I was five years old the day my mother came to see us.
The evening sun must have been setting like a defiant chief on the western side of Niellé, leaving behind a stubborn reminder of its heat. The brown earth still baked beneath our feet, and the air carried the mingled smells of dried fish, spices, and palm oil drifting from the nearby stalls. Somewhere close, I was playing with other children beside the only photo studio, Master’s Photo Studio, just opposite the market. The sound of our...
When I think about strength, my mind doesn’t go first to soldiers or leaders or people who conquered nations.
It goes to my grandmother. I would have died as a todler, exept for her.
She was not tall. She did not command a room with her voice. In fact, she often spoke so softly you had to lean in to catch her words. But there was something unshakable in the way she carried herself. A steadiness, like the earth itself.
I remember watching her rise before dawn, her hands already at work long...
Every story has a beginning, but not every beginning tells the whole story
I remember 1985 and 1987 as if it were yesterday.
The air was heavy, thick with the kind of silence that warns you something is about to break. One moment I was just a boy, playing with other children with nothing but laughter in my chest. The next, I stood frozen, watching a scene of rage between my mothers unfold that would mark me for life, as I would be latter shipped and dumped in Nigeria.
I did not prepare for...
In 2003, after what I still regard as an act of quiet discrimination during an interview in Cardiff, South Wales, I made a decision that would follow me for years: I tried to remove every trace of the English element from my name when applying for jobs. If the sound of my heritage unsettled someone, so be it. I refused to smooth my accent into a palatable British tune.
In rooms where cultures collided, my words moved with ease , I was a proud envoy of where I came from. But pride is a curious...