Watching Football is Writing Practice

                             

The First World Cup football I can avidly remember watching was the 1994 world cup. Nigeria had a strong team, we were in the fifth position in the FIFA ranking of April 1994.

We had Rashidi Yekini, Stephen Keshi, Samson Siasia.

I watched the game avidly with my eyes on the ball, of course, I played football as a child.

I knew the basic rules of the game,  don't touch the ball with your hands and make sure the ball doesn't go over the post.

When I stopped playing, I was contented with watching the game.  In 1994, I knew the backstory of the football. I spend minutes poring to my father's complete football magazines.

I knew everything about the Nigerian footballers.

Watching Football and writing have the same requirements, you need to be able to see and you need to know the rules.  In writing you can break the rules, in football, you get a red card or a yellow card.

In writing each work comes with its own handicap for every work you have to face the agony of creation, emotional high and low,  obsession, self-awareness and in football they have to face physical fitness, the risk of getting injured, rivalry, being allowed to play and fatigue.

 The football field has the form of a large rectangle covered with grass. We have a team of goalkeepers,  defenders, midfielders, forwards and the coach.

Writing requires having talent, language, imagination, observation, thinking, risk-taking and hard work and good luck.

Football requires talent, hard work good luck and sometimes risk-taking.

Watching football, you literally follow the ball,  your eyes should be laser sharp and you shouldn't be biased.

This year backstory started with Putin saying no World Cup without Messi.  

Taking us back to the Ronaldo Messi rival. Ronaldo came and scored 3-3 against.  The last goal he scored was a hat trick and he carved his place in world cup history.

Messi came and scored a goal. Then the rivalry between the fans across the world heats up.  Who's the best? The backstory adds more layer and fun to the World Cup.

The Saudi Prince, saw his team lose to Putin's Russia, they're both friends and dictators.

We watched Suarez play and watch the field around him,  after biting someone in the last World Cup and writing a book about it,  he became a nice human and scored a goal against Iran.

Iran came to the World Cup with their Nike Jersey. Suddenly, they were told they couldn't wear their clothes. They had to buy Adidas and they played the game with their numbers falling because Nike was trolling from the USA.  They couldn't make it to the World Cup but they can bully a team.

Even worse they're bullying immigrants by seizing their children, they've done the same thing to Native Americans and have incarcerated Japanese Americans in camps.

Japan won their match and their fans cleaned the stadium. Senegal scored a match with their only black coach and did the African Continent proud by cleaning the stadium.

Egypt couldn't win the match on the back of Salah, and Morrocco lost to Portugal.

Nigerians lose an own goal and a goal to Croatia and our Senate President visits the Russian Parliament. In a fictional universe, he has a thing or two in common with Putin and Saudi Prince Salma and they're all working hard to take over the world. In reality, everyone knows the Senate President secret ambition is to be president in the future.

In watching football, you can't escape from politics whilst in writing almost every subject you touch can become political.

This year our FIFA ranking before the World Cup is the 48th position. Super Eagles scored 2-0 against Iceland. Ahmed Musa made history by becoming the highest scoring Nigerian in the history of the world cup.

Bridges and Pathways, my 2014 Ake Festival science fiction master class experience.

The theme for the 2014 Ake book and art festival is bridge and pathways. Six people registered for the class and only four attended.

The first section of the class was taken by Ben Aaronovitch. He is the peter grant/rivers of London urban fantasy series author. I am proud to say that we were the first set of people he taught about writing science fiction. Mr Ben has a great sense of humour  and we had an informal class were we talked about Ideas are a science fiction authors main currency, how to test your ideas and turn them in to stories, writing the book that you want to read, four act structure, the do’s and don’ts of writing, description and characters. We talked about plot in films and book and conservation of details. We were rewarded with glimpse of Ben’s life and we learnt some London slang. At the end of the section I got an autograph on the rivers of London.  

The second session of the class was facilitated by Stella Duffy. She taught creative writing for 25 years.  She is the author of thirteen novels, ten plays and fifty five short stories. We learnt about the ordinary extraordinary way to write stories with truths and look for common links to include in our stories. We did lots of fun exercises that helped us to become better observers and to break the patterns in our writing. We learnt to test different point of views,  the trickster hero narratives,to use the old wise woman and  that not everything should depend on the hero.

 Stella Duffy had a positive energy that said I’m a happy person. The science fiction master class taught me to write like myself. 

The Contemporary Children's Literature, Children will like to read.

                                   

Contemporary Children’s literature should reflect the problems of today. Children are exposed to crime, death, kidnappings, boko haram, internally displaced people, and violence on T.V.

Children’s literature should include the realities of life and create avenues so that children can talk about their reactions to real life. Children literature should not include emotions that are not felt by children. Children do not understand nostalgia, so they always look towards the future.

Children do not feel despair, they always have hope in any circumstances.

Children do not know cynicism, so they won’t understand cynicism in plot.

Children are curious about life and adult activities, all their childhood plays are re-enacted towards what they see the adults doing. So they enact plays about family, going to the market, going to work and driving cars and sometimes death. A child may lie down pretending to sleep when she wants to show you how a character died on T.V.

When talking about my book'' my life as an Almajiri,'' a nine year old girl summarised the plot to me, she talked with her hands and an expressive face but when she got to a character’s death. She grew quiet for a minute and clasped her hands together and stared at her hands before she said the character died in a car accident.

In my childhood we never said the word death, we treated it with reverence and when a classmate lost her twin. We didn’t really understand when the teacher told us our classmate had left, so we asked the twin and she told us he had gone on a long journey to a different land and she pointed to the Sky.

I was listening to a seven year old read in a summer reading program at American corner Abuja when he said ‘‘boko haram are killing everybody, you have to be careful,’’.

I asked him about the books he liked to read and he said he liked books about Tigers.

I asked him why, he told me they were beautiful, wild and free.

Children have different tastes in book like adults; an eleven year old girl who wore dresses told me she liked reading books about princesses. She wore a pink dress and twirled the flower on her dress when she told me shyly that she wanted to be a princess.

Another eleven year old girl only read detective books, and she knew who was reading all the books she liked.

A nine year old girl and an eight year old boy only wanted to read the magic bus stories. The girl said she liked books about space.They told me science was cool whilst another eight year old boy wanted to read books about sports especially football.A quiet eleven year old girl only wanted to read about girls living   two hundred years ago, she told me she wanted to know about how people lived in the past. Then she looked at me with a look I know, I was eating up her reading time.

Children will like to read entertaining books with imagination, experience from daily or past lives,princesses, sports,space and Tigers.

   

Writing is a Journey.( My Abuja Writer's Forum Creative Writing Workshop Experience)

'Writing is a journey.' This is the first profound statement we saw at the workshop. It was printed in bold black ink and placed above the wall at the registration day.

First we started our journey at the bus stop of sixth senses in writing. We had interesting exercises and we went down the road to the elements of craft bus stop we met the Homo-fictus character and we learnt that a plot develops from your characters.

We visited each of the major elements of plot and carried out exercises and along the way we learnt the importance of keeping a writing journal and becoming disciplined writers. We have arrived at our bus stop ‘’the advance class.’’

The advance class bus stop is everything I hoped it will be. I met a new writer Alifaat Rifaat in her short story ‘’the distance of a minaret.’’

The story brought home the fact that we live in a patriarchal society. It also brought to the fore front the word a feminist. I learnt that if a woman writes from a woman’s point of view she is a feminist.

It was interesting talking to people who love the art of writing, sharing ideas and seeing in to the minds of people because we express our ideas.

I also learnt that the way we perceive stories is subjective. Each time you read a story your life experiences affect what you see in the story.

Our advance class helped us to face our writing process. We learnt to identify the challenges we face in our writing, to avoid falling in love with our characters .A good example is when the author of Harry potter decided she wanted to get Harry and Ginny together instead of Harry and Hermione.

 We arrive at interrogating your stories. This should be carried out after at least your third draft. El Nathan John wrote five drafts of his ''Bayan layin'' and it was shortlisted for the Caine African Prize. The '' Bayan layin'' story inspired his novel Born on a Tuesday.

 There are a series of questions you have to ask yourself after your third draft.

The first is what type of story is it?

The second question is your title the right title? For the remaining 28 questions you can wait until you get to the advance class or if you attend our critique sessions.

Then we stopped at narration as a description and we met T.S Elliot objective correlative and of course psychology.

I will stop here but I gained a lot from attending the creative writing workshop. I still have two lectures to go but I am a member of Abuja writer forum so after my workshop I still have the critique session on Sunday from 4pm to 7pm to look forward to. The May writing workshop is around the corner so I am inviting you to go on a writing journey with Abuja writer’s forum. I am not claiming that you will win the Nobel Prize for literature after the workshop but you will learn your strength and weakness as a writer.

The African Tortoise re-introduces himself- call me Ijapa, Nnabe and Fudugazi.

The tortoise is a trickster figure of African mythology. Tortoise stories can teach children to differentiate between the good and bad. Tortoise is punished for his crimes.  Ijapa is the human acting tortoise is Yoruba he is shrewd, sometimes wise, conniving greedy unreliable and sometimes stupid. He is married to Yarinbo and she usually helps him in his mischief. Ijapa survived in the Unites States Black folklore as brother terrapin.

Some famous Ijapa stories include Ijapa and Yarinbo swears an oath, Ijapa and the Oba repair a roof, Ijapa cries for his horse, Ijapa and the hot water test, how Ijapa, who was short became long and Ijapa goes to the Osanyin shrine.

Nnabe is the tortoise in Igbo culture, he is a trickster figure that tried to trick the birds and ended up having a cracked shell, ‘‘in the tortoise and the birds.’’  Nnabe and Chineke is a different variation of the tortoise and the birds.

It is interesting to note that the translated performance of ‘‘ Nnabe and Chineke ‘’ was recorded on Wadmalow island, one of the sea islands of the coast of Georgia and the Carolines in the U.S. where Igbo people were transported to during the Atlantic slave trade of the 18^th and 19^th Century.

Fudugazi is the tortoise in Mennizimu Africa or South Africa. Fudugazi is a storyteller and singer and he belongs to the Amazulu people.  An example of Fudugazi story is the Gift of the tortoise.

The tortoise stories are a good addition to your children’s library. It will teach the children to think on their toes and that bad deeds are punished.

Bibliography

Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall apart. Chapter 11. Tortoise and the Birds recounted folk-tale.

Badejo, Deidre ‘‘The Yoruba and Afro-American Trickster: A contextual Comparison presence Africane 147(1988): 3-17

Jackson-Jones, Patricia. When roots die: Endangered Traditions on the Sea Islands Athens: Univ. of Georgia press, 1987. 

Three African Myths/ tales- Primary Style by Linda Frederick Malanson.

The Gift of the Tortoise- by Lady Smith Black Manbazo.

A review of Tropical Fish. [Tales from Entebbe]

Doreen Baingana is from Uganda and lives in the United States. the book is the winner of the commonwealth writer’s prize for best first book- Africa Region

The tropical fish is a collection of short stories that has  eight short stories. The stories are tales of three sisters , Patti, Rosa and Christine . Christine  is the heroine of the collection. This stories pay homage to her journey from childhood to adulthood, and from Africa to Los Angeles.

The book is honest and the characters are real and believable. Christine Mughisha won an immigration lottery to America and ended up being lost.

This book speaks about the  human experience and it’s concerns are abuse of power, relationships, loss, betrayal, sex and the vagaries of AIDS.

Reading is a psychological tool for change in Nigeria.

    Nigeria is the most populous black nation with a population of 159.7 million in 2010. Nigeria has a total area of 923,768 sq. km with a land area of 910,768 sq., water 13,000 sq. and coastline 853 km.  We are blessed with petroleum, tin,  iron ore, coal, limestone, lead, gold, mica, bauxite, zinc. Natural gas, hydro power and arable land: 33%, permanent  crops 3%, permanent pastures 44%, forests and woodlands 12%, others 8%, irrigated land  9570 sq.km. [1993]                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

In Nigeria we always say that children are the leaders of tomorrow yet we have children  that are not thought to read, this has led to stagnation in the development of our country.

Reading helps to improve mental stimulation, knowledge, memory improvement; critical reasoning improves concentration and makes us open minded. 

I like reading literary fiction and was asked if it has any value to my life. I said yes, literary fiction can help to improve the quality of our life.

 Qasem Naqizadeh a judge in the city of gunbad-e kavus has set up new ruling that individuals convicted of minor crimes should buy and read books instead of serving long terms in prisons. He said that such punishments are as good alternative to imprisonment which has physical and psychological impact on convicts and their families.

It will be great if reading culture can be inculcated in to the school curriculum from the primary and secondary schools, children should be thought to love reading.

I think reading children books on corruption will help to teach children what corruption means.

The lack of reading culture contributed to our Country’s stagnation because, we have a population of adults who haven’t learnt empathy, critical reasoning and love for the country.

The immediate answer to Nigeria economic situation is agriculture and exportation of iron-ore, gold, mica, zinc, bauxite etc. but simultaneously we have to improve our future by inculcating a reading culture in our society.

 

A review of Dul Johnson's Melancholia.

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Melancholia.

A play by Dul Johnson.

Sevhage, 73pp,2014.

Dul Johnson started writing plays in 1976, with radio plays for Rima radio, Sokoto.  He wrote many television plays for NTA in the 80s and 90s. He writes across the genres and has published two collections of short stories, Shadows and Ashes (1998) and Why women who make it to heaven (2003) and a novel Deeper into the night (SEVHAGE, 2014).

 Melancholia was first performed as a class production workshop by 200 level students of the department of theatre and cultural studies, Nassarawa state university, on March 6^th, 2014.

In the play Mumude a presidential aspirant of the progressive front party wants to be the next president and invested one hundred and sixty billion in his campaign. He said to his uncle Dangiwa‘‘I’ve borrowed a lot of money from the banks and from friends; my political  associates. I’ve also sold off, or should I say, mortgaged ten of my buildings in the state and five in the Federal Capital, which I hope to get back on becoming the president.

The play was written in two acts and the author used both situational and verbal irony in the two acts. In Act one, the author used realism to highlight the play and at the end of the act he withholds information that is important to move the play forward.

In Act two, the author used psychological realism and at the end we are asked a good question, who is the African Politician? This book can be acted on by Literature students in secondary schools because it’s funny and educative.  I recommend this book to everyone especially the aspiring politician.

                                                            

Planning A Library For Government Schools With Low budget.

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There is a need to improve the reading culture in Nigeria. Reading is beneficial because it can open the mind of children and improve critical thinking.

Reading helps children to excel and improve their class work and it also makes better leaders.

Thirteen steps to make a small school library in schools with low budget.

-The teacher can make a school project called titled ‘making a class library.’

- Make a list of the class  and ask them to tell about the books they will like to read, e.g. books about sport, friendship, family, folktales, animals etc.

- Look for book titles suitable for the class age range.

- Contact a local bookshop and ask the bookshop for help with books suitable for children or research on the Internet.

- Make another list equal to the number of children in the classroom and ask each child to pick a book they like.

 -Send a note to the parents explaining about your school project and asking to buy the book selected by the student.

- Write the name of each child on his book.

- Children should read the books they have bought and submit the books to their teachers after they are done.

- Build a small shelf in a corner of the classroom or convert a desk into a book safe.

- Appoint a class library prefect and keep a notebook to keep track of the books borrowed by students.

- Children are encouraged to borrow books from the library.

- At the end of the term, they can each write a book report on the books they bought and a book article on any other book they liked.

- The project can take 10 marks in English comprehension.    

 The benefit of this exercise includes, teaching children how to be involved in community projects, teaching love and sharing, giving children access to more books, and improving reading culture in government schools.

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This is how to stay Married, A review of the domestication of Munachi.

  the domestication of Munachi

    by Ifesinachi O. Okpagu
     Parresia  Books,2015. 

Ifesinachi O. Okpagu published her first novella when she was fourteen, she is now a Lagos based marketing communications executive. She has published some short stories in sentinel Nigeria, femrite anthology and saraba magazine.

 The book has themes of marriage,domestic abuse, spinsterhood and is a psychological slice of life. The author has a great sense of humour and this book should be read by every  woman. 

 Marriage is an important aspect of African culture, growing up as a girl the best day of your life was your wedding day. Single women are serenaded with talks of marriage, everyone gives advice on getting married even the woman who closes herself in the bathroom and cry every morning.  She has only one comfort- she is a respectable married woman.

‘‘A woman without a husband is a failure,’’ said Elizabeth. Elizabeth was content to be a stranger to her husband, and a respectable wife to the society. When she caught her husband cheating on her with the house-help, she did what any respectable married African woman will do. she swept everything under the carpet because she had married out of desperation. This is how to stay married and have a respectable corner in the society.

Weeks turn into years and it was Adanna's turn, the future husband brought beautiful gifts home and Elizabeth persuaded her daughter to get married.  When she came back home with bruises on her face, she pretended not to see because a daughter does not return from her husband home. This is how to stay married and remain a respectable woman in the eyes of society.

When Munachi ran away from home on the day of her traditional marriage without the ceremony. the story took us on a journey to the domestication of Munachi with the re-discovery of self worth  and realization that the only way to stay married is to start with a happy marriage.  

The Famous Trickster of African Culture, Re-introducing Gizo the Spider.

Folktales are stories passed down orally from generation to generation. The authors are usually unknown and the stories talk about everyday life.

 The trickster tales are short imaginative narratives that usually use an anthropomorphic animal that has magical powers and is characterised as a compendium of opposites. Trickster is an ambiguous and anomalous character.

The trickster figure is found all over the world. A good trickster should be mischievous, humorous and cunning and should have the ability to change between animal and human form.

 Gizo is the human acting spider who uses his cunning to overcome the best of bigger and strongest animals including humans. He is the king of tricksters in Hausa folktales. He comes from the northern part of Nigeria and speaks Hausa. Gizo has many stories to his name. He is married to Koki. He is usually a villain to the Hausa people. He is cunning, shrewd, greedy, wise and sometimes foolish.

He is known by many names across the world.

Gizo- Hausa tribe of West Africa.

Kweku or Kwaku Anansi- Ashanti and related Akan peoples of West Africa.

Ture-  Zande People Of Central Africa.

B’anansi-Suriname.

Aunt Nancy- in South Carolina America.

Annancy or Anancy- Jamaica, Grenada, Costa Rica, Coloumbia, Nicaragua.

 Gizo is not known to many children, in the past a famous song had been written about Gizo and his wife Koki.

Some of the folktales written about Gizo include :

The spider pays his debts.

The spider ,the old woman and the wonderful bull.

How the spider ate the hyena- cubs foods.

The spider, the guinea fowl and the francolin.

The greedy spider and the buds.

The spider, the Hyena and the Corn.

How the spider outwitted the Snake.

The Snake and the Dove outwit the Spider.

The SpIder has a feast.

The spider outwitted by the Tortoise

The greedy spider and the birds.

Spider deals with famine.

Botorimi and the Spider.

 Anansi proves he is the oldest.

Anansi owns all stories that are told.

Anansi borrows money.

Anansi plays dead.

How debt came to Ashanti.

The spider usually uses his wit to gain wisdom and to overcome his larger foes. The spider is creative in his ingenuity of thinking outside the box.

 Trickster tales help us to understand human behaviour and they teach us to think on our feet. They show us how to differentiate between the good and bad. 

Open Wound, Hidden Shame. A review of Born on a Tuesday.

Elnathan John is a Nigerian novelist writer and satirists. He has twice been shortlisted for the prestigious Caine prize for African writing (2013&2015). His writing has been published in Per Contra, Evergreen Review and Chimurenga’s The Chronic. He is a Civitella Ranieri Fellow and lives in Abuja, Nigeria. The book was published by Cassava Republic.

The themes of the book are love, trust, betrayal and religious schism. The religious schism in this book, raised questions but provided no answers, this perhaps is the reason why the author succeeded in writing a book about religion.

The only answer I can offer is that we need to try hard on dialogues and reintegrating different sects in to the society. 

The life of Dantala is an open wound and hidden shame to Northern Nigeria. The book is a bildungsroman as Dantala starts out as an Almajiri and ends up as a student of a Salafi Mallam. Almajiranci is child abuse but it started out as a beautiful tenet of religion, it was coined from the word al muhajiroon which means emigrant.

 The author’s decision to write about religion is unconventional, but it moved the plot forward. The author brought the Dantala to life with irony. The book was written in the first person point of view and Dantala has different goals at each section of the book, in the beginning it was to escape from the police in Bayan layi, in doggon icce it was to see his mother, in Sokoto it was to marry Aisha and at the end it was to save Jibril. It is disheartening because Dantala had no real desire for himself.

The life of Dantala and other former Almajiris like him end up as tools in election violence or as thugs and miscreants. Almajiranci is an open wound in our society and it is time we treat the wound with brotherly love.       

Etisalat in my next book the characters will use your network- please make my book a brand ambassador.

We need book tours in Nigeria, but authors have two jobs and it is hard to survive on writing alone. The cost of publishing, Internet subscriptions, and phone recharge cards, paying rent and feeding is high. Then add it to the unstable fuel price and the picture is dark. Writing is a gift, and people who love to write need to be motivated.

Nigeria needs to be reading books written for Nigeria, by Nigerians. We need all the genres of literature in order to develop our society.

Authors sell ideas to people and open the imagination. We need to build a society of problem solvers, and we need new innovations. We all agree that Nigeria needs structural development, and so does the writing profession. We need structure in publishing, creative writing courses and book sales. Writing is a profession that can bring profit; authors are a good source of advertisement. Authors need to sell the ideas of peace, nation building, innovations and positive mindset.

 We need opportunities to sell our books.One way of selling our books is to have book tours; we have 90 Nigerian universities in Nigeria. An author does not have the resources and time to travel to all the universities but with a partnership with a network provider and literature/art departments of the university and secondary schools. The author can organise book readings on Skype, Google, Facebook and twitter etc.  

This can be organised on weekends and in return the authors can help the university/ Secondary schools by offering courses in creative writing. Literature departments can afford to pay authors to give courses on literary fiction, children’s fiction poetry and drama etc.  The network provider will also gain by advertising their products.

The author of this article uses Etisalat network to call and browse and for research purposes. In the future authors will be able to give book readings across Africa and the world and at the same time create change.

Words Are The Eggs Of Poems. A review of DANCe H.E.R.E by Laura .M. Kaminski.

DANCe H.E.R.E

By Laura .M. Kaminsky

Origami Books, 114 pp.

Words are the eggs of poem is a metaphor for words given birth to words, a line in the poem incubation, a symbol for the collection of  poetry written in six sections-incubation, dance here, red ink, messages, blinders and drawing water.

The poet used her words to capture the fragments of someone’s life, a dear word, and to capture the fragment of someone’s death, a dear one whose words were stifled forever.

The Six sections were written in free verse, the words took form with the cadence of natural speech. Free verse was first use in Italian Opera and in the king James translation of the bible.

The poet’s words lay eggs and formed images that captured my emotions, the words labelled fragile with red ink made me cry for Jos, Maiduguri, our girls and Hashem Shaabani.

Laura M. Kaminski’s collection of poetry is not a song of sorrows, but a song of life, a gift of friendships, and words of lessons.

Treating Ageism In Literature, A Review Of Season Of Crimson Blossoms.

Season of Crimson Blossoms.

By Abubakar Adam Ibrahim.

Parresia Books, 347 pp.

Abubakar Adam Ibrahim’s season of crimson blossom is a novel that portrayed the life of Hajiya Binta Zubairu. The author used the third person omniscient point of view, the characterizations and the themes of relationships, ageism, forced marriage and the custom of not showing affection to the first born child.   

The Omniscient point of view represents freedom - it prevented the author from being limited to the inner life of one character. The omniscient point of view worked for this novel because the author was able to travel to the past and present at will. The choice of point of view helped to link the relationship between Binta and Hassan, Binta and Yaro, Hassan and Maimuna.

The omniscient point of view helped us to visit Kibiya, Jos and Marraba. The setting of the book brought the characters to life, the protagonist Hajiya Binta is not a type and she has lived through her share of tragedies and pain.

 The themes ageism, relationships forced marriage, abandonment, and the customs lead to a greater theme of life.

 Ageism is stereotyping and discriminating against individuals or groups on the basis of their age.

The Love affair of Hajia Binta and Hassan was fleeting but it had far reaching consequence. It helped us to see clearly that northern Nigeria society will not readily accept the relationship between an older woman and a younger man but thinks nothing about the relationship between an older man and a younger woman like in the case of Hassan's parents.

The themes of forced marriage, bereavement , abandonment and custom of not showing affection to your first child had an intense effect on the characters like in the case of Yaro who could not stand the lack of affection shown to him by his mother Hajiya Binta. She called his name only once in his life term.

The abandonment of children by their mothers after the loss of a spouse or divorce also has an adverse on the growth and development of children.

The book is contemporary realistic fiction and even though the author has some realistic fiction in The Whispering Trees, the stories that were written with magical realism had caught the attention of literary enthusiasts. The modern realistic fiction is also good but with the northern Nigerian society it’s unrealistic to expect that people will be favourable towards a younger man, older woman relationship. 

Why Solitude?

Solitude is the lack of contact with people. It is the joy of being alone by choice. One of the greatest example of solitude is the life of poet Emily Dickinson.it was clearly good for her creativity.

Most people choose to be alone to escape from bad experience. The worst experience is losing a loved one to death. You need time to deal with it. You don’t want to talk unnecessarily because you are grieving and you are remembered of your mortality.

My first encounter with solitude was when I was a teenager.  I liked to go strolling in the afternoon and stare at the water. It made me feel close to God. My mum stopped me from going

In the night I sit outside and watch the stars. A neighbour said he noticed I always liked to be alone. He said I should cherish the time I have left with my family.

I was annoyed with him for intruding in my personal time. I could not say anything to him because he lost his mum at a very young age. Therefore he clearly missed her.  I was not conscious of doing it. I stopped going outside to watch the stars.

Today I have perfected the act of solitude. I stare at my lap top screen and write away in the midst of my family. All of my siblings do not feel the need to talk much. We hardly watch films together, even though we have the same interests. If you have an interesting film you place it on your flash and pass it on to the next person.

I have only one friend in real life. He sends me messages every Friday and we talk a little on line. The remaining friends are my Face book friends. I doubt if they know me, I prefer to speak with images shared from peoples Face book wall. Sometimes I write short poems or share poems from my favourite poet expressing my thoughts.

Solitude is not a choice for me but a necessity   because I like to write and I need the peace to read books and write freely. I think about how hard it was to be alone in the past.

 All the people who left drawings on murals   probably had to pretend to be sick when their family went hunting in the Stone Age. There is this image that stuck to my mind. I saw it on a picture somewhere under a topic about ancient civilisations. It showed an Egyptian with polio. It touched my soul. I imagine the man in the past limping away on his stick to the future. I might not know the person but I can feel his pain a now. 

I realised that the reason why I love solitude so much is because I am an introvert. Introverts seek solitude because being around people drain their energy. They go out and socialise but they are always the first person to leave.

Extroverts do not like solitude. They are energised by being around people.

I am glad I came to this world when computers and Internet help you to be alone with your thoughts.

The most profound negative effects of solitude I saw were on documentary called scars of solitude by Cosma Beny. It showed a woman who was born in 1925 in her village in Romania. It was deserted 22 years ago and she refused to live. The woman said she was willing to die there. The woman said that with the fall of Ceausescu all the Saxons left. I   watched her talk when she heard noises made by animals. It looked like she was replying to the horse and chickens. I realised that solitude is not necessary good. It can be bad too when it alienates you from human beings.

 I think I will learn to interact with more people in real life not only on social media. I wish myself the best of luck because giving up solitude is difficult. 

Salt, Sauce,And Spice,Onion Leaves, Pepper And Drippings.

Begin by reading a collection of fairy tales by Angela Carter. You see a fairy tale titled African and Hausa. You read the title and it holds you captive because it’s salt, sauce, spice and onion leaves, pepper and drippings. You trace the story to African folktales by Roger D. Abrahams published in 1983.

This story is about Salt and Sauce and Spice, and Onion leaves and Pepper and Drippings heard a report of a certain youth who was very handsome, but the son of the evil spirit. They all rose up, turned in to beautiful maidens and then they set off.

As they were going along, Drippings lagged behind the others, who drove her still further off, telling her that she stank. But she crouched down and hid until they had gone on, and then she kept following them. When they had reached a certain stream, where they came across an old woman who was bathing, Drippings   thought they would rub down her back for her if she asked, but one said,

‘May Allah save me that I should lift my hand to touch an old woman’s back.’ The old woman did not say anything more, and the five passed on.

Soon Drippings came along, encountered the old woman washing, and greeted her. She answered, and said ‘Maiden, where are you going?’ Drippings replied, ‘I am going to find a certain youth.’ And the old woman asked her, too, to rub her back, but unlike the others, Drippings agreed. After she rubbed her back well for her, the old woman said, ‘May Allah bless you.’ And she said, too, ‘This young man to whom you are all going, do you know his name?’ Drippings said, ‘No, we do not know his name.’ Then the old woman told her, ‘He is my son, his name is Daskandarini, but you must not tell the others,’ then she fell silent.

Drippings continued to follow far behind the others till they got to the place where the young man dwelled. They were about to go in when he called out to them, ‘Go back, and enter one at a time which they did.

Salt came forward and was about to enter, when the voice asked, ‘Who is there?’  ‘It is I,’ she replied, ‘I, Salt, who make the soup tasty. He said, ‘What is my name? ‘She said, ‘I do not know your name, little boy, I do not know your name.’  Then he told her,   ‘Go back, young lady, go back,’ and she did.

The same thing happened with the others except Sauce  made the soup sweet, Spice makes the soup savoury,Onion leaves made the soup smell nicely and pepper made the soup hot.

When it was drippings turn she made the soup smell and she told him his name Daskandarini. And he said enter. A rug was spread for her; clothes were given to her, and slippers of gold. And then Salt, Sauce, Spice, Onion leaves and pepper became her handmaidens. 

 Then you read the same story in Hausa folklore by Maalam shaihua in 1913. You are startled to see ground nut added to the spices. You wonder at why this word was added. You start thinking about the birth of the story and at its retelling. What was the storyteller thinking of and how they related to the story? You notice that in Abraham’s version there is no Groundnut but Drippings thought they would help the old woman rub down her back if she asked. The other spices tell her to enter and meet the youth because they wanted her to fail.

You wonder at the differences of the stories, how did a word get included. Who changed the word and whose opinion are you reading.

Then you hear an oral retelling of the story and the handsome son of a woman and an evil spirit has turned in to a human prince and the spices were names of beautiful maidens.

You go in search of traditional Hausa names and you discovered that it’s plausible for girls to be named after spices before 1901.

You wonder why everybody in the story were handsome and beautiful.

Then the fact that the only two important details the girls had to learn was the name of the handsome youth ‘Daskinadari’, his character was not important .and that the nicest girl Drippings should win the prize.

The spices/beautiful youth had to state at least one function; pepper said she was the one who makes the soup hot. The handsome half evil spirit/ human prince did not need to tell what he was good for but at the end he gave drippings a rug, slippers of gold and new clothes.

You conclude that the story is not just a Dummling [simpleton] story nor is it about the premise of a name. It is about acquiring something without knowing anything about it and giving up after failing. The other maidens could have travelled back home and gone in search of other handsome youths.

Writing Happily Ever after.

You have this burning desire to publish your first book. Your birthday has arrived and you want to see your name on print. You are tired of sending your entries to common wealth and Caine prize and waiting to be discovered. You have heard of authors who sent books to publishers and were rejected but as soon as they were shortlisted for Caine prize, the publishers came with offers. You waited for your turn, and you are still waiting. Your story is happy stories about people who live happily and the world prefers sad stories of children fighting to death or begging on the streets.

You approach some publishers and they tell you sorry but we have stop accepting manuscripts.

You have become desperate so you look for a vanity publisher, they give you a steep price and you are happy yes we should do this.

You ask them about the marketing plan. They tell you have to do everything by yourself, you wonder what are you paying for. You imagine your book becoming a best seller, be invited for events and having people following every word you say and crowning you the Queen of Literature.

The vanity publisher sends you a bill and it is almost four hundred thousand and your dreams came crashing down. You hold on to one dream winning the man booker prize and spinning  tales. You have already decided that you will tell everybody in the world that Nigerians use Shea butter for body cream but who will listen to you.

You go to Google and search for Nigerian publishers and you see the list, it is the same one you have seen before. You check Google and see a site for independent publishing, you publish your book and still no one buys.

You decide you are tired so you enter a cab to Wuse and you see a place called Beulah Printers. You do everything by yourself and you have your book. You are happy and you sell on your own at least you made some money. You are now an author and your book sold 50,000 copies suddenly the publisher starts calling. 

Review of Obemata's ''Triptych of identity,exile and homeland.''

The book was first published in July 2013 by SPM publications in Great Britain. Obemata is a Nigerian Lawyer, a poet and an activist. He belongs to the people exiled during the Abacha era.

Triptych is an embodiment of the love of a Nigerian for his Country. It is a poetry collection about love, joy and sacrifice.

The book was written in the duration of three months. It is reminiscence of the style of the poet e.e Cummings. It is free verse with no obvious rhyming scheme. The poems are untitled except one called ‘‘no original poem’’. The poet used simile, personification, allusion and paradox to paint a vivid image.

The book was written in a time where the Country is facing challenges due to security, corruption and unemployment.

The poet said

‘‘i am sad, my Country too is sad

 Like a dog without a bone.’’

In Identity ‘‘i’’ is a strong presence used about 63 times and helps to draw you in to the writers world.

‘‘i, poet, thread words the way the seamstress thread fabric’’

 The poet is talking to you and invites you in to the world he weaves.

The poet struggled with the love of his country; he kept on loving even though at times she refused to love him back.

‘‘can you find my voice

Between the tears i shed for the woman

i loved, i love?

The woman here is Nigeria and she is fickle because she sent a young Obemata away.

Where in his words

‘‘ the letters of my name

 Scattered

In the dark streets

Of another country

exiles,’’

  The second part of the poetry collection titled ‘‘exile’’ is about abandonment and yearning. The poet speaks to his country and tells her that exile is a form of death.

‘‘ there is no death greater than deaths

We die, when we pack

the dusks and dawn we have lived.’’

In ‘‘for the homeland’’ The poet speaks to Nigeria with hope and joy seeping through.

‘‘ dawn is breaking:

My heart, the flagstaff of day,’’

The poet used a long pause as if he held his breath hoping for a bright future for the love of his country.

The poet say

i ask:

What do you take?

From my poems?

I say love, the joy of being alive, the price of freedom and hope for a better Nigeria. This poetry collection touched my soul with its simple words and profound meanings .I really enjoyed reading and I recommend it for everybody.