Bliss resort

By Ola Vincent Omotade There was a village named Gini, a town blessed with mineral resources and oil. For a long-time the town had been under the pressure and control of Gbaduze a strong courageous king that ruled with excess superiority and power. A very sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, cities where corruption reigned supreme, they forsake the word of the wise and were bent on doing evil, but at the later end Queen Marieke, a woman brought back glory to the land. There lived a king named Gbaduze, a long living wealthy king, dark shinning in complexion, a man of his own very word and power embedded due to influence of the Niger-areas in Okere-aje kingdom. However, when death came calling, he died and the king makers ordered that the Queen to ascend the throne of her late husband and invariably preside over the affairs of the community. On ascension, she rigorously studied the existing relationship between the three major tribes in Gini. Q

 – By Liz Ajala Mrs. Adebanjo’s office was small and cramped. Her desk piled with papers and files with a small laptop perched at the edge. She stood up as I came in, “You must be Janet Koko.” She was a fair, plump middle-aged woman with low cut hair and a warm smile. She dressed in a trendy cream silk blouse with a long Ankara skirt and had a calm disposition about her and a firm handshake. “I’m Rose Adebanjo. How may I help you?” She wasn’t at all what I had expected and certainly not Yoruba as I had imagined. I could not hide my surprise as I stammered, “You’re not what I…” “Expected?” She smiled mischievously. “My Father is from Abia state. We left there when I was a child. Please sit down Miss Koko.” She turned and walked back to her desk. “Thank you for seeing me at such short notice Ma.” “Oh! It’s absolutely fine. Anything for Kachi, she’s like a sister to me. Please tell me your story.” My mind flashed back to a few days ago when I had confided in Kachi, my nei

-By Akan Ante The world despises good people Claiming they are fools Distraught broken hearted the simple Who realise they’re but mere tools To the unscrupulous, Men, women who live for themselves Who sadly are much more populous Far less the minority who are selfless Where do you stand? Will you join the crowd? Calling right wrong, or wrong right One with integrity cannot be all cowed When for the right he puts up a fight But the bystanders will mock Friends will soon become fiends Very unpleasant when evil runs amok But remain strong in spite of your friends Deviation will grow and grow Pseudo integrity will seem to have its way But like the rock reject the river flow Remain resolute in the right way Even if a woman marries another woman And everyone around claps in approval You know marriage is wife and her man Remain in your stance of disapproval Sing the song of victory always You will win many or few Envy not who prospers in evil ways You’r

By Roy Ofili Inevitably, the wall stood firm. Arrow after arrow fired against it, fire and brimstone and jagged rocks. But inevitably, the wall stood firm. The great and powerful general stood aghast. He couldn’t understand it and neither could his troops. They had used every weapon in their armory,every evil contraption devised by fetid minds. the air was rent with fire and sulphur. But,somehow, the wall stood firm. Again he raised the battle cry. Again his army charged,running across the smoking fields towards that impenetrable city, wielding sticks and stones and ragged swords. Cursing, swearing and snarling, they stumbled over the bodies of their exhausted colleagues, intent on blood lust. As they got closer, the general thought he heard the sound of melodious song! He came suddenly to a halt as his horde charged forward, watched them crash helplessly against the wall,watched as they fell back without leaving a dent. The wall remained firm. And now he could hear the mu

 – By Tanko Shekwa’aga Open the door! Open the door!! Open the door!!! I could hear their hands bang on my door like an angry hammer wielded by a carpenter and it sounded like a man running away from the pregnant cloud whose labour had come. The yelling broke the peace of the silent evening and attracted more people from the neighborhood and beyond like flies perching on a spot covered with sugar. Fortunately, I was already ‘drunk’ and my insanity made me weak that I couldn’t leave the point I was. Maybe I was fixed but I knew the obsession was strong on me. Soon, I could sense the four walls of my room becoming concise compared to how swollen my head had become. From how I felt, I bet if you had seen me, you’ll nickname me ‘Head-boy’ henceforth. My insanity took another whirl when my laughter transformed into little ecstatic shouts just like the ‘Pentecost’ experience. My neighbor immediately tapped my brother with an ugly quizzing face, “What is he saying?” she asked. My br

 – By Hilanzok She breaks down in tears as she sees him. His eyes a shade of light brown surrounded by a shrub of lashes speaks volume of what he has experienced in his life. His face a texture of smooth avocado gleamed through the canvas-skin; coarse to touch, spectacular and perfect to the sight. She doesn’t know how to explain it, but she felt this tug in her heart, she knows this boy has experienced things the eyes would bleed if it sees, and the mouth would be reluctant to voice out. It is evident in the liquidity of his eyes, the expressionless look( like a 21st-century male Monalisa) they bore. His cheekbones chiseled and firm fitted like a glove to his trimmed face. He is beautiful, but suffering and despair loomed in his aura, he didn’t need to say it out, in fact, he didn’t need to say anything. She is satisfied just looking at his face, admiring and accessing the contours of his face. She feels the urge to lean forward and press her lips against his, she wants to know

 – By Ify Omeni A beautiful young lady comes into a Christian assembly. She has been hearing so much about the church and out of curiosity, her steps lead her there. She is awed by the ambience, the praise and worship are out of this world and the preacher’s message is on point. She is fascinated and decides to make the place her home church. Not too long after, she joins the ushers department. Her inviting smiles draw many to the church. Especially the males. Soon they begin to swarm around her like bees to honey. She is particularly drawn to one of them. He is the prototype dream partner painted on the canvas of every lady’s dream. Tall, dark, handsome, with a great job, flashy car, a smile that can charm the birds off the trees and raps that can make a lady go weak at the knees. Wow! She is blown away. She cannot believe her luck. God certainly ordered her steps to that place and now blessed her with this charming man. He takes her out on dates and keeps her laughing

By Harrison Kayode Adams The summer is seasonal, but it offers a lot of opportunities to most folks; plenty of sun, plenty of rains. Plenty of outdoor activities and plenty of travel opportunities. Mountain climbing and hang gliding depending on the climate of your location and white water activities. For the photographer, plenty of opportunities – flowers, insects, cloud formations, girls watching some say, wild life and more. Here are some flowers from th is summer..

Roy Ofili Something interesting happened on my way to Oshodi this morning. At the park this rough mean-looking conductor also known as “agbero” in Yoruba was screaming for passengers, his vernacular oscillating between Yoruba and pidgin English. “Oshod! Oshod!” He shouted angrily as I along with some other passengers scuttled for seats. There was this beautiful young lady who couldn’t throw caution and decorum to the wind but waited patiently until the bus was almost filled. Then she pleaded to sit by the agbero until somebody came down then she would pay for a proper seat. The agbero didn’t even look at her pretty face, he hissed and shouted to the driver to move that why didn’t she rush when others were rushing. The girl started pleading in Yoruba and clean ‘oyinbo’ english; “please, ejó, help me out sir, I know you are a good man, never mind all this shout you have been shouting (people burst into laughter). Let me sit by your side please”. Finally with much squeezing of fa

 – By Ify Omeni A Commissioner for Education went on a tour to a secondary school. He was very impressed with the facilities there and decided to test the intelligence level of the students. He asked a student, ‘I am sure you must be proud to be a student of this great school.’ ‘Yes, sir.’ The student replied. ‘That’s good. Now tell me, who wrote Things Fall Apart?’ At this point, the student became frightened and burst into tears. ‘I don’t know. I did not write it sir. Please don’t punish me. It’s not me who wrote it.’ The commissioner was upset and went to complain to the principal. The principal was livid. ‘Don’t mind the stupid boy. He is the one who wrote it. In fact, I will deal with him as soon as you go.’ The commissioner left the school, shocked. His aides seeing how upset he was, offered a solution. ‘Don’t worry sir. We will set up a panel of enquiry to determine the immediate and remote causes of writing such a book.’ At this point, the commis

By Ifunanya Achimalo “Thank God it’s  Friday ,” I thought to myself as I entered my room, worn out by the marathon lecture that had just ended. I sank into my bed wishing I was in a spa about to get a massage, but sadly I was in my room in the school hostel, with tons of assignments that wouldn’t do themselves. The noise in my stomach confirmed what I already knew – I was hungry. I warmed the little soup I had left and made eba. Alice! Alice! My friend, Amaka, pushed open the door. “Alice, you won’t believe what just happened”. She removed her wig and threw it on the table where it landed into my plate of soup. My jaw dropped. She continued, “Joshua just gave me an Iphone 6 and two VIP tickets to the concert tomorrow. One for me and one for you, and he even promised to drive us there and back.” “Are you kidding me!” Her indifference to my plate of soup was unbelievable. Worse still, she didn’t stop grinning despite the frown on my face. “Do you mean the junkie Joshua or is ther

By Ola Vincent Omotade Twelve awards, seven bestsellers, and a USA tour. The euphoria of being labeled a legend; the ecstatic feeling like I can walk in midair, people demanding for my autograph, I guess I can’t be blamed for letting it get into my head a number of times. My last book, “1 gulp” sold over six million copies. This was a massive win for me even though the dark times of the 18th century had greatly affected book sales world over. My books however, provided a form of escapism from the dark times; people wanted to be locked away in distant imaginations. They wanted to fuse their emotions into something beyond the physical, something super natural, something arduous and dreadful. There I was, satisfying their thirst for adventure and danger. And in no time I became a popular millionaire novelist. Soon I became a victim of my own imagination. I wanted to feel the dangers I spoke of in my novels, I wanted to feel terrified and thrilled by the plots I had created. I wa

By Akinsoto Rotimi It was a re-occurring tragedy. She could still see and smell the odoriferous smoke forming dark clouds above and could still hear the dying cry of Kunle, her only son licking up in flames. Who would have believed that Kunle could cry? No doubt, all stoics lose their pride when they burn. She recalled that the people’s eyebrows were not lifted in surprise and she wished she could go back in time. Unfortunately for her, the time machine was a myth. If only she knew before then that it takes a village to raise a child. Whenever Kunle came home with a cut or a bruise, the question that matter to Joke was, “Who did this to you?!” It was just the right platform he needed to falsify the whole story to his favor. No matter how flimsy the lies came, she would take it and it wasn’t because she didn’t know that they were lies, but because she felt if someone was to reprimand or spank her son for looking wrong, it has to be her and no other. Kunle pride himself a sto

THE DREAM – By Gimbiya Emeka sat on his kitchen table, deep in thought. Ngozi had become too clingy over the course of their six-year-old relationship and he was slowly getting tired of her. Ada was beautiful and she respected his space. “How would he tell Ngozi it was over, knowing how emotional she was?” Emeka wondered. He checked the pot on the cooker. The jollof rice Ngozi made the previous day was still there. He warmed it and finished the contents of the pot. Perhaps because Emeka decided to finish the rice in his greed or out of tiredness, he felt his eyelids close as if in sleep. Emeka went to his bedroom and slept. All of a sudden, he heard the loud knocking at his door. He opened the door to see Ngozi, her face rumpled as the newspaper with which Mama Ebuka the akara seller served him akara with. “Baby, I have been here for over twenty minutes. What were you doing that you refused to open the door?” Ngozi said. Emeka muttered an apology and asked her to take a seat.

By Malomo Oluwatosin At midnight when everywhere was silent and filled with nothing but doubt, Chief Akpo, was lying comatose on a sick bed in the corner of a room. His unpleasant groaning was mixed with the ticking of the clock. And after some hours of futile redemption efforts, the breeze of death finally penetrated through the windows, blew the curtains apart and did its work. Everything stopped and surrendered its power immediately.  Dr. Mike too hung his stethoscope helplessly and mopped away the lines of sweat on his face. “See me in the office,” he said sighing and patted Mr. John who followed obediently. The wife, Mrs Akpo, and Mr. John’s siblings had known what the consolation would be all about. So, they only waited for a confirmation from the doctor. “Father is dead!” John declared officially to his half-sorrowful family when he returned to the room. But to their ignorance, chief Akpo was there with them smilling and clapping hands in surprise. “Won’t they just look

 – By Anthony Nwoye As dawn fell on Okeh’s compound – which is situated at a ghetto in Onitsha – kids his age trooped from their various homes to play around with him and his brother, Obinna. On gathering, everybody dispersed for the kind of play they wanted. Be it skipping, hide and seek, or the so-called ‘gamestart’. That saturday was unlike other playful days they had had. Not too long after the kids gathered, light came. The esoteric shouts of “Up NEPA” – which Nigerian kids are known for whenever light comes – rend the air. Most of the kids rushed into their homes and tuned their televisions. A handful were still playing and Okeh was one of them. He was playing ‘hide-and-seek’ with his brother and two other kids. The ‘hide-and-seek’ game soon graduated to a similar type of game which wasn’t exactly ‘hide-and-seek’. The supposedly act of hiding in order for the other player to seek, soon changed to a player forcing another into a confined corner or hole. Covering the player

 – By Raphaelmary Chukwudi It was music. Not the ordinary music you listen to or sing. But it’s still music. It’s the music you play, It was a musical instrument It was the pianoforte. Three years after graduating from the secondary school and I was unable to gain admission into the university, I lost hope. Life became meaningless. I would roam from one end of our street to the other without any mission. I felt like a failure as my parents were already tired of me. My miserable life was transmogrified when Andrew took me to his church and I “touched” the standard pianoforte mounted on their altar. “Which group do you play for?” their choirmaster had asked, amazed at my raw talent. “I don’t know the first thing about a piano,” I answered insouciantly. “I suck at everything.” “Hard life boy?” he giggled, “Notify me when you want to put those fingers of yours to good use.” The next week, three of my friends were arrested for robbery and I decided to give life one