dozed off. It was going to be a long journey so I decided that I might as well make up for the shortage of sleep that resulted from me sleeping a little bit later than 12 am and waking up by 5:30 that same day. I can’t rememb...

   It's been two days since I got home and learnt that I was short of one brother. I still remember that day like yesterday. The events of that day keep playing on and on in my mind. I was in school when I got the call from my dad reminding me to pack up my bags as I was supposed to come back that Friday. I had been being lazy about it so that like a wake up call for me. They tone of his voice was vague when he mentioned that I Ifeanyi was in a difficult situation and needed my prayers. It was at that moment that I had an inkling that something was wrong. My usual positive self I said a quick prayer and went back to pressing my phone.    It was at the time that I was with my phone that I got Facebook message on Messenger from my dad containing a link with a picture that had a quote which said "I trust that everything happens for a reason even if we are not wise enough to see it." Something in me snapped and I could not bear the uncertainty so I decided to call my m...