Bleeding Trees
Photo by Craig Adderley from Pexels There is this lane that leads to my office in Abuja. It is serene, with a canopy of trees from the sidewalks and road divider joining together to cover the road. It is beautiful but beyond that, it gives me so much pleasure – and dare I say, calmness – whenever I pass the road. To see those trees shading the roads and pavements and knowing that they provide succor to people, animals, birds and other living organisms just fills my lung with goodness…or just clean oxygen. One evening on my way home, I noticed something different about the lane but couldn’t really place it. It wasn’t until the next morning that I realized what the problem was; the trees had been trimmed to the barest branches and the trunk – which was usually clothed in luscious green – was exposed. I remember stopping abruptly because of how shocking it was to me. ‘Why would they cut down the trees?!’ I yelled at no one in particular. I had to really calm down and analyze what I was seeing. My chest felt like they were about to burst as I took in the dying branches and leaves that laid on the ground waiting to be collected and maybe possibly…burned. I know…dramatic! But I love trees, and this felt really personal to me. In all fairness, the trees were trimmed and not necessarily cut down. But I was sad regardless. To me, it felt like they had cut down the soul of the trees and left them raw, exposed…and bleeding. And I could almost smell the blood of these trees as the branches lay on the ground waiting to be cleared away. I thought of the fauna that depended on it – and yes, me! – and I just really didn’t get it. Okay. I got it. The city council wanted to beautify the streets but beyond that, I heard they were causing some problems for taller vehicles. And I have heard that trimming them gives room for new, maybe improved, growth but damn! I really wish they were just left alone. I know cutting down trees is inevitable; we need them for a whole lot of things. I also understand that for many, trees – plants generally – are wanted for things other than their existence. And for bustling cities like Abuja, trees are needed to beautify the city more than they are regarded as a life source. But some days, I just want trees (or shrubs or herbs) to exist just because! Can we just not cut down trees?! PS: I thought this was going to be longer than this, but I guess this is all I wanted to say about it.
A Rookie’s Mistake
From the moment I finished my film directing course at the Royal Arts Academy in Lagos, Nigeria, I have been introducing myself as a filmmaker…along with the other titles I like to describe myself as. Yet, four years since I earned that certificate, I do not have any film — short or feature — to my name. Oh! It isn’t because I haven’t tried. I have tried, alright! But a series of rookie mistakes have made me a filmmaker in name only. My first foray into film making started in 2016, just after I finished my directing course. A couple of friends and I wrote a script, recruited some of our actor friends, put some money together, secured a series of locations and…began preparing to shoot our short film. On the day before we were schedule to shoot, we slept at one of the locations, so we could be up on time and begin shooting. We factored that if we were fast, we would be done before noon and we could go to the next location and continue filming. What we didn’t factor in was that, with one camera, and all the shots we needed to take, there was no way we could be fast. So, we trudged on. But nerves began to be frayed from going over the scenes again and again. I began to snipe at my friends the more frustrated I became. I could see that everyone started to walk on eggshells around me. The situation got tense, but filming continued. Behind-the-Scene Photos from the first film, Buff. At around 3pm or so, we were through with location one. We then had to transport ourselves from Ajah to Surulere to shoot the rest of the scenes. Thankfully, Lagos traffic was mild, and we got to Surulere in less than two hours. Setting up the location became another hassle. This location was an office that had the personal effects of the owner and we needed to make it something different. By around 6pm however, we were ready to start filming. The cast was fantastic, and we didn’t need to do that many takes. And if I am being honest, I didn’t have the energy for many takes. I was tired, stressed the hell out and needed the entire process to just come to an end. And end it did! When we finally called the wrap on shooting, we gave a collective guffaw of joy and hugged each other. I had been forgiven for being a diva director and we were all back being chummy buddies. Then, we had to reset the location and head home. After all of this, we were so tired, we decided to just head home. Here is where things got funny. When we finished recording in the first location, the raw footage was ‘dumped’ on my laptop to ensure we had space for subsequent shooting. Because we had been so tired at the end of the shoot, we didn’t ‘dump’ the new footage on my computer. My friend who served as cameraman/cinematographer took the rest of the footage with him. The sound guy took the entire sound recording with him. We planned to pick a day where we would sit down and edit our project. A week later, I had an emergency that required I left Lagos sooner than I expected. Turns out I would not return to Lagos again except for very brief meetings. So, editing the film was shelved. We thought it was best to edit together so we could pick out our favorite scenes. But how could we do that when half the footage with me in Yola, Adamawa State, and then Kaduna State, and then Abuja and the other half was in Lagos? My life took a hard turn at that point. I was no longer thinking of film making. I just wanted to survive. Then by the end of 2016, I got a job which I was to resume at, at the beginning of January 2017. I would go on to work there for a year and a half. That period was so fast paced that I barely had any time for myself. I didn’t have breaks and I was way too stressed to even write any script or think of filming. By the middle of 2018 when I left the job, I began to itch for my life behind the camera. I called my friends in Lagos to see if we could meet up and edit our short film, and maybe, finally put it out. That was when I realized we had a bigger problem: all our audio was lost. While we could use the audio from the camera, there was no chance in hell the sound would be clean. I mean, filming in Nigeria means a lot of ambient sound like the noise of the generators you will need because power supply is epileptic. Editing the film was going to be tougher than we planned. Again, we shelved the movie. I went into a depression for a couple of months after that. Or more appropriately, I was crashing from being depressed for months, if not years, before that time. This crash had me wondering if I could ever get anything right in my life. And the seeming failure of the short film — in spite of all my efforts — made me feel like I was bound to fail at any project I touched. It is important to note that I was out of a job at this point too and being the over-thinker that I am, I was really spiralling. Then I got another job. This one was really good and though fast-paced, let me balance my work and life. I was able to compartmentalize work and personal time. And because of that, I again began to think of the films I could make…the stories I could tell. By the end of 2018, I was resolute: I was going to shoot at least four short
Flip The Switch
Image Credit: Men’s Health Edikan felt Ama turn in her sleep as she gained consciousness. He had listened to her troubled sleep – marked by her slight snoring – for the past hour; even though his back remained turned to her. Their fight last night had been the worst in the six months they had been dating. And for the first time since he moved into her apartment, they had slept on each end of the bed. Sleep? He barely had any. The gap between them as he pretended to sleep could have been a chasm for all he cared. How could she sleep after all that was said yesterday? The only sign that she was as hurt as he was were the sounds of her heavy breathing whilst she slept. Many times during the night, he wanted to turn to her and ask that they resolve their fight immediately. But he waited, knowing that morning would bring some form of clarity to her. And maybe, just maybe, all the things she hurled at him last night, all the… He stiffened as Ama turned into him, fitting her body into the curve of his spine and wrapping her leg around his. Her pointed nipples pressed into his back as her warm breath caressed his nape. He stiffened further when she began to trail her fingers down a path to his already throbbing penis. His breath caught in his throat when she wrapped her palm around him, tightening her grip a bit…enveloping him in an unspoken promise. She began to rub ever so gently from his tingling tip to its base, pausing to caress his balls before resuming the journey back up to his tip. ‘Babe…’ he began to utter whilst trying to remove her hand from him. He was surprised at the strength she used to turn him on his back. Her full breasts invited him to drink in their glorious beauty, just as they disappeared to show her spine arch all the way up to the mounds that were her butt cheeks. A moan escaped him when she replaced her palm with her mouth. ‘Babe…wait a minute…we need to t…’ he sucked in his breath as she took in most of his length all the way to her the back of her throat. If he didn’t stop her now, he wouldn’t be able to resist the yearning that was throbbing in his core right now. But he couldn’t continue to let her use sex to ignore their fights, or ‘apologize’ to him. They needed to talk. When she came up for air, Edikan put his palms over his penis and rolled away from her, mistakenly hitting her head on his way away from her. ‘What the fuck?!’ Ama exploded. He rushed back to her. ‘I am sorry. Are you hurt?’ he asked, holding her face and looking into her eyes. Her hands went back to his penis. ‘I will be fine when I have him in me.’ She responded, her voice husky with need. Edikan pulled away from her and got off the bed. ‘Babe, we have to talk.’ Ama followed him, running her hands slowly down her breast. ‘Yes. We need to talk…with your tongue speaking wonderfully thing to my clit as I respond in kind to your dick. Yes…we need to talk, with you taking me from behind, pounding…’ ‘Babe…’ ‘…hard into me, owning me. Yes, baby. Come talk to me.’ Edikan grabbed a pillow and put between them as she gained on him. ‘Babe, can we just talk about this? There were things said last night that…’ She tried to remove the pillow. He held on to it. She tried again. He remained adamant. Edikan watched the anger jump into her eyes as she took it all in. Her hands fell from the pillow and she took a step back. ‘Are. You. Rejecting. Me?’ The edge in her voice set him on edge. He took in a much-needed breath so he wouldn’t lash out. ‘Babe, I am not re-.’ ‘Because here I am…standing naked in front of you, basically throwing myself at you and begging you for sex and…what is this? You rejecting me? Goodness, are we there yet? Where you think…’ ‘I am not re-.’ ‘…you can reject me? I want to have sex a-.’ ‘And I don’t want to have sex, goddammit!’ Edikan watched her flinch at his raised voice. Again, he drew air into his heaving lungs. ‘I am sorry for raising my voice. But we cannot continue to do this dance where we have a fight and, rather than discuss the issue, you offer me sex.’ ‘I offer you sex? What the hell is that supposed to mean?!’ ‘Is it normal that the only time you initiate sex is when you know you have offended me? That we went through the whole of last week not being intimate because you rebuffed me every single time I so much as tried to kiss or cuddle you and now, you want to have sex? And right after we had the biggest fight in this relationship?’ ‘Oh, there I was thinking I was trying to solve the problem.’ She responded, increasing the space between them. Ama’s response irked Edikan. She knew exactly how much he hated sarcasm, especially when they were fighting. ‘You don’t solve a problem by having sex. You can’t say those hurtful words to me and think I would want to have sex. I am not someone you can just cower into submission because you suck me a little and ride me once in a while.’ ‘You didn’t seem to mind before.’ Ama muttered under her breath. ‘What was that?’ ‘Nothing!’ ‘Ama, are you deliberately trying to make this situation even worse than it already is?’, he asked, talking slowly as he struggled to control himself from another angry bust. ‘What do you expect me to think?!’ Ama plops onto the bed and pulls the duvet to cover herself.
‘Silent Treatment’ May Not Be About You
Image Credit: The Independent When discussing communication with people, there is almost a general consensus by discussants that the best way to solve a problem is by talking about it. It is believed to be the mark of emotional maturity to verbally resolve issues as amicably as possible. When someone is unable to talk about issues of discontent in the approved manner – calmly, without anger or rancor, or immediately – they are classified as either emotionally immature, abusive, controlling or a combination of all. This makes sense. People should verbally communicate with each other when they have discontent or disagreement. They should be able to say that they are hurt or offended or abused and try to resolve said problem in the most peaceful way that they can. But…what if they can’t? What if they cannot verbally resolve issues amicably? Or resolve it in the moment when they are hurting? Or any time afterwards? This is one reason why many people adopt another method of communication: silence. Growing up, I learned not to talk back to adults or people older than me. When I say learned, I mean ‘forced to adapt to silently accept the hurt’ that was dished out by older people to me: regardless of how I felt. So, no matter what anyone older did to me, I swallowed it and remained silent. This would have been great if I didn’t have such an effusive emotional expression and personality. You see, if I was happy, I was happy. You could taste the happiness…it was that infectious. If I was sad, it could envelope you in its gaping chasm. And by god, if I was angry, it could consume you in its explosion. But with adults, I couldn’t express any of these emotions. So, I cultivated the silence that was expected of me in my interaction with older people. With people my age or younger, I was myself. This means they got to enjoy my happiness, empathize with my sadness and suffer the searing heat of my anger. Let me describe this anger a bit. Have you seen Moana? Remember how Te Ka seemed to only see red haze, prompting her to destroy anything – and everything – in her way when she was in the power of her rage? Yeah…that is me. When I was hurting, I used to say the most hurtful thing that could come to my head as I lashed out. When that red haze came upon me, I didn’t stop until the recipient was eviscerated: figuratively. With people who were strangers, I couldn’t be bothered with the repercussions of this action: they didn’t matter to me. Now, imagine if I did the same thing to the people who were close to me, who mattered to me. How would I come back from eviscerating a person and saying mean, hurtful things to them? What if they did something – like hit me in response to my ‘sharp mouth’ – and we could never come back from that? Because it had happened! I disagreed with a boy who was my friend and because of the things I said, he came to my house to beat me up. If not for other friends who were around, I would have been beaten to a pulp. With people I cared about, I knew the approach to communication had to be different. The closer a person was to me, the less likely I would want to lose them in a fit of rage. So, with them, I started to be silent when I was hurting. I would give us space, so I could put out the raging fire I was feeling. My motto was – and is – ‘We can come back from silence. We cannot come back from a heated back and forth where mean and hurtful things may have been uttered’. In my first year in the university, some guy offended me on my way to my seat at the Faculty of Science Lecture Theatre – one of the biggest in the school with a seating capacity of around a thousand five hundred. That morning, the hall was packed full, with students spilling over and hanging on the windows and doors. I cannot remember what the guy did, but the haze thickened, and I had a full blowout. I kept going until the deafening sound of the silence around me cleared the haze. I turned around and watch as people literally shrunk from me. Did I tell you the painful shame and regret that came after each of these blowouts? Nothing in my entire life compared to what I felt when I saw people shrinking from me that day. I was red with the remnants of the anger but especially from the debilitating shame I was feeling. As I took my seat with the full glare of students on me, I swore to myself to never lose my head like that ever again. But the anger didn’t go. The rage kept pressing on my chest whenever I was hurt or abused or felt offended. So, I chose a less daunting expression: silence. This meant that the anger stayed longer but the aftermath was more rumbling mountain than erupting volcano. Oh! There were times when the anger still erupted, and I chewed down on people but for the most part, silence was my go-to reaction whenever I was offended: especially with my closest friends or people I was romantically involved with. I have read over and again that silence in a relationship is ‘emotionally manipulative’, ‘abusive’ and ‘controlling’. In fact, I was talking to someone I had dated when I mentioned how we had had a seemingly perfect relationship and breakup. He mentioned that if we removed my emotional blackmail with silence, we could describe it as having been perfect. I was shocked! My emotional blackmail? How?! He explained that the ‘silent treatment’ was emotionally abusive to him and that many times, he just apologized so that we could
Cancel Culture
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels If you have been using social media for any length of time, it is quite possible that you have heard (or used) the term, ‘Cancel Culture’. Like ‘misogyny’, ‘patriarchy’, ‘feminism’, ‘human rights’, this phrase is one of the buzz words of this generation that gets thrown around when heated socio-cultural issues are being debated – or fought over – on social media. It has become so predominant that many dictionaries now carry a definition for the phrase. So, what is cancel culture? Dictionary.com has one of the more encompassing definitions. cancel culture [ kan-suhl kuhl-cher ] “Cancel culture refers to the popular practice of withdrawing support for (canceling) public figures and companies after they have done or said something considered objectionable or offensive. Cancel culture is generally discussed as being performed on social media in the form of group shaming.” I like this definition of the term more than the one on Urban Dictionary. This one just explains the term as it has been used in conversation, without any of the sensationalism in the one written by Urban Dictionary. I mean, what is the use of calling the people who are part of any cancel culture, narcissists? Why couldn’t they have stuck with the definition of the word? If not because I may need to use the dictionary sometime soon, I would encourage people to stop using the dictionary. See what I did there? It is the classic route taken to cancel an individual and/or organization. I read their definition, didn’t agree with the statement, proceeded to take offense, expressed said offense and invited people to join in my discontent. Again, if you have been on social media long enough, you would most likely have seen this expressed over and over, with millions of people chiming into the conversation and running with the herd. But have you seen this replicated in everyday life? I mean, not just on social media? I have. I think cancel culture, like other things expressed on social media, reflects how we act in our communities. The idea that social media is the reason why this happens is at best, ludicrous. I remember when I was maybe ten or eleven years old. This was around 1999/2000. We lived in a community in Kaduna State, Nigeria. The predominant culture was: husbands went out to work, wives took care of the house and their well-behaved children. Wives were seen but rarely heard unless they were in the market with other women. They dressed and acted ‘responsibly’ as was expected of married women. Husbands ruled their homes and were accorded the respect of mini-gods. Almost every home was a variation of this model. One home didn’t fit in though. The husband had died, and the wife was the sole provider and caregiver to her three children. She barely had any education or any necessary workplace skillset beyond being a full-time housewife. But she had to survive. And her children had to survive. So, she bought a grinding machine and soon realized the money she was making was barely enough to cater to their basic needs. After some years of really going through it, she took up sex work to augment the money she was making. This was a direct response to the men in the neighborhood who had been propositioning her and offering to cater to her (and her children) if she had sex with them. As the number of men visiting her began to increase, husbands warned their wives to stay away from her; no doubt wanting their wives to remain sexually unaware in comparison to her. The women decided to cut her off because they didn’t want to ‘lose’ their husbands to someone they deemed ‘wanton’ and ‘irresponsible’. But it didn’t end there. They placed an embargo on the widow’s kids too. Well behaved children had no reason to interact with the children of a ‘prostitute’. For years, this woman was a pariah in that community. It did not ease up when she up and left her children – teenagers at this time – to fend for themselves. The children inherited the hate their mother had taken for years and at that young age, had to find work for themselves. Only one family went over and beyond to provide any succor to the children; food, soap and friendship. It was not surprising that the only woman who welcomed them into her warmth also didn’t have her husband around and was going through hell raising five kids. She, more than any of the other wives, knew the great hardship that came with being a ‘single’ mother in a community where women were expected to be dependent on their husbands; no matter what the reality was. I remember how many times I was flogged for being friends with the kids. I had to hide my friendship with them for the longest time and it was my first introduction to cancel culture, even though I didn’t even know the phrase existed then. Many have seen this type of cancellation at one point or the other in their lives. In fact, most of the times we have seen this, it is usually with people or organizations that are not popular or prominent in the real sense of the word. Sometimes, what confers popularity or prominence on these individuals is the agreement that propels people to stop supporting them. Let us look at cancel culture in present day as seen on our social media platforms. The only noticeable difference is that are they fed to a seemingly larger audience; what with the internet connecting us to the global community and what not. What we may not have been able to express to a large audience in the past can now be done with the click of a button. How has this caused this culture to evolve? We are now able to call out people and organizations for human rights abuses, racism, cultural appropriation, and other areas demanding accountability. But
My Inspiration Wall
Photo by ATC Comm Photo from Pexels I remember walking into a radio station in Abuja for an interview. When I got to the green – or waiting – room, I was pleasantly surprised by the surrounding wall that had pictures of many icons on it; Martin Luther King, Gandhi, the Dalai Lama, Fela and a host of others. As I basked in memories of the work each person had contributed to humanity, I began to notice something that gradually dropped the smile from my face; there was hardly any woman on that wall. I wondered if the owner didn’t think there were women worthy of being on his wall; women whose contribution to humanity helped shaped the world as it is today; women who deserved to be seen. I wanted to be mad, but I reined it in. It was his wall after all and he could do whatever he wanted with it. Before I left the station however, I promised myself that when I set up my office, I was going to have a wall dedicated to women who had inspired me to contribute to humanity. I would call it my ‘inspiration wall’. A little over a year after I made that promise to myself, I created my ‘office’ space in my home. I dedicated a wall for my icons and then carefully curated the women I wanted to go up on it. By the time I was done, I had about twenty-four women I wanted to put up. With the space in my home, I could only put up fifteen without making the wall look…too much. Again, I started trimming down my list of inspiring women. When I finally got my 15, I sought pictures of them that captured the essence I felt connected me to them in the first place. So…I present you my inspiration wall. They are categorized into the following: 1. My Biggest Inspiration: This is the topmost row of the pictures on the wall. It has me, Enigbe Ochekliye, Sadiya Ochekliye, Oprah Winfrey and Beyoncé Knowles. I need to put this out there. My mother – Hajiya Hauwa Umar – should be the first person on this row…or even at the very top of it. She taught me resilience and was the first person who showed me what it meant to be a feminist; even though at that point, I didn’t know the word and today, my mother wouldn’t accept the title. One of the biggest lessons I remember from my mother was when she called me and told me to never ask a man for money to get him a birthday present. I was about 8 years old then. What she was saying was, don’t be dependent on a man for the things you need. Make your own money so you can take care of yourself and your family. When people say I work hard, best believe that it is because I have such an innate sense of pride and a burning need to never be dependent on anyone, and especially not on any man. But my mother is also a conservative Muslim who doesn’t believe that pictures should be hung on the wall. So I am respecting her wishes but, you can imagine her hanging somewhere at the top of the pictures. My sisters – Enigbe and Sadiya – are constantly inspiring me with their dedication to acquiring more knowledge, understanding and innovation. Enigbe is one of the most intelligent women I know. If we grew up in a ‘sensible’ country, she would probably be working with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) now. Sadiya is such an empath. She is so loving and caring that it is infectious. The way she relates to those of us that are her family members, her friends, her acquaintances and strangers is worth emulating. They inspire me to be better, to always leave room for more because there is always more I can do with myself and for my interaction with people. Oprah was the first black woman I saw that showed me we could be anything we wanted to be. She was such powerful and influential trailblazer. She rose in the ranks because she gave 100% of herself…and then some. It was because of Oprah that I knew I wanted to do media. I didn’t know what area I wanted to go into because I was still so sure I was going to be a neurosurgeon but somehow, I felt… ‘if Oprah can do it all, I can do it all’. And then I met Beyoncé. Singer with Destiny’s Child, energetic spirit and oh so so dedicated to her craft. When I say met, I don’t mean in person…even though it is on my bucket list. Being introduced to how much work went into putting out her music or the up-tempo videos or even the magnificent live performances, caused me to fall in love with her. Who was this woman? Why didn’t she seem to stop? How could she keep going with so much energy and fire? I felt like she was my soul sister. And I don’t need to say it…but I will. Beyoncé is one of my all-time favorite artists in the world. And then, there is me. I am one of my biggest inspirations. I work hard, I give my best to whatever it is that I do, I open myself to learning and contributing to my society and I am a good person; even if I say so myself. In the past, I never would have said this. In fact, up until recently, I used to think it was conceited to say good things about one’s self. But I have come to the realization that I am a work-in-progress. I make mistakes, I do bad things sometimes, I am downright horrible at other times…but all these, all of these things, do not negate the fact that I am a good person. If anything, it emphasizes it. I have grown in
Cherry Blossom – A Collage by Othy
Arunsi Othniel Fortune, better known as Othy, has put out a collage of poems called Cherry Blossom. It is a beautiful piece of literary expression that, as Abdulquadri Saka-Bolanta describes, “explores some generic human emotions in popular circumstances such as denial; largely as experienced by the author, some of which you might easily relate to and others you might not.” We are proud to share his work with you. Download Cherry Blossom here.
Pay That Money
Image: The Guardian Nigeria I am constantly seeing people rant on social media about the debtors in their lives. It is so common place that I don’t think one week goes by without one person or the other getting called out for owing money. And today… I am joining in to call out these debtors. I remember a while back when I started a new job after a long break from paid employment. I was excited about the new opportunity and was extremely grateful to be earning a salary again. I had a couple of reasons why working again was really important to me. As mentioned, I had worked before. But a combination of a medical emergency, house rent (and setting up said house), gifts to family and friends, and a very unhealthy spendthrift habit meant that when I was out of work, I had almost no money saved. I kept playing in my head how I had been so horrible with my finances and the more I thought about it, the more I beat myself up. Things got so bad that I could barely afford my necessities. And I couldn’t ask my parents or siblings for money because…ego. It got so bad that one day, I broke down while having a conversation with one of my friends. He saw how sullen I had become and proceeded to send me some money ‘to cheer me up’. Now, anyone who knows me knows that I loathe to collect money from anyone and very few things break my spirit like being dependent on anyone for my money. So when I got the job, I decided to be very deliberate with how I was going to spend my money. I didn’t want to ever be in a place where I had to depend on anyone for money; never again. On my very first pay day with the organization, I looked at my bank alert…thankful to be earning again and ready to honor my promise to myself and my future. Not up to a minute after I got my pay, a ‘friend’ sent me a message: he was going through some financial crisis and needed some money quickly. I looked at the message and thought of how many times he had come through for me in the past; and vice versa. One time, I had borrowed money when I needed to travel because I couldn’t withdraw. The plan was to pay back when I got to my destination; which is what I did the next day. We basically had that rhythm where we helped each other out all the time. Which is why, even though it was not part of my plan, and it was way more money than I had given anyone before, I didn’t think twice about sending the money. I asked when I would get the money back, to which he responded ‘at the end of the month’…a couple of days away. ‘End of the month’ became two months. Remember when I mentioned that I hated asking for money? Well…it is even worse when it came to asking for my own money. I had to steel myself to call the guy and remind him that he had to pay me my money. I went further to apologize a couple of times for asking for it and was all too eager to get off the phone when he assured me he was sending the money to me shortly. ‘Shortly’ became another month. By this point, the first stages of anger had begun to rear its head. I sent him an instant message reminding him again to send me my money. I told him that if it was any other person, I would have cut them off with the quickness. I told him I was disappointed that he did not respect our friendship enough to not lie to me and that I wish I never gave him the money in the first place. The guy said he had sent it and I was like, what? When? He quickly said he was going to check and see what went wrong. And by god, I believed him. He sent a message again telling me that his transfer had failed and that he had not known. Then he effusively apologized and told me he was sending the money immediately. Then he began to regale me with stories about how much financial problems he had been on in the last couple of months. I explained that I understood his plight, but it would have made sense if he explained to me that he couldn’t pay rather than stay quiet about it. Again, he apologized and promised I would get the money in less than an hour. Another two months passed. This time, I was pissed the hell off. I asked him to send me my money immediately. He didn’t even bother to respond this time. I called, he didn’t pick up. I sent messages and was left on ‘read’. Out of frustration, I sent a message saying that I wasn’t going to ask him for the money again and I was done with him. But I wasn’t really done. I was angry; furious! But most of all, I was hurt! It felt like he had played me for a fool. It felt that he deliberately swindled me of my money when he had no intention of paying. It felt like he knew I was uncomfortable asking for money, so he took advantage of my discomfort to take my hard-earned money. The more I thought about it, the angrier I became. I told my friends and siblings about the situation and many of them were of the opinion that I should publicly call him out and shame him into paying the money. I can’t say I was not tempted to do so, but the better part of me prevailed. If I embarrassed him, there would be no coming back from that. If I shamed him and he
Overcoming Low Self-Esteem by Gima Okhiulu
Gima Okhiulu delivering her speech at the Half the Sky Speech Contest in Akure, Ondo State. We attended Half the Sky, a speech contest commemorating the International Day of the Girl Child in Akure, Ondo State, and it was at this event that we met GimaOkhiulu, a student from the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) Group of Schools in the State. Gima was amazing with her storytelling, linking each of her points to the next in a way that just made you stay glued to what she was saying. And because of how well she delivered her speech, we gave her a cash price and promised her a spot on the blog for any article of her choice. Here is Gima’s piece on her struggles with low self-esteem. Low self-esteem is like a silent destiny killer in the lives of growing kids, especially girls. A lot of unfulfilled destinies can be attributed to this ‘plague’. With a low self-esteem, a person sees themselves as useless, unappreciated and if you may, ‘down the ladder’. It is a state of strongly believing that others are better than you. It is a false sense of believing that nothing good will come out of whatever you do… a Siamese twin to hopelessness. I’ve had to deal with serious low self-esteem, varying from feeling unimportant and useless, to feeling like I was born stupid and back to feeling useless and hated. Although, this was hidden from my parents, it wasn’t from my older brother – Remen – who was the only person I occasionally opened to and God, whom I prayed to about it sometimes. And even though my parents didn’t know about my struggles, my dad and Remen were constantly trying to boost my self-esteem and my mum was my spiritual backup. And yes… God helped me too! Since I’ve been dealing with this, I feel like it is my duty to encourage people in similar situations. Low self-esteem starts when you start comparing yourself to other people and viewing them as being better than you. Like Remen said, ‘Everyone has their own star and their different ways of shinning.’ If you compare yourself to other people, you will blind yourself to seeing how important you are and your mind will begin to focus on what it may have convinced you is your ‘uselessness’. Like I said earlier, I had always thought I was born stupid, one reason being because my parents are really smart. Some things I found hard to do, my younger brother would just do like it was nothing. I would be like ‘Gima, you’re such a dumbass!‘ But lately, with the help of Remen, I recognized that I am actually sharp when it comes to making accurate calculations; sometimes looking like I prophesied it. The reason most of us feel like we’re not smart enough is that we are not looking at the bright side; we are too focused on the negatives. Also I felt unimportant because many times, I felt denied of what I wanted and it seemed like my sister always got what she wanted. Eventually, I discovered that there was always something I really liked that was kept for me. Thinking my sister got everything and I didn’t affected me because I was negative, which is why I now believe that another way to get over low self-esteem is to be positive. The last and best option is to go to God in prayer. This was the most effective method that worked for me.
Girls Hold Up Half the Sky
Participants at the Speech Contest I have been volunteering with Sow Purpose Initiativesince 2017. At that time, it was called SOW Foundation and the general mandate was to empower young (and vulnerable) women and girls by reaffirming their worth, addressing societal bias that keep these women and girls struggling to catch up with men and boys in this century, and promoting a culture of excellence for them. When the founder, Dr. Victoria Kumekor, reached out to me in 2017 to give a talk to the girls about body positivity, I was excited to do it. A number of students were chosen from different schools in Zaria, Kaduna State, Nigeria, for the pilot event. It was a beautiful event where we got to bond with students from different backgrounds and ideologies. I knew that I was invited to teach the girls, but it really was a give-and-take session; I learned so much from our interaction. Seeing how much we inspired these young women, I decided that I would continue to volunteer with the Initiative as long as I was required to. So when Dr. Victoria, or as I call her – Vick, reached out to me to talk about the event planned for this year, I knew that I was going to make myself available. While the first two sessions had happened in Zaria, this one was going to happen in Akure, Ondo State. I remember when I saw the theme for this year’s event; ‘Half The Sky’. I wondered what it was about and asked Victoria to explain. She sent me the working document for the event. When I finally understood what she meant, I was even more excited. But more than that, I was pumped that the format for this year’s event was a little different from the previous two. SOW Purpose Initiative was going to organize workshops on educating girls and discussions on equality in the different schools they had reached out to, with a speech contest by representatives of each school serving as the culmination of these workshops. These workshops were meant to dispel myth and misconceptions about the place of girls and women in the home, their immediate community and the world at large. After months of planning, the events began to draw near. The team started with workshops in each of the schools and on October 12, 2019, the speech contest was held in commemoration of the International Day for the Girl Child. The workshops were eye opening…but not as shocking as I would have expected. I think I am now jaded but that is a conversation for another day. When the conversations started with the students in their schools, two major talking points were focused on; 1. Career choices the students felt were off-limit to girls; and 2. Their thoughts on basic equality, human respect and rights. Photos from the Workshop Most of the students – and it begs to be emphasized that this includes male and female students – believed that girls shouldn’t be in engineering, construction, mining, carpentry, politics, professional driving (and they didn’t mean Formula 1), and a couple of other supposedly male dominated careers. They all agreed that these jobs were ‘inappropriate’ for women and girls as they were not ‘strong enough’. In similar fashion, when asked if girls should be respected the same way boys are, there was a resounding ‘no’. The reasons were many: ‘Girls were made to serve boys by God’, ‘Boys are more special than girls’, ‘Boys are physically stronger than girls’, ‘Girls are incompetent’, ‘If given same level of respect girls tend to misuse it’ and the ever present and usually unsurprising, ‘Girls are not equal to boys’. They were literally parroting what the greater society thought and felt towards women and girls. But as unsurprising as it all was, I was still sad that at their young ages, they already had these beliefs that seemed so set in stone. Could we really change their views? Not to be daunted, the Initiative explained why these postulations were untrue and why it was of utmost importance that these students unlearn the things they held as truths. Each of the schools were then tasked with presenting one boy and one girl who would speak about girls holding up half the sky at the speech contest. The day finally arrived. As the students began to trickle into the venue of the event, I wondered what I was going to be hearing from them. I was to serve as a judge for the contest and I think I was probably more nervous than the students. I am very easy to read, and I needed to get my poker face on. Soon enough, we were good to go. The Judges. From left to right: Mr. Eze Chinedu, Dr. Oguntade Funmilayo and Ramatu Ada Ochekliye (me). It was interesting hearing the students speak about the topic. With many of the boys and girls, you could tell they were just going through the motions. With others, their belief shone through. Two girls in particular caught my interest; Okhiulu Gima from Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) Group of Schools and Nancy Orisamolor from Becky Parker School, both in Akure. Gima was amazing with her storytelling, linking each of her points to the next in a way that just made you stay glued to what she was saying. It is important that I mention that she was soft-spoken; something that could have worked against her as most of the other students were boisterous. But her cool and calm, coupled with her storytelling technique, kept me rivetted. Nancy on the other hand brought her points home. While most of the other speakers were mentioning Malala Yousafzai – I mean, everyone mentioned her! – Nancy led by sharing the work of Becky Anyanwu-Akeredolu: an aquaculture farmer; proponent for early detection of, and curing cancer; and First Lady of Ondo State. Nancy mentioned other women who were Nigerian, before she spread out to
