We had a cassava plantation in our Lagos State backyard back in the day when I was in secondary school.
Author: Tunde Odesola
The làlà koko fèfè of the Ijebu headlined various Nigerian newspapers as the Ojude Oba festival climaxed in Ijebu-Ode last month.
I stiffen when politicians talk but listen when a Pope talks.
Moin-moin eating starts peripherally, not centrally. The etiquette for consuming moin-moin and agidi is written in native intelligence.
Born Edson Arantes Do Nascimento, the name Pelé was borne out of a childhood joke a preteen friend cracked on the street of Três Corações, São Paulo.
There were no trees, no greenery in sight from my skyview as Lagos spread out like a ghetto cast in concrete, iron, rubble and filth.
Macbeth murdered sleep and he slept no more; Nigerian leaders murder sleep, yet they snore even more because hell lives here.
In his time, Pope John Paul II was the global ambassador of Christ. When he spoke, the world listened.
Ohanaemere, the unlettered Anambra indigene, more famous for his comic displays than his cleric claims, also calls himself ‘The Liquid Metal’, which is another name for mercury.
Life’s the pendulum in the Grandfather Clock, swinging left and right, like the balls of the bull, ępón máàlu, ever dangling, never falling.
I stepped out to smoke. When I stepped back into the house, it was as if I carried faeces with me into the house
So, I hissed when Fuji singer, Wasiu Ayinde, called on President Tinubu in a viral video, telling him that Nigerians are shuffering
For a long period, I racked my brain; searching and researching, constructing and deconstructing, writing and unwriting,
For ’Wande, life is a marathon of battles requiring the armours of endurance, courage and determination.
When he was about six years old, his three-year-old sister had strayed into a room he warned her not to go into.
Therefore, I beseech you, brethren, to keep these words in your hearts, inscribe them in stones and scribble them on scrolls.
For 70 minutes, Argentina was in control, and France was in a coma with their talisman, Kylian Mbappe, locked in the cooler.
How the cottony clouds could defy gravitational force and hold the almighty sun from falling remained a mystery to Ádámò.
The tale of the scorpion is in its tail. Here’s the tale of Erelu Bede, a woman who lived in the time of Orunmila, the Yoruba deity of wisdom and divination. The Araba of Osogbo, Chief Ifayemi Elebuibon, told me this tale in detail. The tale grew popular and became a collection in the series of Ifa teachings called Ogundabede. In this article, I intend to use the tale of Ogundabede aka ‘Ikunmú àgbà’ as a metaphor that weaves the power of language and culture into a tapestry, like a hairdresser using the ilari cutting comb to part the customer’s hair into three per time before weaving each three it into strands of knee-length box braids. ‘Ikunmú àgbà’ is the mucus in the nose of the elderly, difficult for the young to point out.
There’s no god-like mother, orisa bi iya kosi. A praying mother for that matter. Eyes shut wide in her bowed head, brow sweats as bosom heaves up and down while tongue speaks in supplication for her offspring to grow in wisdom, blossom in understanding, blow in success, live in health and enjoy the good life. The prayer of a mother.