I can’t hear them anymore, at least I think I can’t. The pounding inside my chest is too loud, every heartbeat sounds like somebody banging on a metal door.My lungs hurt.My legs hurt.Everything hurts. I crouch behind a stack of cement blocks and press my body against the cold concrete.Please.Please don’t come this way. I
There is a particular kind of lie adults tell themselves, the small and comfortable lies. The ones that help you get out of bed every morning. Mine went something like this:You died.You came back.It was weird.Now everything is fine. For three months, I repeated that lie so often that I almost believed it.Almost. Three months
My name is Kelechi Nwafor.I’m twenty-six years old.I live in a one-bedroom apartment in Ikeja that is somehow too small and too expensive at the same time. I work as a software engineer on the Island, which means I spend a significant portion of my life sitting in Lagos traffic questioning my life choices. My
Dear Diary, There are moments when a Nigerian party stops being an event and becomes an ecosystem, today was one of those moments. As I am writing this, my feet hurt, my gele is somewhere in another room, someone’s child has claimed my phone charger, there are approximately seventeen coolers of food in circulation, and
Dear Diary, There are few things more dangerous than having too much time to think before attending a family gathering, particularly a Nigerian family gathering. Particularly one involving relatives who have known you since childhood and therefore feel permanently entitled to personal opinions about your life. For reasons I still do not fully understand, I
Dear Diary,Today I saw a video. Now, seeing strange things in Nigerian politics is no longer an event, it is practically a weather condition, but this one caught my attention. In the video, a group of people appeared to be distributing Permanent Voter Cards – PVCs, to individuals who, from all appearances, did not seem
Dear Diary, Why Do Our Leaders Treat Public Office Like Family Inheritance? Today, Britain reminded me of something I had almost forgotten, Public office is supposed to be temporary.Revolutionary idea, right? I know. Logically, when enough people lose confidence in a leader, that leader can decide that perhaps the chair is no longer worth fighting for
There are certain moments in life that make you feel like an adult. Getting admitted into university is one, moving into your hostel is another. At least that’s what I thought. The reality was that by 10 a.m. on moving day, I was standing beside my father’s car while my mother supervised the loading of
If you ask my father, I am a young man standing at the doorway of a bright future.If you ask my mother, I am her precious first child who simply needs a little guidance.If you ask my younger sister, Adesuwa, I am a walking collection of embarrassing stories she intends to weaponize for the rest
Dear Diary, There is a particular kind of friendship that survives without maintenance. The kind that does not require daily phone calls, or constant updates, or performative displays of affection. The kind that understands silence.The kind that understands absence.The kind that understands life. Adaora and I have that kind of friendship. We met in university.