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For Eloho: Grace and love above all else

23 Monday Mar 2015

Posted by enajyte in Uncategorized

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Tags

birthday, Christ, Eloho, grace, love

To a woman who is unashamed of Christ, whose love for God shines as bright as bright can be, who uses her life as a lesson to raise others up, who always has a kind word and a ready e-hug, whose ‘I love yous’ are from the depth of her heart, who is generous of spirit, has a great sense of humour and a laughter so rich it puts chocolate to shame, and lives the story of God’s stupendous grace above everything else.

IMG_20150323_074431

http://www.stupendousgrace.com

Happy birthday Eloho, you’re the best of you at this very moment. I can’t wait to see your future bests. God bless you abundantly.

May you always be surrounded by the love you share so generously. You’re the most amazing thing that’s happened to me on Twitter. Shalom!

Eloho blogs at http://www.stupendousgrace.com

Blame It

13 Monday Oct 2014

Posted by enajyte in Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

Blame it on the al al al al al alcohol

Blame it on the alcohol

I was going to write this as a humorous piece from the POV of a bottle of Hennessey, but this matter is way too serious and too close to home for that. It will be a short rant.

More than once, I’ve been hurt by people I care about and when the apology comes, there’s a ‘I was drinking’ in it. In effect, it wasn’t me, it was the alcohol. So, blame the alcohol for my cruelty or my stupidity.

I have a theory: alcohol only magnifies what you already are or are already feeling. So if you’re stupid, alcohol helps you be more stupid. If you’re cruel, alcohol only enhances you cruelty. I won’t even touch rape.

So, I have a rule: if you have a history of alcohol ‘making you do things,’ don’t drink. Please. Stay away from even palmy which according to a character in the movie October 1, “ees our local drink, ees not alcohol.”

ALCOHOL DOESN’T HURT PEOPLE. PEOPLE HURT PEOPLE.

Language is Home

13 Monday Oct 2014

Posted by enajyte in Uncategorized

≈ 9 Comments

Inspired by Chika Unigwe’s TedTalk

Tami stared at the painting on the wall, reds, blues, greens blurring into each other. No shapes, only splotches of colour that no matter how she looked, resembled a page from a child’s colouring book enlarged and framed. That was what she thought even though no one asked her opinion. But she would not say it even if they asked. It was a masterpiece.

The frame held a particular fascination for her. It was the only thing she understood. She imagined she could see the patterns of the wooden grains visible under the polished surface. In her mind she pictured where the axe would fall if she decided to use it for firewood. How the wood would split into two almost perfect halves, and the halves into smaller halves until they were small enough to feed a kitchen fire. But there was no need. A four burner gas stove served that purpose.

Spoon scraping plate, slurp, slurp, and she turned, her eyes not meeting those of mamma whose half lidded gaze focused with fierce concentration on her plate of ärtsoppa, a meal she had picked over Tani’s own specially prepared pepper soup, prepared with very little pepper because she knew how weak these oyibo’s people palate was. Still rejected.

Her eyes returned to the picture, trying to see what Andre and his art collecting friends saw. Avant-garde. Sensational. Genius. Words.

Her mother’s words would have been that the painting looked like something a goat had knocked paint cans over and then pissed on, explaining the streaks of faint aging yellow on the canvas.

Spoon scraping plate, slurp, slurp and her eyes were drawn to the left, Andre having the ärtsoppa as well because, “I can’t very well leave my mother to eat alone. You understand, dear, don’t you?” as he smiled at mamma, then said something to her, his tongue rolling out sj and tj sounds Tani failed to master no matter how she tried.

Tani stared at her plate. She was having the ärtsoppa as well. Mamma hadn’t blinked when she told Jonas in halting Swedish to give her a serving of same and put the pepper soup in the freezer. She had seen the hesitation in his eyes. He knew how many times the spoon had slipped out of her hand as she had stirred in the ingredients for her soup; she who had never as much as spilled a drop of water in the kitchen. She had offered him a taste, to make sure she had judged the pepper right so there would be no choking at the table, not wanting to repeat her jollof rice experience with Andre. No words passed between but she knew he knew.

“You don’t like the meal, dear?” Andre asked, wiping the corner of his mouth.

She stretched her lips, her cheeks bunching under the eye bags that had a story of their own.

“Of course, I do darling.”

She dipped her spoon into the plate, raised it to her lips and slurped.

How I Feel About The LIB/IP Debate

09 Thursday Oct 2014

Posted by enajyte in Uncategorized

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nostalgic words of future me

I’m Happy.

Because Linda Ikeji’s blog was finally taken down. I’m ecstatic, in fact, and here’s why…

I’m a writer. An actor. An artist. A photographer. I know the value of my creativity, I gain my daily bread from it. Sometimes, I offer my art for free, not because I consider it worthless, but because I choose to gift it. If someone took my freely given or paid for art and used it to their own gain in any way whatsoever, they are stealing from me.

I may not be able to identify my work that anyone may have stolen (and that’s only because I haven’t bothered to check), but I have more than a few friends who have been affected directly by plagiarism from online platforms and I stand solidly beside them every chance I get. I still remember @StNaija making a big big fuss when Ynaija took a…

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150,000,000 ONES

22 Tuesday Apr 2014

Posted by enajyte in Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Nigeria, one, ripple effect, youth

As I stood in front of the young people who had shown up for our regular bi-monthly seminar, my heart swelled with pride. In a town considered ‘backward’ by most, where everyone is accused of being a diehard money-lover; where wealth is considered the key that opens every door, these ones had come together to learn. In a town having over 50,000 people between the ages of 15 – 35, why would I be glad of 38? I was glad because I believe in the ripple effect. You see, I was raised to believe in the power of one. You don’t need a crowd to effect a change, you need just one. And here were 38 ‘ones’. 

I am a closet Nigerian. I say closet because you will never hear me open my mouth to defend Nigeria. True; because there is very little to defend. It amazes me how loud people are about all the ills in the country. How quick we are to dump blame on our political leaders, the British, our religious leaders, our tribal differences and even the fact that we are situated close to the equator. So, I shut my mouth and listen, watch and learn. I learn from the folly of others, from their rants I learn how not to speak. From their actions I learn how not to act.

A lot of people of this generation are quick to lay the mess that Nigeria is squarely on the shoulders of the generations past. You only need to visit Facebook or Twitter. A while back I saw a video made by a young Nigerian living in the United States, stating all the reason why she wouldn’t return to Nigeria. Of course my blood boiled, as did that of many others. I wasn’t on fire because she was wrong, I was on fire because of all the ignorant and half-truth assumptions she made based most likely on what she had read on social media and sprouted without proper research. But that is not the matter at hand.

Five score years ago, an entity called Nigeria was created. About 85 years later, a person we’ll call Anna was born. Nigeria had existed for a lifetime, Anna was just a baby. She grew and as she grew, she was told of all the gruesome things Nigeria had been through. How there was a massive genocide in the name of war, how Nigeria had been raped by a succession of corrupt individuals. By the time Anna came into the picture, things were so bad that prices of regular commodities had inflated by more than 200% in 50 years. What was Anna to do? She had not been here when it all started.

What would you do in Anna’s place? Fold your hands and say, ‘abeg, no be me spoil am so no be me go repair am?’  Get a visa to some land of opportunity and check out like Prof. Pat Utomi’s ‘Generation that Left Town?’ Become an ‘if you can’t beat them join them’ person? Become and activist and get killed, leaving you parents to mourn over and empty casket? The options are limitless and they are right before you.

I am not an advocate for any of the above options; I believe in the power of one. I am a believer in the ripple effect. A ripple effect is a situation where, like the ever expanding ripples across water when an object is dropped into it, an effect from an initial state can be followed outwards incrementally (wikipedia). I’m sure you know how it relates to real life. If you don’t, try doing a little research, it wouldn’t hurt.

I’ve probably come across like some goody two shoes. I’m not. I’m a badass young Nigerian who is passionate about change. I’m all for doing this differently. Remember the terrible elders who messed up this country? Well, if we keep going on the way we are, our children are going to say then same things about us.

If we keep…

Dropping waste (pure water satchet, used recharge cards, etc) everywhere

Yelling at the driver to roger the policeman so we can get home in time

Acting as educated thugs for politicians at the rate of N10,000 per election (that’s a four year stint where the guy steals billions of naira; dumb?)

Adding an extra 50% on every purchase we make for our office (and then asking the innocent child at the shop to write a receipt in effect corrupting that young mind)

Paying for special centres for ourselves and our younger ones so they can ‘pass’ their O’Levels

…and so on.

If we keep doing these things, then we better get ready for a lifetime of complaining because you can’t keep doing things the same way and expecting a different result.  

It’s not always about doing the right thing. It can be about not doing the wrong thing.

In a country of approximately 150million ‘ones’, if every ‘one’ decides to be a broker for positive, Nigeria would be a lot different, wouldn’t it?

 

Fantasia’s Present (R)

28 Friday Mar 2014

Posted by enajyte in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

This is a revision of the piece I posted yesterday. Seems I left out too many details. So here it is, I hope it’s better than the first. Enjoy!

 

Fantasia couldn’t wait to open her gift. It had a pink bow with red ribbon tails. The wrapper had Minnie Mouse dancing all over it. Fantasia hated Minnie and her Uncle Frank knew this. Her itching fingers ran over the box as she imagined what it contained. It was too small for a doll. She had dolls as big as she was. Most of them were at the back of her wardrobe with their heads pulled off and cut open; results of her experiments to see their brains.

She stared at the box some more as she considered how much trouble she would be in for opening the gift without her mum’s approval. But this wasn’t any gift. This was Uncle Frank’s gift. It was his first gift in the two years since her mum banned her globetrotting brother from bringing any more ‘weird’ presents for her little girl. She shook the box with her six-year-old strength but nothing came loose.

Frank and his sister Lily watched from behind a curtain as Fantasia fiddled with the box. She had insisted on seeing the gift before Fantasia did but he turned it into a bet.

“If Fantasia doesn’t like the gift, I’ll take it back, and never get another weird,” he rolled his eyes, “present ever again. If she does, I get to buy her anything I want.”

They watched as she undid the bow and removed the wrapper, careful to note where every piece was peeled from. She drew a bag out of the cardboard box, the leather gleaming as the light from a window hit it. They looked on as she fumbled with the zip, her nimble fingers careful not to let it get stuck. Her cry of delight brought a grin to Frank’s face as she brought out a small screw driver from what he knew to be a mini-tool set.

“Told you so,” he said to his sister, her shoulders slumped as they withdrew through the door behind the curtain.

 

Beautiful, You

05 Wednesday Mar 2014

Posted by enajyte in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

beauty, birthday, smile

Surrounded by worshippers 

Eyes raised in devotion

Your beauty surpassing 

Even the first unfurled flower of the morning

 

Surrounded by light

Resplendent in your brightness

Radiant in the befitting splendor that is your smile

Your smile

 

Beauty they say is fleeting 

The first mists of morning melted by the coming of the sun

Yours is this mountain 

Untouched by the passage of time

 

Fifty years down 

Worshippers will stand at the foot of this mountain 

Eyes raised in devotion

In devotion 

 

 

For Joan. Happy Birthday 

 

 

The World I See

31 Friday Jan 2014

Posted by enajyte in Uncategorized

≈ 9 Comments

I started this about a year ago as a post on facebook and realised I had a lot more to say.

There is evil in the world, I know this for a fact.

There is suffering, greed, oppression, fear, pain, injustice, corruption and so many bad things that we may not even have names for.

Nations are at the mercy of other nations.

There are conspiracies to keep certain nations under servitude.

There are unjust wars being fought.

There is famine and hunger; children dying every day because they have nothing to eat.

In my country, corruption has taken over. Selfishness and greed are the slogan of many.

In my church, there are a lot of things that could be better.

My streets are littered with refuse; there are potholes all over my roads.

As I type, my eyes well with tears and my heart grows heavy.

There is just so much evil in my world, and I know this for a fact.

I could write a list longer than my arm.

But somewhere along the line, in spite of what I know, I chose to see a different world.

I see the beauty in the midst of the ugliness.

I see people like Katrina McCants-Mbionwu who chose to feed the poor and cloth them.

I see Chetanna Jude Chukwuneke (Rev. Fr.) who chose to develop young people.

I see Vitalis Ozor who took me under his wing as a mentor and friend.

I see the smile on the face of my god daughter and every child that has ever smiled at me.

I feel the joy that comes from loving and being loved.

I see my closest friends who accept me in spite of my imperfections.

I see a God who chose to die for me even when I was still a sinner.

I see a better future in spite of a horrible past.

And because I see, I have hope for myself, my country and my world.

Maybe having hope makes me simplistic and seemingly ignorant of the ills of my world.

But because I see the good, I want more of it and I do my best fight and change the evil.

I might not accomplish a lot, but I’d die knowing I tried to make a difference.

Sometimes words are not enough. Make a move today to change something because no one ever made a difference by being a doomsday prophet or peddling hate in the guise of speaking truth.

The Naija Writer Awards

23 Tuesday Jul 2013

Posted by enajyte in Uncategorized

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The Naija Writer Awards.

Blogs I Follow

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Recent Posts

  • On adult friendships and shenanigans
  • For Eloho: Grace and love above all else
  • My English Romance
  • Blame It
  • Language is Home

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