All posts filed under: Series

It's a Madt, Madt, Madt (sic) World – Tolu Oloruntoba

Published by Osemhen

Clash of the Tolus this week šŸ™‚ Dr. Oloruntoba shares with three other young men the dubious honour of outwitting me. Twice. It was the Zain Africa Challenge; and his team eventually lifted the cup. If you know me personally, you know that I don’t swallow defeat easily. And so it’s a testament to Tolu’s character that, within a year, I went from bearing a king-sized grudge to numbering him among my most treasured friends. He’s the Chief Editor/Publisher of Klorofyl, the digital mag I’m always raving about. Follow him on Twitter @toluoloruntoba. A Special Edition of the Newsweek Magazine early this year had the very compelling theme: ā€˜Itā€™s a mad, mad, mad, mad world.ā€™ Of course it is. And if you live in the developing world, it is mad, sometimes, to the fourth degree (or madt, in #NigerianTwitter-ese). It was a potent cocktail of inspiring stories we grew up on – of fairy-tales or folk tales, and Hollywood, adventure and possibility. We wanted to believe we COULDā€¦ we wanted, (needed?) to transcend our limitations …

The Importance of Being Earnest…Or Tolu – Tolu Talabi

Published by Osemhen

Continuing the TedPosts with one by Tolu Talabi. I met Tolu at the Farafina Creative Writing Workshop last year. I literally have no words to describe him but for an idea on how his mind works, follow him on Twitter @naijarookie or get on his blog http://naijarookie.wordpress.com. Seriously. Check out his blog.   I don’t know if you saw this a few weeks ago. There was a two leg soccer match between the Under-17 female teams of Nigeria and Kenya. At the end of the first leg, which Nigeria won, the Kenyan team complained that Nigeria cheated because they had players that were over the age of 17. The Nigerian sports commentator reporting said (very smugly) that Kenya should stop making excuses for losing. I found the whole episode hilarious (Nigeria using under-aged players? No way!) but it got me thinking about age and how much we expect from people at a young age. You see, at 16, even if you’re not being called upon to play football for your country, you’re probably finishing up …

The Gospel According to Mark

Published by Osemhen

Today, I put up the second Ted-Post by Mark Amaza. I met Mark (Twitter handle: @amasonic) at the Zain Africa Challenge in 2009. In the 3 years I’ve known him, Mark’s passion and fierce patriotism have inspired me. When I got the idea for the Ted-Posts, I knew it would be incomplete if he didn’t write in. So here. I present his piece. I have always been very proud of my heritage and my roots as a Nigerian first, then a Christian and a Northerner next. There is always pride in my voice when I meet people from the South and I tell them that I am a Christian from Borno State, and how I tell everyone how multi-religious my extended family is, the fact that my maternal grandfather is a Muslim and was even the muezzin of his village till old age caught up with him, and how I have numerous uncles and aunts who are Muslims, some of whom grew up with us. But this nice story of religious co-existence is not everywhere …

Broken – Joseph E. Parker

Published by Osemhen

I first “met” Joseph last year when I was sourcing for writers to write in for the soon-to-be-released City Issue of Klorofyl. I use the term “met” loosely. We met on Twitter, and even though we’ve been in correspondence for a while, we’re yet to meet in person.Ā  Joseph is a poet. There aren’t a lot of poets whose work I understand and appreciate, but I’m a big fan of his. His poems are uncommonly fluid and lucid, and I find them beautiful. I can’t tell you how pleased I was that he agreed to write in for this series and I recommend you stop by his blog when you’re done here. Ā  ā€œSomethingā€™s missing,ā€ John Mayer wrote, ā€œand I donā€™t know what it is.ā€ Something is missing. Something essential. Something necessary to making a difference in the world. And most are afraid to find out what it is. Why is this? Why do we feel this void within? We long for what we canā€™t have and Ā inevitably growĀ  disillusioned. Why should it come as …

Ted-Posts, Lent and Broken Laptops

Published by Osemhen

Ā Early this year, one of my friends asked me, “If you could give a Ted-Talk on any subject of your choice, what would you talk about?” It took me awhile to answer but I replied, “The importance of singularity, of not taking your cues from the crowd and daring to stand alone.” But his question has haunted me over the past one month and I realize now that I’d actually talk about something else, if I got the chance. I’d talk about the importance of friends. Because no matter how much I want to believe that I have always done my thing, it would be slightly dishonest. I am the sum-total of all the people I have let into my life. And everything good about me, I have because I aped someone else. Ditto everything bad šŸ™‚ (this is a sub to relevant parties. You know yourself). But honestly, I have been privileged to know and count among my friends, some pretty cool people. And I want to share them with you via “Ted-Posts”. If …

I'm Developing A Pot-Belly and Other Sundry Matters

Published by Osemhen

And it sucks. Pun intended. Saturday, I travelled to Enugu. I’d never been there, and just the thought of the journey by road filled me with all sorts of queasiness. I imagined Ā armed robbers, deadly encounters with speeding trailers, flat tyres, the driver missing his way… Fortunately, things weren’t so exciting. The trip was 4 hours of unrelieved tedium I spent thinking, reading, wondering. About doing the right things versus doing what was right. About things like adulthood and responsibility and maturity.Ā Someone once wrote that the first mark of maturity is serenity. If she’s right, then I don’t think I’ll ever be mature. I can’t be serene; I have some sort of mental Tourette’s. I fidget, and when I start talking, sometimes I can’t stop. It’s who I am. I can’t say I don’t wish I was serene. I do. But it’s not a gift the good Lord has seen fit to bless me with yet. Is adulthood something that happens to you whether or not you want it, or is it something you choose? …

ā€œYour system is a jokeā€ Ā« Nigerian Newcomer

Published by Osemhen

Hi, guys šŸ™‚ Sorry, I’ve been away for so long. I’ve got a new job that I had to relocate for and I’m still getting my bearings. In the mean time (because getting guest bloggers is something I haven’t quite gotten around to), I’ll be re-blogging posts I find interesting on other people’s Ā blogs. Please forgive my laziness, I promise to be back soon! :* I present to you something by Tolu Talabi a.k.a @naijarookie. I met him at the Farafina Workshop earlier this year, and he rants well. I know you’ll like him šŸ˜€ ā€œYour system is a jokeā€ Ā« Nigerian Newcomer.

To My Network Provider

Published by Osemhen

Dear Network Provider, Hi. Odd, isnā€™t it, how my text messages bounce back but the ones that political parties send me, the ones that you send me, manage to find their way to my inbox. Odd that. Odd, isnā€™t it, that you advertise a certain ā€œbundleā€ for a certain amount and then when I register for it, I find out that the associated data allowance has been conveniently discontinued. Odd that. Odd, isnā€™t it, that data-sapping Snaptu opens Facebook and Twitter effortlessly but my phoneā€™s browser will not open Gmail or Yahoomail on pain of death. Really odd that. Itā€™s odd that you persist in inundating me with ads that advertise all sorts of call rates to all sorts of people. And yet, I cannot find out how to set up my voicemail without navigating, in endless circles, syrupy voice prompts. Odd that. Itā€™s odd that I spend the entire morning trying to download a 125kB document and then you have the effrontery to send me a text message that my time limit of 100 …

In Defence of the President

Published by Osemhen

I have been accused of being unnecessarily anti-establishment. I suppose I am, itā€™s the circles I run in these days; itā€™s fashionable to be contrary and leftist enough to alarm your parents. At home, Ā I pontificate on why Iā€™m not voting for X, Y and Z and why Iā€™m voting A, B, or C. And my family watches me in a mixture of admiration and pity. Admiration from the ones who are ineligible to vote and who canā€™t wait to hold such ā€˜eloquent opinionsā€™ on nation-building. And pity from the older ones. Pity. On Saturday, I proudly took my place at the polling booth to get accredited before the elections started. And behind me, a conversation started between two men, roughly my fatherā€™s age. The first announced that this was the first time he was voting since he arrived Lagos and that he’d registered to vote only because Dr. Goodluck Jonathan was running for President. If it had been yet another northerner running on the PDP platform, heā€™d not have bothered registering. He mentioned that …