1/Been thinking of that 4-year old kid and her irresponsible father. And recalling another woman with a similar father. Sometime in the 2000s, after On Black Sisters Street came out, I interviewed a former Nigerian sex worker in Antwerp for a Dutch TV program. 2/She looked to be in her 20s, was married to a Belgian man who used to be her client, and hadn’t worked as a prostitute for a long time. She had come into Europe from Benin City as a teenager (via her father who lived in Germany and was married to some woman).

1/ The comedian, Helen Paul, recently shared in a talk that she was born from rape. She also spoke of how, because of the circumstances surrounding her birth, she and her mother were treated as pariahs, not just by outsiders but also by those closest to them—her mother’s siblings 2/They would visit her grandmother, give the old woman money, and remind her that their money was not to go to "the bastard," for instance.

1/ #BuchiEmecheta was born Florence Onyebuchi Emecheta on July 21, 1944 , in (Yaba) Lagos. Her mother, Alice Ogbanje Ojebeta Emecheta was a former slave girl, sold into slavery by her brother to a relative to raise money for silk head ties for his coming-of age dance. 2/When her mistress died, Ogbanje Emecheta returned home to freedom. Ogbanje Ojebeta, like her alterego in the novel she inspires, trained as a seamstress. She married Jeremy Nwabudinke, a railway worker.

Why Are Our Buildings Falling?

1/ An hour after my father and other relatives wrapped up a family funeral in Osumenyi, my ancestral home, the ceiling of the church in which they’d been in spontaneously collapsed. 2/ I received the video via WhatsApp and the sight of the destruction gave me goose pimples. It does no good to wonder the many what-ifs but had it happened an hour earlier, it would have been catastrophic for our family. There certainly would have been fatalities.

1/
In April, a 48 year old actor, supposedly big (?) in Yoruba-language cinema , Olarenwaju Omiyinka aka #BabaIjesha was arrested for sexually molesting a 14 year old girl whom he had allegedly been assaulting since she was 7.He was caught on tape & he confessed to it. 2/ This month, a producer, #YomiFabiyi, released a movie about the case using the real names of all involved. His movie insiunated that there was a mutually sexual r/ship b/n the minor and Baba Ijesha (how sick) & that the latter was set up by the girl’s guardian, Princess

How far Naija? #KeepitOn

1/ On Tuesday last week, President Buhari tweeted that “many of those misbehaving today are too young to be aware of the destruction and loss of lives that occurred during the Nigerian Civil War... 2/ ...Those of us in the fields for 30 months, who went through the war, will treat them in the language they understand.” This Tweet with its reference to the civil war, was seen as a threat by many against the people of the South East and so they reported it.

1/ On The Blindness of Privilege:
Pastor Paul Adefarasin of House on the Rock – a man whose net worth is estimated to be about $50 million (although he reportedly said a few years ago that he was a billionaire )- told his parishioners to make sure to have a plan B out of Naija 2/ because “these people are crazy.” His wife, he said, was busy sorting out their plan B. Ah! To be wealthy na good thing oo. Folks, the opposite of poverty isn’t wealth. It is access to a viable plan B. And the options that come with it.

1/ 3 weeks ago, I had a conversation with an overwhelmed new parent friend of mine. She said the baby cried a lot. My friend could catch no break. I asked for the baby's bedtime- baby had no bedtime. So, I shared parenting lessons (stuff tat worked for me with her) 2/ When we had #1, J was working full time, I was studying full time. My mom stayed with us from a few days to when #1 turned 3 months old. My mother-in-law told us from the beginning she could/would babysit BUT our baby had to have structure.

1/ In the late 90’s, my friend’s younger sister had an appendectomy at a hospital in either Nsukka or Enugu, I forget which. At some point during surgery, according to my friend, there was a power outage and the doctors wrapped up by flashlight. 2/ My friend’s sister survived and the story of her surgery by flashlight has become a dinner table anecdote. Some years ago, a woman I knew in Belgium returned to Nigeria to process the papers for her two children in Benin City to join her and her new husband in Europe.

1/ This week, a video of five female students of Oreyo Senior Grammar School, Igbogbo Ikorodu, Lagos State, smoking shisha in what is presumably a private home went viral. 2/ In the video, the students are in school uniform, so they either sneaked out of school or they are day students who detoured after school to someone’s place for a hookah smoking session rather than return home.

1/ So Jack of Twitter, carried his business to Ghana and the Giant of Africa is raking because how dare he leave Nigeria with all its resources; human and otherwise to go and land in Ghana where their jollof is rubbish? 2/ Thing is though, that no matter how many more Twitter users Naija has than Ghana (36 million, almost 4 million more than the entire population of Ghana) an argument I have heard more times than I care to count, Jack owes us nothing.

‘The African Woman’ (For The ‘Real’ African Man)
1/ Never talk about African women as if they were individuals. Remember: they are a monolithic group. There is the African Woman of which there are two subgroups: the Bad African Woman (BAW) and the Good African Woman (GAW). 2/ Members of each group are easy to spot: The Bad African Woman is a feminist which means that she hates men and spends her days pretending to be happy and her nights crying in loneliness because she has put career before marriage.

1/If you have the heart for it, and you understand Igbo, you can watch/listen to the original interview here. It's heartbreaking : bbc.com/igbo/afirika-5… 2/ How is he justifying domestic violence, sexual assault? In the name of culture? Whose culture? And women should be flattered when they are sexually harassed?

On Sunday, African Giant, Burna Boy won his first Grammy for Best Global Music, and Wizkid’s collaboration with Beyonce (and her nine-year-old daughter) won Best Music Video. Nigerians were ecstatic. Even Tiwa Savage and the two Kuti brothers, Femi and Made, whose collaboration with Coldplay would have won them certificates (rather than Grammy statuettes) had it won (which it didn’t) were being congratulated on Twitter by Naijans for winning. All win na win abeg.

I woke up (earlier this week) to the good news that the 279 girls kidnapped last week from Government Girls Junior Secondary School (GGJSS), Jengebe, Zamfara State, had been released. I had my piece for this week all ready and had to discard it, but I have never been more grateful for a curve ball being thrown at me. When the news of their abduction broke, parallels were immediately drawn with that of the Chibok girls which happened seven years ago.

So last week I wrote about the disinheritance of daughters in parts of Igbo land & to my disbelief, there were Ndi Igbo claiming that this customary law of inheritance that privileges sons doesn't exist, that I had somehow fabricated this out of thin air
dailytrust.com/free-yourselves (even as I and others on my TL gave concrete, real life examples and some Igbo daughters have successfully brought cases contesting the law before civil court).

from: escr-net.org/caselaw/2018/o…
"Onyibor Anekwe & Anor v. Mrs. Maria Nweke, Supreme Court of Nigeria, SC. 129/2013.
Gender Equality in Inheritance Rights affirmed by Nigerian Supreme Court
This case challenges the customary law of male primogeniture of the Awka people in Nigeria. The Supreme Court of Nigeria found that any custom that denies women, particularly widows, their inheritance, is repugnant to natural justice, equity and good conscience and is condemned by the Supreme Court.

I write about disinheriting daughters in parts of Igbo land, a culture that privileges men and Igbo fathers not writing their wills in toy column today: "In 1981, when Lazarus Ogbonna Ukeje died, his daughter Gladys, was supposed to inherit nothing from him. Not because the father thought she’d squander whatever inheritance she got. Not because she didn’t want any part of it. The reason was because she was his daughter and not his son.

Of all the stupidest things I read this week, none was more stupid than the Ekiti State Police Command standing behind their dismissal of a pregnant policewoman because according to Mr. Babatunde Mobayo, the command’s commissioner, “Section 126 of the regulation (states) that married woman police (sic) who is pregnant may be granted maternity leave, while Section 127 (states that) unmarried woman police (sic) who becomes pregnant shall be discharged from the Force" & needs IGP's approval to be enlisted

Reasonable people make the mistake of thinking that everyone on Twitter is reasonable. That's why they fall into the trap of arguing with people, wondering why they can't see sense. Do you walk into a market and start /sustain conversations with everyone? When a stranger walks up to your car window and starts telling you your choice of music is crap, do you stand in traffic arguing with that person?

A Manual for White Allies /Potential Allies of Black People in America
1.Understand that allyship is intentional. You are not an ally because your partner is black, your best friend is black, your dog is black; you like Mexican food,you watch foreign movies,you've been to South Africa;you adopted a black kid,you're a liberal, your kid's best friend is black. You're an ally because you've chosen to take a side against injustice,& you make that choice every single day,in deed and in words