I live very close to one of the busiest lounges in my town and initially, I didn't like the place because it was the headquarters of noise and disturbance, especially at midnight when we were supposed to be sleeping. But as time went on, I got fund of the whole system and I love the fact that there's no robbery case in the area because the busyness of the area winds down when people are beginning to wake up, so armed robbers find it difficult to make moves in such area. During the 2022 Christmas season, I travelled to the village immediately after Christmas day to go and celebrate the New Year with my family, I spent up to a week there and the day I returned to my base, I just dropped down from the bike carrying me and big sack containing foodstuff, then one elderly woman who lives close to my compound saw me and walked to me and started wishing me a happy new year with a touch of sympathy."Oyibo! Happy New Year! Welcome back. Sorry for what happened"'Sorry for what happened?' My mind pondered because there was nothing bad that happened to me. Well, I had to skip the thought and reply to the greetings with all smiles. "It was when I came in the morning that I saw it. I didn't sleep here that night""Mama, what happened?""You didn't hear? Your neighbours didn't call you? There was a fight exactly on New Year's Eve and your window was destroyed"

Greetings!Picking my keyboard to type this, memories of how everything played out came to me like a mirror. I was in primary six in school back then, and during those days, inter-house sports were not done in the normal group with different colors representing a group. Instead, inter-house sports were done generally by all the schools in the community, and they would choose a school with a large sports field for it.In that particular season, my school hosted it, and on the day, different sports were held. Just like how a team wins at home, as we see in football matches, my school was leading and dominating in every sport. Then, just in the midst of the sporting events, heavy rumors started spreading that my school had buried some jinx in the ground, and that's what was making us dominate like that.Okay, let me explain.If you didn't go through a public school in a rural area, you won't understand this properly.Those days, we believed so much in using voodoo to win sports. Of course, it worked. Yes, it worked. Lol. 😂. The most common prescription was to 'keeee' a lizard, c^t off its head, and bury it on the goalpost that you didn't want the ball to pass through. Then, we would see the ball shot directly to the keeper in the goalpost, and no matter what, the ball wouldn't get past the keeper. Okay, we didn't try it on an empty goalpost. Lol. 😂.Back to the story, sporting events were going on when different groups of people began digging around the fence, searching for what was buried. It was funny. The teachers (coordinators) were seeing the movement and kept announcing that all students should concentrate on the events going on in the field, but no way. Half of the people in the school played deaf and were moving around, even as far back of classrooms, searching and hoping they would find out the charm that was buried, which was making my school win consecutively.Then it happenedWhile people were moving around, angrily searching and turning every brick on the ground, I was close to the area where some of them were searching. I was with a friend standing close to them, and while we were conversing, I didn't know when my mouth opened wide, and I said pointing them

Greetings! I've lived a very compromised life before, all in the name of practicing minimalism, especially during my schooling days. Let me tell you something about this food called Eba(Cassava flake made in Africa way). That's one of the mistakes I made then: mistaking practicing minimalism for living a poor life.It didn't end there; it extended to my wardrobe too. I used to see wearing good outfits as a waste of money, especially having them in numbers. A few days ago, I scrolled through my Facebook gallery and laughed at the kind of dresses I wore to school. It's not that they were bad; no, they were fine, but they weren't really school dresses.

Greetings! Music is one thing that has existed ever since man was created. It has revolutionized a lot, to the extent that different kinds of it are still being born even today. I remember in those days, there weren't as many genres as we have today, which shows us that music, just as it has been with man since creation, is something that'll be with us until the last day I don't know how I found myself stitched to a particular genre of music and still find it hard to crawl out and be like other people who are 'universal' when it comes to music. I remember meeting a friend, a Nigerian, who told me that she likes Korean music so much, and I kept wondering how she got to that point. Lol😂I'm a very big fan of Afrobeats. I know it seems like this is not a genre of music, but come on, do some research—it’s been added to the list. Afrobeats is a genre of music that originated in West Africa, particularly in Nigeria, and is characterized by its fusion of traditional music, jazz, fuji, and soul with elements of funk, rock, and electronic music. I know there are native songs in different parts of the world, but this genre is unique in every style. Take a look at the song "Buga" by Kizz Daniel and Tekno. Just look at how joyful and celebratory the people are. That's just the nature of Afrobeats. It has joy loaded in the songs that even a sorrowful song, like one used in mourning, can be taken as a party song. This song was released in 2022, and the vibes it brought made it a national anthem. Absolutely everyone in Nigeria and many in Africa danced to it. It was so enticing that the singer was called to perform it at the FIFA festival during the Qatar 2022 World Cup. Not only that, but during the 2022 U20 Wome

Greetings!Like I usually tell people, anybody's data is hackable if the hacker is very desperate, but on a standard ground, not everyone is easily hacked like the way people claim. Some people are so scared of being hacked that they hesitate to use their phone numbers to register on websites. You've seen people like that, right?...A friend of mine had this cybersecurity issue two years ago. He was asked by someone his friend, a virtual friend, to use his phone number to register on an app to collect a referral profit from an event. My friend didn't argue because they were somewhat close. After the registration, about three months later, my friend began to receive SMS notifications telling him he had one more month to pay back a borrowed amount; otherwise, high interest would be added. That's it, the guy that collected his number used it to borrow money from a loan app. It's so unfair to have to pay for such money, N10,000 for that matter. So we began to find ways to remedy the situation, but no way. The messages kept coming, and when the time expired, the loan company started calling instead of sending SMS. We tried to email them via their official email, explaining the situation, b

Greetings!I haven't traveled a lot to boast of big experiences. I haven't left the shores of my country, and even within my own country, I haven't been to all the big cities. Among the places I've traveled to, my favorite so far is a state in Eastern Nigeria called Imo State. It's not that it has all the beauties of a big city—though it does have its charms, especially in the capital, Owerri. I just really enjoyed the kind of life I lived there, the experiences I had, and the people I met.It was during my national service as a graduate that I was posted there to live for a year. My place of residence wasn't in a city; it was a village with only one bank in the whole area, so you can imagine the kind of setting. What makes it my favorite?It was peaceful.Throughout my stay, I never had any reason to leave my house to sleep in someone else's due to fear of robbery, kidnapping, fighting, or anything else. There was one occasion when we were advised to be cautious during a general election, as we were the ones conducting it. Despite that, I moved around at night freely without being approached by armed robbers or cultists. Many nights, I even slept with my door open, and nothing happened. Life was just peaceful there.There was an abundance of fruits.The village setting is in a way that almost every compound has one fruit tree or another. Although my landlord didn't allow me to pluck coconuts in my compound, my friends and I would pluck coconuts from neighboring compounds as if the trees belonged to us. There were mangos, avocados, cherries, and so many other fruits, which were very cheap in the market also if you wanted to buy them. Most afternoon, coconut and garri were out lunch.I met high-profile people:During my stay, I was privileged to hold a position that gave me many opportunities to tour the state. I met the King and Queen of the village where I stayed. I was invited into their royal house and saw the things I usually only saw in Igbo Nollywood movies. I remember that on one occasion, we were given bush meat to eat which I had to check carefully before eating in orde not to go and eat....🫣