I woke up bright and early looking forward to a great day at work after resting on the national holiday in celebration of Nigeria at 66, but it turned to a black Friday.
I lost a friend today.
He started off as a family friend when I was younger, and now that I’m married, he had become a good friend of my husband. Somehow, over the years, the friendship grew, and today, we are left with the painful reality that he is no longer here.
This morning, my husband and I woke up encouraging each other to love and live in the day. To take each day as precious because we really don’t know what tomorrow holds.
We ended that conversation agreeing that it is God’s grace that gives us the privilege to see another day.
And today, that conversation feels different.
Life is truly a gift. Tomorrow is never promised. Love your people. Say the things you need to say. Make the moments count.
Because sometimes, you wake up expecting an ordinary day, and before the day is over, everything has changed.
Today, I am grateful for the grace to be here. And I am deeply saddened that a friend is no longer here.
Category: life
Nigeria at 66 🇳🇬
This morning, I wrote a message to a young man I mentor. His name is Sesugh.
He sent me a beautiful message wishing me a Happy New Month and Happy Independence Day. In responding to him, I found myself saying something that I genuinely mean:
I want to see him grow… not just in his career or achievements, but as a person. I want him to keep learning, asking questions, making wiser decisions, and becoming more intentional about the kind of man he wants to be.
I want to see him excel, but more importantly, I want to see him become a man who can look back and be proud of the choices he made and the life he built.
And then I paused.
Because today, Nigeria is 66.
And somehow, as I was writing to Sesugh about the man he is becoming, I began thinking about my country and asking myself:
What have we become?
We talk about independence. We celebrate the fact that 66 years ago, Nigeria gained independence from British colonial rule.
I am happy to be Nigerian. I am happy to celebrate this day. I am grateful for our people, our resilience, our creativity, our culture, our ability to keep going even when things are difficult.
But I also find myself asking questions.
Should we celebrate simply because we are older?
Or should we also be celebrating what we have become?
I’m not saying we have not gotten anything. Of course we have. There are things we have achieved. There are Nigerians doing extraordinary things at home and all over the world.
But I really wish we had more.
I wish, at 66, we had more to offer.
More stability… More opportunities… More things that work… More systems we can trust… More leaders we can depend on… More reasons for the young people coming behind us to believe that they can build meaningful lives here.
So, maybe, just maybe, that is why my conversation with Sesugh stayed with me.
When you mentor a young person, you don’t just want them to get older… You want them to grow and you want them to learn from their mistakes.
You want them to make better decisions and to become wiser. You want them to discover their capacity and use it well.
You want them to become the kind of person who can look back one day and say, I did something meaningful with my life.
Maybe countries are not so different.
Maybe the question at 66 shouldn’t only be, “How old are we?” but most importantly: “What have we become?”
What are we building? What are we leaving behind? What are we teaching the generation coming after us? What are we doing with the enormous potential… Yes, very enormous potential, that exists within this country?
So today, as Nigeria turns 66, I celebrate independence, I celebrate our people and I celebrate how far we have come.
But I will also hope that we pick ourselves up… pick up our pace and do better and greater things.
Happy Independence Day, Nigeria. 🇳🇬
Higher Standards
I saw this image on a friend’s WhatsApp status and I proceeded to have a conversation with myself.
Okay, so maybe I don’t need a new goal. Maybe I need a higher standard, right?
Okay, now, for example, a goal says, “I want to achieve this.” but, a standard will say, “This is how I live now.” There’s a big difference there.
Maybe, Instead of saying, “I want to read more,” I can just go ahead and make a standard for myself, “I’m someone who makes time to read.”
So now, I’m setting standards about my reading habits.
We can take it deeper into things like relationships. Instead of, “I want a better relationship,” you can go ahead and make a standard for yourself, saying, “I expect to be treated with respect, and I give the same.” Or “I’m intentional about the people I allow close to me.”
Another example is our spiritual life and relationship with God. We can replace “I want to grow spiritually.” With a standard like; “My relationship with God gets intentional time, not leftover time.”
Goals have an end point. Standards become a way of living.
And sometimes, I think we set new goals because they are exciting.
Maybe we should ask ourselves this important question:
What have I already decided that I will no longer tolerate from myself?
That way, you pick yourself up from that point forward, not having to set fresh goals.
Don’t ask yourself, “What do I want to accomplish?”
Ask, “What am I ready to live by?”
I love a woman who is one
I watched The Love Hypothesis while I was resting on a work trip a few days ago.
While I watched, I kept getting The Big Bang Theory vibe. They are not the same story… very far from same. It was the environment, the lab and science talk etc.
Also, I love women in STEM and Anh kept reminding me of Amy Farrah Fowler in The Big Bang Theory.
I love seeing women in lab coats and hearing them talk about their PhD, dissertation, blabla.
I’ve never wanted to be one, but I love a woman who is one.
Presence
This morning, I was thinking about something that has become such a normal part of how I communicate with people in this new age of mobile phones and all.
There’s a young lady I’ve been talking to for a few weeks now. She’s actually my birthday mate. She was born on the 23rd of August too, just like me. She was born in 1996 and I was born in 1982, so technically, we are birthday mates with a few years in between.
And somewhere in our conversations, I realised that we are actually the same kind of human being. And I thought, Wait… could we actually be twins? Smiles… She likes to spend time with herself, yeah, She enjoys her own company. She reads books. She doesn’t go out much…
Since our birthday this year, we’ve been going back and forth, chatting… our conversations have been funny because sometimes she replies late, sometimes I reply late. It’s just been this back and forth thing.
Last night I got a late reply from her, a reply that was about 5 days late. She added an apology; “I’m sorry for the late reply.”
When I saw it I told her, “It’s fine. It’s okay.”
Then I explained to her why it was fine. I actually explained it to her because I felt she would understand exactly what I meant.
I told her that I save my precious chats and respond to them when I’m calmer and less stressed…
If I see your message when I’m in transit, at work, rushing somewhere, overwhelmed, or just mentally all over the place, I may read it and unconsciously forget to respond.
This is not because I don’t care. It’s kind of hard to respond in certain hours or activities of the day.
So I may not respond because I actually care.
There are some conversations I don’t want to have in between two other things. I don’t want to open your message while I’m rushing and give you a half-hearted response simply because I happened to see it.
I want to sit down with it, to read it properly, and to think about what you said… And then I want to respond in the way I would have responded if I had all the time and calmness in the world.
I don’t remember exactly who taught me this, but I know I picked it up from someone. They told me they don’t open certain chats until they are ready to attend to them.
And I thought, Hmm. That makes sense.
So I started doing it too.
I save my chats.
Especially the precious ones.
And then I come back to them when I can actually be present.
The funny thing is, I don’t think people always understand this about me.
Because when you don’t reply immediately, people sometimes assume you’re ignoring them. Or that you’re not interested. Or that they’re not important enough.
But sometimes the opposite is true.
Sometimes, you are important enough for me to say, I don’t want to answer you anyhow.
I want to give you my proper response.
I want to be calm when I talk to you.
I want to have the mental space to actually hear what you’re saying instead of just reacting because your message landed on my phone at the wrong time.
And maybe that’s why I’ve become quite comfortable with delayed replies too.
I don’t need you to respond to me immediately.
I have learned that people have lives outside of their phones. People are working. Driving. Thinking. Resting. Dealing with things I may know nothing about.
So if you take your time to respond to me, I’m okay.
Maybe I’ve just realised that I want people to give me the same grace I give them.
Perception
No matter what you do, people will not remove the version of you they already know from their heads.
Try as you may.
If they think you are this, and you are no longer this… even when you become that, no matter what you do or what you say, they will still hold on to the version of you they knew.
Sometimes, people don’t see who you have become.
They see who they remember you to be.
Why do I have to choose?
My niece called me this afternoon. She wanted to know if I had come across the video of a book club meeting that had become very popular on social media. At this meeting, there was a question that apparently started a whole lot of drama. When I heard what the question was, I wasn’t even surprised by how wild it got.
The question was: Chimamanda or Colleen Hoover — who is the better writer?
And my first thought was… why?
I didn’t think “why?” because I think one of them is better than the other. That In fact, is exactly my point. I don’t understand why we have to compare them in the first place.
One thing I don’t particularly enjoy is comparison. And for me, if you’re going to compare two things, there has to be some reasonable basis for the comparison.
Chimamanda and Colleen Hoover don’t write the same kind of books. They don’t necessarily write for the same reasons, in the same style, or even in the same literary space. Not at all. Not even a little bit.
They come from different backgrounds and different parts of the world… Their stories, the themes, approaches and audiences can be very different… Very very different.
So I beg the question, what exactly are we measuring?
Because if you’re going to ask me who is a better writer, my next question will definitely be… “better at what?” Gbam… Did I just Gbam my own question? Haha.
To be honest, this is where I think these social media debates sometimes become unnecessarily complicated.
Let’s take movies, for example.
Would you ask me; “Was You’ve Got Mail better than The Terminator?”
Better how?
One is a romantic comedy. The other is an action/sci-fi film. They are trying to achieve completely different things. I want to believe that I can enjoy both movies without having to decide which one is the superior movie.
Frankly, It’s the same thing with books.
Colleen Hoover writes the kind of books she writes. Her books have their own style, themes and readership. Let’s forget that many people don’t like her for whatever reasons they choose not to.
Chimamanda writes the kind of books she writes, with her own style, themes and readership… And I agree, she is a genius. I know she is a genius.
You can prefer one. Yup, of course you can.
You can say, I connect more with Chimamanda’s writing… Or you can say, I prefer Colleen Hoover’s storytelling.
You can even say, I don’t enjoy either of them. Yes… Trust me, this option exists.
All of those options are perfectly reasonable opinions.
So now when we ask, Who is the better writer? we suddenly create this imaginary competition where one person has to win and the other has to lose.
I think out loud and ask you… why?
I think one of the things we forget as readers is that books don’t all have to do the same thing.
Sometimes I want a book that makes me think. Sometimes I want something that teaches me something. Sometimes I want beautiful prose and complicated themes that leave me quizzical.
And sometimes? I just want to lie down and read a story. A simple story. That’s allowed too. It’s just like when I want to lie down and watch a simple movie I go for cheesy, sweet and simple Hallmark.
So seriously, I must say, I find some of these book debates amusing. We take two completely different things and put them in a boxing ring and then get angry because people are choosing different fighters.
Maybe the better question isn’t Chimamanda or Colleen Hoover?
Maybe it’s: What do you enjoy reading, and why?
Should I Gbam again?
The thing is, I don’t need Colleen Hoover to write like Chimamanda for me to appreciate Colleen Hoover.
And I don’t need Chimamanda to write like Colleen Hoover for me to appreciate Chimamanda.
There is room on my bookshelf for different kinds of writers.
And honestly, there is room in the world for us to like different things without turning every preference into a competition.
Not everything needs a winner.
Some books by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie:
Purple Hibiscus (2003)
Half of a Yellow Sun (2006)
The Thing Around Your Neck (2009) — short stories
Americanah (2013)
Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions (2017)
Notes on Grief (2021)
Dream Count (2025)
Some books by Colleen Hoover:
Losing Hope (2013)
Maybe Someday (2014)
Confess (2015)
It Ends with Us (2016)
It Starts with Us (2022)
Without Merit (2017)
Verity (2018)
Regretting You (2019)
All Your Perfects (2018)
Reminders of Him (2022)
November 9 (2015)
Ugly Love (2014)
Goodbye SWAT
I think I’m officially giving up on SWAT.
One of the things I told myself this year was that I was going to finish everything I started. Books, movies, TV shows… if I started it, I was going to see it through to the end.
Well, apparently, that rule has an exception.
I came for Hondo. I stayed for Bishop. Somewhere along the way, I ended up really liking Street. And now that Street is no more, I think that has made it even worse for me.
I don’t think I’m going to continue watching SWAT.
And I’m sorry, Bishop. I really am. I could have stayed for you. I tried. But somewhere along the way, I stopped getting it. The excitement is gone, and watching another episode has started to feel more like an obligation than something I actually want to do.
I even found myself stopping SWAT, going to other shows, and then coming back to it. From the time I started watching it till now, it has been too many months. I can’t be on one show for this long. At some point, I need to finish a show and move on to the next one.
And honestly, life is too short to force myself through a TV show.
I think what makes it worse is that when I compare it to The Rookie, I never had this feeling. Even when characters came and went, I still wanted to know what was happening. I still looked forward to the next episode. With SWAT, I’m now at the point where I’m asking myself why I’m still here.
So, SWAT, thank you for the memories. I’m letting you go.
Bishop, I’m sorry. I could have stayed for you.
But I just don’t get it anymore.
I think I’m going to go back to The Rookie instead. I hear Season 8 is out, so maybe that’s where I should be putting my energy right now.
Some shows you finish because you started them.
Others… you just have to accept that the relationship has run its course.
Time
This afternoon, my colleagues and I decided to come back early.
I’ve mentioned here a number of times how we carpool. I am not the designated driver anymore. We have a schedule now and we take turns driving to work and back. So, one of us wanted to come back early and was going to hitchhike back, or get public transport back to Makurdi.
But, when he came to inform me that he would be leaving without us because he wanted to go do a thing or two, I keyed into it. I called the other two, and they were game.
So, we left.
And so I got home two and a half hours, earlier than I normally do.
Before today, I had been really worried about the state of my house. It’s not in the way I normally want it. It’s been a mess.
I was even going to share how my son resuming boarding school was a thing of mixed feelings for me. I wasn’t happy he was leaving, but I was kind of happy I was going to get my house back.
…Because having a teenager in the home, no matter how well he tries to help me clean up, I think he makes more of a mess than he cleans up. 😂
He left for school six days ago and I have been looking forward to doing some cleaning. But I always get home late, and I have this thing where I rest for some time just after I get home before I do anything in the house… Getting home late and tired leaves me unable to pick myself up after I rest for a while
So, the magic of two and a half hours today is what amazed me.
I got home at about three, and I took a nap. By 5:30, I was up. I had a cup of water, checked my messages and made a few calls, and by six, I had started fixing my house.
It’s 8:23, and oh, I love how my house looks.
It’s not a hundred percent the way I want it, but it’s far from what it has been for weeks.
And that’s what has amazed me today.
Time.
Apparently, all I needed was two and a half extra hours between “I’m tired” and “Look at my house!”
Tiv…Language Improvement
I like to believe that I think in Tiv before I speak in English.
Growing up, my siblings and I went to very good primary schools, and English was the official language. We spoke Tiv at home and with friends and neighbours, but English was always taking the front seat.
But somehow, my brain keeps telling me that I think in Tiv.
Now, the thing is, my Tiv vocabulary was actually not as solid as I wanted it to be. A tad fluent but not perfect. Some words didn’t come easily, especially the deep ones.
My mom loved English, and even though she spoke Tiv with us, she was a real sucker for good spoken and written English. As a woman who excelled in secretarial studies, grew through the ranks and eventually retired as a Director in the civil service, you wouldn’t wonder why she was that way. She had been brought up by Catholic European nuns in her school days too and all that.
We were more fluent in English than Tiv.
So while I could speak English very beautifully, my Tiv vocabulary was not exactly doing the same thing.
I remember there were times when people would say something in Tiv and laugh and say, “You wouldn’t know the meaning of this,” knowing very well that we simply hadn’t learnt that much Tiv.
And they were right.
But something interesting has happened to me.
I now work in a rural area, although I live in urban Makurdi and commute to Wannune every day. And I have found myself around many Tiv people who speak the deep, concentrated Tiv language.
That deep Tiv that doesn’t stop to translate or even simplify itself into English for you.
And I’m beginning to realise that something is happening to my vocabulary.
My Tiv vocabulary has improved. Very, very much.
I actually smiled at myself the other day because I suddenly realised that there are words and expressions I understand now that I probably wouldn’t have understood a few years ago.
I’m learning simply by being around people who speak the language naturally.
And I’m so excited about it.
Because Tiv is my love language. I love this language so much.
English became the language I was very comfortable with because that’s how I grew up… And I love English… But there is something about Tiv that is difficult to explain. Sometimes, when I really want to express myself… when English suddenly feels like it isn’t quite carrying what I’m trying to say, I find myself switching to Tiv.
I think that’s why this whole thing feels so special to me.
Now, being around people who speak it so naturally every single day is giving me the immersion I didn’t have growing up.
I listen, pick up new words, I ask questions…and then I sometimes realise, “Oh! So THAT is what that word means!”
Slowly, my vocabulary is growing. It feels a little bit like discovering something that was always mine.
And I love it.
So here’s to more deep Tiv conversations. More new words. More understanding. And hopefully, fewer people laughing and saying, “You wouldn’t know the meaning of this.”
Cheers to a better Tiv vocabulary.
Tiv is the indigenous language of the Tiv people of central Nigeria. They are particularly from Benue State. It is a beautiful, expressive language with a rich vocabulary. One thing I love is its colourful idioms and proverbs. It had a very rhythm that gives it so much character.
