a field of echoes

To any critic trying to divide Nigerian poetry into generations, Amu Nnadi is likely to constitute a challenge. The reason is that his poetry harbors the best of every generation. So, beyond the flat criterion of age, how do you handle his peculiar situation?

In terms of content and form, he bears the attributes of some of the finest poets that have come from this landscape. Yet, it can be difficult to compare him with any other writer because of a strange relationship he seems to have with words. From one poem to the other, one collection to the other, he spins magical twists in the way he handles verses – or, perhaps, the way verses handle him.

a geckos farewell

A Gecko’s Farewell is a novel about three Africans from different parts of the continent who meet in the spirit (online) and plan to found a School of Stories.

Etiaba, a village school teacher, loses his job and moves to the capital city and its world of prayer contractors and hope merchants. Mzilikazi’s is the story of the homeless spectre, the boy soldier, the fugitive, the exile – a black south African dislocated under the Apartheid regime. Nadia is a radical student of photography at the American University in Cairo. She becomes a photojournalist and takes the picture of an Islamist terrorist, an act that endangers her.

These three characters eventually escape from Africa, but Africa is in a sense inescapable.

a good mourning

When a poem is beautifully crafted, images bop up and resonate, lines dance on the page, metaphors grip the reader and one is taken on a voyage of discovery. That was my experience while reading Ogaga Ifowodo’s latest collection of poems, entitled A Good Mourning.

a love worth having

God may not always answer our prayers the way we want Him to, but knowing He is by our side amidst life’s battles and storms gives us A Love Worth Having.

That’s what Temilolu discovered when at just 31 years old, she found a lump in her breast. In this book, she chronicles the highs and lows of her journey from diagnosis through to surgery and treatment and tells of God’s love through it all.

Yet how do you hold onto hope when the doctors say there is nothing more they can do? And how do you maintain faith in the face of uncertainty?

Temilolu did not give up hope of being healed. She held on to her faith in the love of God. She was a warrior to the end.

Temilolu’s story was completed by her sister Susannah, who though fighting her own cancer battles, did not want the story to end in Temilolu’s death. She hopes to set up a foundation in memory of Temilolu to raise awareness of breast and ovarian cancer, and the link to the BRCA gene mutation, in the UK and Nigeria.

a profile in courage

a rivers journey

Amu Nnadi’s newest poetry offering, a river’s journey, spans 172 pages. The book is divided into four sections, each of which holds poems that are independent in their fullness and subject matters, but seem inter-connected, as though telling a story. The first section, which is called beginnings, starts with poems that have their roots in water.

The poet introduces fresh perspectives about water, alluding them to the most basic things, in the most unexpected ways. The end product of this is that fresh metaphors and enchanting imagery emerge as one gets to see layers of the painting of water in the poems on its surface and how it gives the whole oeuvre a more contemplative meaning. Either way, they retain their depth and enchantment.”

a sackfull of wishes

Hadiza Musa, 25 years old, has been through hell. As a bubbly, fun-loving teenager, she marries the impulsive Abdurrazaq Zanna, known as AR. For eight years, she suffers starvation, rape, and mental abuse from an increasingly obsessive husband.

Her beloved father's death, followed by her beloved son's death, brings things to a head. Hadiza determines for a divorce just as AR insists they are meant for each other forever. Thus begins a battle for survival in which scars come to light and allies come from unexpected places.

africas vision a second anthology

In Africa’s Vision- A Second Anthology, Obaze, who deems himself an accidental poet, takes the reader on a journey of eclectic poems, which in the author’s own words are ‘a convenient special purpose mechanism for the capturing and demythologization of events and people.’

Like most poets, Obaze plays on time and space and even abstracts, as if painting far-flung scenes and scenarios on a subliminal, yet illuminating canvas. Accordingly, his poems unmask in very uncanny ways, humanity, complete with observed foibles. As he underlines, “these poems and odes on human foibles, nature, rebirth, and society, are analogous to doodling done over time. In that context, the canvas is rich and the paintings rendered in very vivid colours are exquisitely captivating.

Africa’s Vision - A Second Anthology, Obaze’s second anthology after Regarscent Past –A Collection of Poems (2015), adds vim to the emerging African voices that resort to poetry to render history and capture events, both sublime and the ridiculous. As the richness of Africa’s oral history and folktales, including moonlight tales wane, poetry such as this finds both space and salutary coveted niche in Africa’s literary world.

altar of tradition

Altar of Tradition is a collection of ten stories told in seamlessly woven prose. They explore a myriad of themes such as love, loss, sexual abuse and the shackles of tradition in the face of modernity.

There is a story about a young girl whose life takes a traumatic turn after being a victim of sexual assault; another about a community who are forced out of their homes on Christmas eve by a horde of blood thirsty, gun wielding assailants, and another about a widow who has to swear before an ancient shrine to prove her innocence in her husband's death. When her detractors start to fall ill shortly after, people begin to wonder, could it be justice of the gods or something more sinister at work?

an orchestra of minorities

audacious journalism the art style and depth

Audacious journalism is Anietie Usen’s testament of a long and eventful career as a distinguished and award-winning journalist. Starting with his story of employment at Dele Giwa’s Newswatch Magazine, the book provides a selection of the author’s articles.

The articles are at once informative and educative. But most importantly, the provide a perspective to the past that grants an understanding of the present, even as the future unfolds.

beyond any doubt

beyond me

beyond the kitchen

Dr. Georgiana Ngeri-Nwagha’s Beyond the Kitchen is a manual of advice, encouragement and exhortation for women to strive toward ascendancy and self-actualization outside the home.

The title itself is a loaded phrase, as the kitchen is a woman’s domain as is the hearth. The kitchen is the corporal sustaining room and the heart of the household. The author started by bemoaning women’s backwardness and quickly adduced reasons for same. These are “gender discrimination, stereotyping, exploitation, government policies and laws, sexual abuse and others”.

She, however, thinks that the onus of empowerment should emanate from the woman herself who must first believe in herself and show the desire to improve herself. She lists Religion and Culture as pillars of female subjugation.

bionic evolution

Long after humans abandoned the earth, in a far-flung dystopian future. Zakari Nebula is abducted and experimented on by forces darker than even his imagination. After physical and mental torture of the most horrific kind, the now cybernetically enhanced abductees escape.

Bionic evolution is the story of the bonds they forge, and the battles they face as they take one last stand for freedom and their very own souls.

bongel

As a child, Bongel knows the freedom of a nomadic life. In its pure form, she also knows love in Modibbo's friendship. However, childhood is lost in an early marriage. She is traumatized as a child-bride, but a fresh start as a student leads her to a cherished friendship with Kauthar who introduces her to her brother, Abdul to Bongel.

A romance blossoms between them. However, everything Bongel holds dear is threatened when Kauthar discovers the disturbing secret about her. Consequently, her future is hinged upon whether she lets her past consume her happiness or fights to reclaim the love she deserves.

but for god

cat eyes

Cat Eyes is the story of Pededoo, a country boy, who struggles to maintain a civil relationship with his father who had just returned home after many years abroad with a family of Cat Eyes.

Despite his resentment for his father and the new family, Pededoo is hardly able to resist and truly dislike Melissa-Jane, the amiable and dashing cat-eyed blonde. Cat Eyes is a bildungsroman, a book of family, adventure, self-discovery and love that would take readers on a voyage they would hold dear.

city of memories

Faruk Ibrahim, a Muslim, travels from Jos to Bolewa, a little town his parents fled when he was a two year old. He has just broken up with his Christian fiancée, Rahila Pam, and his journey was originally so he could come to terms with the complexity of their relationship. His mother had died of a mental illness caused by an event which occured in Bolewa which his father refuses to speak of, so Faruk’s returning to Bolewa is also so he can find out for himself the trauma that caused his mother’s fatal breakdown. One more reason for the trip is that his ex-fiance’s mother, the once-feminist Eunice Pam, wants to kill him because he has seriously assaulted her son and he happens to be the only child of her most formidable political rival.

The love between Faruk and Rahila is stalemated by the politics of his father, Colonel Dibarama and of her mother, Eunice Pam who represents the integrative and disintegrative social forces in Nigeria. A further complexity is the burden of identity that Rahila feels being a Christian from the North Central State in a largely Muslim Northern Nigeria. The fault lines of Nigeria become the fault lines of their relationship. In Bolewa, Faruk teaches at a Government school where a girl, Maryam, falls in love with him. He gradually uncovers the past of his mother and the rivalry between two bluebloods - Usman and Ahmed {later a Christian} - who loved her and the fratricide and devastation their love wrought on Bolewa, forcing her to flee and subsequently lose her mind. In Jos, Eunice Pam and Ibrahim Dibarama spar while Rahila, still in love with him, flounders.

Matters get to a head when Eunice Pam helps sponsor a religious disturbance with the aim of killing Muslims in the North Central State and driving the rest off to the Northwestern and North-eastern States. Colonel Dibarama, with the help of his old army buddy, General Hassan Abba, who is the new Nigerian dictator are able to nip the crisis in the bud and Mrs. Pam is placed under house arrest. When Rahila finds this out, she is so disgusted she leaves home for a religious seminary. Faruk, who survives an attempted murder, returns from the Northeast and finds she is gone. He seeks her out and they are reconciled.

civil war child

To any critic trying to divide Nigerian poetry into generations, Amu Nnadi is likely to constitute a challenge. The reason is that his poetry harbors the best of every generation. So, beyond the flat criterion of age, how do you handle his peculiar situation?

In terms of content and form, he bears the attributes of some of the finest poets that have come from this landscape. Yet, it can be difficult to compare him with any other writer because of a strange relationship he seems to have with words. From one poem to the other, one collection to the other, he spins magical twists in the way he handles verses – or, perhaps, the way verses handle him.

coffee flavoured with separation

colours of hatred

On her deathbed, Leona seeks forgiveness by confessional. Dastardly as the sin is, it is an act of love, loyalty, disobedience, and perceived fairness. How did she get here, where she, an internationally renowned model, is forced to kill her father-in-law to avenge her mother's death?

Set against a background of real events, Colours of Hatred is a complex web of plots detailing a woman's journey from childhood through the fire and anvil of love, loss, betrayal, lust, and duty.

cutting ties

dance here

Such touching tribute from one who remembers Jos in all her naivety and mourns her lost innocence even from many miles away from her. – amu-nnadi, winner of the Glenna Luschei Prize (2014) for ‘through the window of a sandcastle’; his most recent poetry collection is ‘a field of echoes’

Laura bursts into song with an efficacious voice that is unapologetic– woven with lines that give skin rush. This is a playlist of songs we must all dance to. – Saddiq Dzukogi, Poetry Editor at Expound; his most recent collection is ‘Sunbeams and Shadows’

Laura M Kaminski, our inimitable bard of luminous lines and a transcendental humane sensibility, has done our world a great favour by publishing this collection at this time. Kaminski, an American, remains one admirable Poet Laureate of the victims of Boko Haram onslaughts in Nigeria and of other suffering people in other parts of her very large human constituency. Definitely a spirit-lifting voice for beauty and harmony in our world ravaged by assorted dissonances. – Chiedu Ezeanah, winner MUSON Poetry Prize (1999, 2001)

Laura Kaminski holds the sun and moon and fresh waters and more in awe in her poems. Dance Here should be read by all living things longing to dance away sorrows and become new again. – Ehizogie Iyeomoan, winner Korea/Nigeria Poetry Feast Prize (2015) and author of ‘flames of the forest’

dear kelechi

Dear Kelechi is a novella in epistolary form. It is a long letter written by a woman to her estranged childhood friend, who is now mentally unwell. It explores the themes of girlhood and womanhood, the ruinous effects of men and patriarchy, and, importantly, the stigma of childlessness on a young woman in Nigeria. It is a story of nostalgia and the will to triumph over seemingly insurmountable adversities.

deep scars

desperate desires

This is an intricate tale of true love, violence, deceit and death. Susan, a 38-year-old woman, is in a desperate search for a husband. Her life as a spinster is tormented by different men who pierce through her cocoon only to leave her anguished. She undergoes various travails of womanhood, which catapults her into a world of turbulent desolation. Will she survive? Will she survive the burdens of womanhood unscathed? Read on to find out in this unnerving story...

developmental challenges of sea power in africa

divine lover

dont die on wednesday

Don't Die on Wednesday is a story of the game of life, when life suddenly becomes laced with danger and fear, and no one knows how the game will end. Rising football star and Tottenham FC top striker Bubarayer Dabowei's career is torpedoed by freak accident at a game against crack Manchester United squad. Unable to play professional football, he is torn between his supermodel South African Wife, Nikiwe Dlomo, and a longing to return to Nigeria. Their fraught return plays out against a backdrop of infidelity and betrayal and his nurturing of the talented but troublesome Keme 'D'aziba.

dragons can sings

Dra has a unique gift that no other dragon has, yet he is constantly bullied for being so different. In a kingdom filled with the fiercest dragons, will Dra survive the bullying or give up?

Basirat Razaq-Shuaib is the Founder of The Winford Centre for Children and Women - a charity supporting children with autism and other developmental disabilities in Nigeria and registered with the International Board of Credentialing and Continuing Education Standards (IBCCES) as a certified autism centre. She is also the CEO of The Winford Centre International- the premier provider of developmental and learning aids for children with special needs in Nigeria. An author, a trainer, a social entrepreneur and a Board Certified Cognitive Specialist (BCCS), Basirat holds multiple degrees and certifications, including an M.Sc. in Finance and Investment from the University of Exeter, United Kingdom, and a Diploma in Advanced Special Education Needs. She is the first Mansion House Scholar in Nigeria.

Basirat is also a financial strategist and has spent over 15 years working with organizations in Africa and Europe to run finance functions successfully. Over the past 3 years, she has continued to actively promote the inclusion of children with developmental disabilities and their families in economic development so that they have a chance to achieve positive outcomes and fulfil their life’s potential. She is the pioneer of the “Inclusion Starts with Me Children series” as well as the author of “I Am Not Naughty” and “Dragons Can Sing” both targeted at educating children, parents and teachers on empathy, kindness and inclusiveness. Basirat remains passionate about helping people and strongly believes that we can create a better society and achieve sustainable development through inclusion.

driftwood a tale of leftovers

In a classic coming-of-age tradition, Driftwood: a tale of leftovers carefully unwraps intricate layers of love, abuse, hurt and loss from the eyes of a misunderstood teenager.

Nanret, who is abandoned at birth, is plunged into unknown waters after her foster mother is attacked by marauding bandits. She is now twice denied of a mother's love and finds herself drifting, tossed and roughed by currents of details she finds in her mother's diaries. She begins a search for answers to questions burning her heart, which leads her to a remand home where she uncovers strange and horrific tales untold.

Driftwood tells the story of hope and gives voice to many without a voice as Nanret liberates children from a bully and exposes a paedophile. This book is the perfect gift for lovers of young adult literature.

echoes of childhood follies

On his deathbed, Bumie entrusts his lush and enviable business empire to his favorite son, Saagbe. He had groomed him in the trade right from infancy. In addition, Bumie offers his son gifts of rare wisdom on the inevitability of death for all mortals, and on what path the son should follow in order to succeed in life. One such piece of advice is that saagbe “must mature in mind and age before (he gets) involved in the intricate institution of marriage; (he) must be financially stable”. The father spices up this advice with the philosophical observation that “Marriage is like wind; you only feel the direction from which it comes, but you don’t know the extent to which it would go and when it would stop blowing”.

efo riro

This collection is set primarily within Nigeria, and the stories here cover varied social themes including spousal abuse, religious dogma, love, bravery, betrayal and vengeance. It speaks of the untamed resilience of the everyday Nigerian who is faced with the vicissitudes of life.

We meet Sixtus the driver whose love of a particular delicacy has him biting off more than he can chew, and we laugh to our heart's delight. But all is not humorous in this collection; anything can happen in the city of Lagos, a man disappears after a Champions League semi-final and we are drawn into his wife's travails, we shine light on paedophilia through the keen eyes of a gossip, we take a peek at what love and lust looks like on the internet, then we head to Oguta where a ritual to revive a sick husband takes an unexpected turn. Despite the human tendency to betray and disappoint, we encounter stories that show how people tread life on a carpet of love and hope.

ejiro

Tragedy always seems to follow Richard Chukwu around, from losing both his parents to getting robbed at the airport and losing an important contact that would have probably changed his story. He has this nagging feeling that he may never find happiness.

After roaming the streets for months looking for a job despite his First-Class certificate, everything in his life spirals downward still. Then he meets two old friends - one, his girlfriend from high school, and the other, his friend from the university and the son of the President of Sierra Leone. Richard finds love, a best friend, and a good-paying job. He has paid the price and can finally settle down to enjoy a good life. Or maybe not?

emilio sanchez

Emilio Sanchez, a young determined lad in Equatorial Guinea finds his life spiraling off course after the death of his parents. Taking his life in his own hands, Emilio in company of his friend Pedro, leaves for the capital city with the blessings of his godfather, Padre Antonio. In Malabo, the capital city, Emilio finds work, and trouble. After a few months, He is arrested for theft. His red handkerchief had been found at the scene of a crime.

Locked up behind bars, Emilio discovers the truth about friendship, loyalty and trust while an unusual friendship forms behind bars.

excuse me

farad

Farad is a novel that questions individual difference and change in a multilayered system of narration. The eight chapters intersect with each other only because all the major characters are participants in a mild conflict that takes place in a University Chapel where the Choirmaster has served for 25 years but is unwilling to yield power.

Aside this, each chapter takes its own stance, peculiarly addressing change and individuality in middle-class Nigeria. For instance, the first chapter (the only chapter narrated in 3rd person and the longest) is the story of an attempt to heal the mind of a lady who had a sexual affair with a Nigerian dictator, and is with him when he dies mysteriously.

folktales from igboland

Folktales from Igboland is a collection of moonlight stories, both adapted and original by the Author. The book is in two parts. Part One contains the chapters of stories laced with proverbs; some come with songs. The songs have been scored to make them universally accessible. At the end of each chapter is an exercise to tease the brain or as a study guide. Part Two is dedicated to the work of the Non-Governmental Organisation NGO Save Our Heritage Initiative SOHI; the organisation addresses the fading Igbo heritage, causes, and solutions to the issue.

for the love of country

Within this book, you will find engaging works that are not only educative, but also creative, inspirational, as well as upbraiding.

As you follow the first two themes of ‘for the love of country’ and ‘sermon from the political pulpit’, the author’s passion for equity and social justice, uplifting the downtrodden, empowering the youths, demanding accountability from the leaders, holding up the led to responsible followership, and boldness to stand unshaken in her convictions remain unambiguous.

Most importantly, Bamidele’s razor sharp intellect with uncommon and uncanny ability to predict events in the course of dissecting socioeconomic, cultural as well as political issues relating to the political space known as Nigeria, stands out. Referred to as ‘Mummy G.O.’ (General Overseer) by her flock of followers on Facebook, those who doubt her talent in political clairvoyance should not fail to digest the predictions contained in ‘politically prophesying’, the third and final theme in this collection of her writings.

from the crevices of corps hearts

From the Crevices of Corps Hearts is a collection of short stories that map the experiences of the Nigerian corps members. From the anxiety preceding their posting, to the underlying motives of the scheme, Chinyere Chukwudi-Okeh tells the story of Nigeria’s educated youth corps.

Thus, what we have is story of graduates who find themselves serving the nation alongside those who lose themselves. Some find love, while some trade theirs for fleeting feelings. Corpers in villages, towns; corpers randy and righteous.

What we have is the story of a phase of life.

From The Watery Deep

Set in the 1970s in Mid-Western Bendel State, Nigeria, "From The Watery Deep" follows the enchanting story of Italome, a beautiful young woman who falls in love with Pius Egbe, a Nigerian youth Corper posted to her Catholic school. As a gift from the legendary Olokun deity, Italome's love story is fraught with challenges, but despite the odds, the enamoured lovers are determined to navigate the murky waters of uncertainty.

As the intrigue deepens, Pius finds himself entangled in a dazzling new world, teetering on the edge of mythical damnation, passion, and loyalty. He soon realises that his only chance of survival lies in fidelity, or worse. Will it be too late for him to find a way out? This winding tale kaleidoscopes the dynamics of superstition, mystery, and love.

gasp

A trio of teenage girls, Imabong Nyang, Tonye Femeiya and Ivie Udi, are casualties of the Warri Crisis of 1997.

All three were close friends and classmates who lived in the same neighbourhood at Lower Erejuwa in Warri South Local Government Area of Delta State.

Calamity struck when the crisis heightened in 1997, which took a toll on their families, with each losing a blood relative in the most disheartening way.

They reconnect twenty-two years later, in the most awkward circumstances, each nursing the scar from the wounds the crisis inflicted on them.

The story begins with the scene of Mr Femeiya’s butcher in the presence of his only child, Tonye Femeiya, at the school of the trio where he went to rescue them, the subsequent separation that occurred as a result of the killings of members of each of their families and then cascades down to Imabong Nyang, now 37, who woke up to a nightmare that recaptured her past during the crisis. That same day, she reconnects with Tonye Femeiya at the hospital where she works as a neurosurgeon, and days later, she reconnects with Ivie Udi in another situation.

The writing captures the trio’s life journey from their teenage days to their present day. It shows their love lives, career and family life, detailing how each casualty navigated the difficult hurdles of life while nursing the wound they each sustained from the 1997 crisis.

The story tends to portray that the damages occasioned by war/violence negatively impact its victims, and decades after its end, these victims still battle with the demons the war gifted to them.

god for sale

In this memoir, Al Akhigbe provides insight into the world of prosperity gospel in Africa, uncovering the rotten underbelly beneath the glitz and glamour which puts man and not Christ at the centre of the gospel. A former senior pastor himself, he tells a first hand story that reveals explosive secrets, tricks and gimmicks of Charismatic pastors.

hang no clothes here

Hang No Clothes Here is a tale a Nigerian policeman who gets thrown, unwittingly, into an international turf war between two major international drug cartels, battling to maintain footholds in the Nigerian environment and engaged in a bloody competition to maintain the Nigerian route for peddling narcotics to European and Asian markets.

The story is set in Abuja in 2011 and is narrated by John Braimoh, an assistant superintendent of police, who becomes involved in a seemingly noble cause corruption case—the cover-up of the killing of five ostensibly deviant youths in Abuja, Nigeria, in which his closest friend and colleague, Dennis Omoruyi, and four other officers are deeply embroiled. The killings attract the attention of Nigeria’s human rights and civil society organisations. John is summoned to testify before a panel of the most senior officers of the Nigeria Police Force, the Force Disciplinary Committee (FDC) which, bowing to pressure from civil society groups and the families of the youths, commences an investigation into the incident. An unknown element issues death threats to John and his family, intent on goading him to reveal the truth to the FDC, going as far as shooting at his family as they drive to church. John lies to the FDC. Perhaps to reduce the heat it receives from the scandal, John is transferred by the Nigeria Police authorities from his station in Abuja to Lagos. Within his first week in Lagos, Junior, John’s eldest son is murdered. John swears to avenge his killing by every means necessary.

In the course of his quest to avenge his son’s death, coerced into acting as a spy for the CIA which manipulates his being posted to the Nigerian senate, with the core aim of detecting how much international narcotics gangs from Latin America have infiltrated that institution. As he moves deeper into the murky world of sleaze in Nigerian politics, British intelligence also blackmails him into acting as a spy for them, eager to receive just about the same amount of intelligence as their cousins across the Atlantic. He is forced to report on Dennis whom the foreign intelligence services believe to be a local henchman for the narcotics cartel. Braimoh is understandably torn between loyalty to his friend and doing the right thing, he being a religious man, although with a less than glittering past. At the end of the novel, John finds his son’s killer.

The novel interweaves various subthemes into its narrative such as class clashes, the misunderstanding between Africans and Nigerians resident on the continent and their counterparts in the diaspora, racism, homophobia, Black Nationalism, the causes of the Boko Haram crisis which currently afflicts North-eastern Nigeria, abortion and a variety of other social subjects.

heal the hood

Heal the Hood Synopsis: Hatima Parker is an African-American teenage girl living on the mean streets of South Central Los Angeles. Life in the hood is always tough, but life produces more obstacles when an African-American man named Rodney King is beaten by the LAPD and an African-American teenage girl named Latasha Harlins is murdered by a Korean woman.

Hatima dreams of becoming a Marine and an Africanist, and her goals cause her to question her world. She’s not sure if she wants to pursue a career with the US Armed Forces, as that could easily lead to a career in law enforcement. She also finds herself connecting the teachings of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, the Black Panthers, Marcus Garvey, Frederick Douglass, Nelson Mandela, and other black leaders to the incidents of racism she witnesses in her world in order to see if their many ways to change the status quo were effective and still are.

Hatima also starts a relationship with a Korean teenage boy named Joshua Yang. However, since racial tensions are high between African Americans and Korean Americans, there are many people against the biracial couple being together. Hatima learns the world is far from perfect, and throughout 1991 and 1992, she learns how to take a stand against a world that often chooses hatred over love.

his only wife

Hatima Parker is an African-American teenage girl living on the mean streets of South Central Los Angeles. Life in the hood is always tough, but life produces more obstacles when an African-American man named Rodney King is beaten by the LAPD and an African-American teenage girl named Latasha Harlins is murdered by a Korean woman.

Hatima dreams of becoming a Marine and an Africanist, and her goals cause her to question her world. She’s not sure if she wants to pursue a career with the US Armed Forces, as that could easily lead to a career in law enforcement. She also finds herself connecting the teachings of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, the Black Panthers, Marcus Garvey, Frederick Douglass, Nelson Mandela, and other black leaders to the incidents of racism she witnesses in her world in order to see if their many ways to change the status quo were effective and still are.

Hatima also starts a relationship with a Korean teenage boy named Joshua Yang. However, since racial tensions are high between African Americans and Korean Americans, there are many people against the biracial couple being together. Hatima learns the world is far from perfect, and throughout 1991 and 1992, she learns how to take a stand against a world that often chooses hatred over love.

hopes of tomorrow

Meet Ileri, a young woman thrust into adversity after losing both parents, leaving her to care for her two siblings. As she fights tooth and nail for a better future for herself and her sisters, she's blindsided by twists and unexpected turns that threaten to tear her family apart. With each challenge, Ileri's hope is tested, blurring the line between friend and enemy. What if the ones she trusts most conceal hidden truths? Can she rise above the shadows of her past and emerge triumphant, or will they cast her into darkness forever? ‘Hopes of Tomorrow’ is an emotional journey based on family bonds, resilience and love, where every twist and turn leads to the ultimate test of strength and hope.

Garvila Oteh, born on Octo 4th, 2009 began her academic journey as a nursery pupil at the Intenational School of Bearn, France. She later continued her primary education at Dayspring Infant and Junior Secondary School Port-Hacourt and Corona School, Victoria Island, Lagos. Presently, she is a student at Atlantic Hall School.

She got the motivvation to turn her long=existing ideas into words when she discovered another student of Atlantic Hall, Munachi Mbonu had published her literary works.

When she isn’t writing or studying for school, she spends her free time reading African literature or thriller/suspense books and doind art.

‘Hopes of Tommorow’ is her debut.

house of ezyron

Being different? Annabelle is used to that Being a sudden hero? Not so much When thirteen-year-old, Annabelle Nguma, discovers that her life, her family and the world is at the brink of destruction due to the uprising of a chaotic deity, she must decide whether to accept her new identity or give in to her greatest nightmare.

how to get rid of ants

In this collection of short stories, everyday anxieties unravel into the strange and surreal: a man in Abule, desperate to “hammer” like his peers, risks everything for a shortcut to success; a young woman, weary of the endless pressure to marry, turns to magical matchmaking with unexpected consequences; a greedy man finds himself unable to stop eating, his hunger growing beyond control; and a Lagos-based graphics designer’s simple attempt to get rid of ants spirals into something far more existential.

With a sharp wit, keen eye for the bizarre and highly stylised syntax, Ipinmoye reshapes familiar anxieties – ambition, love, survival – into haunting and unexpected narratives. Each story in this eclectic collection is a cold shower – urgent, sharp and unforgettable.

i am not to be sold

"I Am Not To Be Sold" is Media Initiative Against Human trafficking and Women Rights Abuse (MIAHWRA)'s debut project on human trafficking awareness creation. It is a collection of poems on human trafficking by secondary school students in Lagos State, Nigeria. It is intended to educate children about the inhuman business and prevent them from falling prey to traffickers.

i know why your mother cries

There’s something here for everyone. Some poems in this collection are humorous and contemporary, dealing with everyday human experience; others deal with deeper stuff, setting out and transcending the nuances of memory, feminism, motherhood, body-narratives, longing, and identity. Some poems rail about poverty, corruption, hypocrisy, injustice, and social issues, expressing the poet’s deep revolutionary concern. I Know Why Your Mother Cries is an interesting new collection by an important poet.

ibibio nation history and culture

The first section reviews the centuries-long journeys of the Afaha warring group from Usak Edet in the Cameroun valleys until their eventual dispersal from Ikono, as well as the connection of the Ibibio with the Aro and the Efik. The book also reviewed relevant ‘immediate past events’ of the last century in sufficient detail.

In the later section, the pillars that bind the socio-cultural realities of the Ibibio people as a distinctly identifiable ethnic group are dissected. These are encased in proverbial expressions, ancestor worship, totems and taboos, as well as its evidently polytheistic worship mode, amongst other anthropological realities.

ichabod

Ichabod - is an experience and radical truth-based narrative on how society, for the most part, through patriarchy, has used marriage for centuries as a weapon of abuse, demonisation, destiny abortion, unpaid labour, and subjugation of women. Based on both existing and emerging data, globally, especially in African nations, girls are being trained and groomed to seek marriage either as an only source of happiness or as a key source of happiness. Existing culture from birth is designed to make the girl child irrelevant unless she gets married to a man. They use folklore, traditions, songs, religion, education, and the media to ingrain the illusion that a girl’s sole existence is to get married and birth children.

This lie has thrived for centuries, even when presenting evidence depicts that women constantly and consistently sustain marriages by giving up their dreams, ambitions, joy, happiness, and, sometimes, their lives. To ensure that more women continue to make these sacrifices, societies and communities glorify women who suffer the most in marriage. They create community and religious awards and recognitions to celebrate them for staying back in the face of proven misogynistic impunity.

To a significant extent, this book Ichabod, highlights and addresses these gender-based issues and makes a meaningful attempt to provide women with practicable and biblical guidelines on how to birth the seeds within them, take back their power, and, if needed, attract suitable partners. It provides practical solutions on how women can work together as a team and as individuals to ensure they have more control over their lives.

in every mirror shes black

A timely and arresting debut for anyone looking for insight into what it means to be a Black woman in the world.

Three Black women are linked in unexpected ways to the same influential white man in Stockholm as they build their new lives in the most open society run by the most private people.

Successful marketing executive Kemi Adeyemi is lured from the U.S. to Sweden by Jonny von Lundin, CEO of the nation's largest marketing firm, to help fix a PR fiasco involving a racially tone-deaf campaign. A killer at work but a failure in love, Kemi's move is a last-ditch effort to reclaim her social life.

A chance meeting with Jonny in business class en route to the U.S. propels former model-turned-flight-attendant Brittany-Rae Johnson into a life of wealth, luxury, and privilege—a life she's not sure she wants—as the object of his unhealthy obsession.

And refugee Muna Saheed, who lost her entire family, finds a job cleaning the toilets at Jonny's office as she works to establish her residency in Sweden and, more importantly, seeks connection and a place she can call home.

Told through the perspectives of each of the three women, In Every Mirror She's Black is a fast-paced, richly nuanced yet accessible contemporary novel that touches on important social issues of racism, classism, fetishization, and tokenism, and what it means to be a Black woman navigating a white-dominated society.

in the name of our father

jonathan tunde ogbeha: a noble path

just give me 30 days

Just give me 30 days is the story of Princess, a promising young woman who lost her life in her prime. The storyline runs across various locations in the Southern, Eastern, Western and Northern parts of Nigeria in a series of twists and turns to bring about a mix of the traditional and the modern-day lifestyle. Its twists and turns involve the unhappy childhood of Nonso, whose life was brightened by a stepmother who took him in as her own. Then came the agony of having the only bright light in his life extinguished and the horror of not knowing if it was murder? If it was murder, what could be the motive?

lagos to london

Remi Coker and Nnamdi Okonkwo leave the shores of Nigeria full of hope in search of greener pastures in London. Remi, from the prestigious Coker family, is expected to return home after her law degree to run the family law firm and Nnamdi, frustrated by the federal university strikes, plans to escape Nigeria and never return. The story follows their individual journies of newfound freedom, self-discovery, unexpected turns and the dilemma of whether to return home or stay in the United Kingdom.

leadership secrets of godswill akpabio

One of Africa’s brightest minds, Chinua Achebe, believes, in his book, “The Trouble With Nigeria”, that the poverty and underdevelopment that have plagued most of the African continent result from the inability or unwillingness of its leaders to live up to the challenges of selflessness, honesty and sound personal example, which are the hallmarks of true leadership. This severe dearth of quality leadership has kept Africa underdeveloped.

In one tiny Nigerian state called Akwa Ibom, a young man from a humble background and a minority ethnic group, against daunting political odds, won an election and was sworn in as governor. Between 2007 and 2015, Godswill Obot Akpabio articulated a vision to turn Akwa Ibom State “from a pedestrian state to a destination for all Nigerians”. Using time-tested principles of good leadership, he developed first-class infrastructure. He organised other tourism programmes that helped him to realise that vision at the end of his regime, just as he promised. All his achievements were encapsulated in a catchphrase that his people called “Uncommon Transformation”.

This book is the result of an in-depth study of the principles of leadership that resulted in the realisation of Governor Godswill Akpabio’s vision.

The book aims to teach people about leadership. It uses my real-life experiences while I worked with Governor Godswill Akpabio for many years as a Permanent Secretary. The hope is that the discussions on leadership might inspire young leaders, especially in Africa, to embrace good leadership. If this happens, and they leave lasting legacies for their people or their organisations, their aim would have been realised. The book will be useful for leadership mentors in government, business, religion, the corporate world and academia. It makes a good reference for all interested in broadening their knowledge of leadership issues.

life lessons my path to happiness

The key idea of this book is improving wellbeing, developing the mind to see positivity and having happiness regardless of any situation. It covers aspects of life that people go through (depression, financial instability, self-doubt, relationship problems etc.) coming from ignorance as well as from lack of self-belief, which could be as a result of various circumstances like exposure and upbringing.

Anyone can have a happy life if they have the right mentality and take care of themselves mentally and emotionally through self-love and having the right attitude to life.

Life is not a fairy tale, and when this fact sets in, it is essential to be well equipped emotionally to avoid worsening the situation, harming oneself through self-hatred stemming from a ‘why me’ approach and seeing the good in these situations. Most times comparison leads to this feeling, instigating lack of self-forgiveness and also giving rise to self-pity. The truth is regardless of how invincible or perfect anyone seems, life isn’t always a fairy tale for anyone, and people have their own unpleasant stories to tell also. Problems or tough situations are as enormous or minute as people make them. It’s about perception, daring to see the good in it and being well equipped to handle them, making your wellbeing intact.

The writer also shares true-life stories about herself as well as other people, shows her feelings and opinions about different life events, the wrong way tough situations were handled and the better way to have dealt with these cases for happiness and a better life.

Living in different cities and meeting different interesting personalities exposed her to unusual situations, making her question stereotypes as well as what drove peoples’ behaviours.

long division

Water is life. So why is he withholding it from an entire city? How far will an ambitious water board superintendent go to serve his own interests, even if it means betraying his responsibilities and depriving a community of its most essential resource?

Ibrahim Nagado, the newly appointed Superintendent of the beleaguered Bakowa Water Board, faces a daunting task: restoring water to the parched city of Bakowa. Determined to succeed, he encounters a moral dilemma when his brother-in-law, burdened by debt, pleads with him to delay the water treatment plant's rehabilitation. This delay would allow the brother-in-law's water supply business to flourish and repay his loan.

Torn between two different obligations, Nagado seizes an opportunity presented by a rat infestation in his office. Using the infestation as a pretext, he establishes the ostensibly important Effective Pest Control Commission (EPCC), a bureaucratic behemoth designed to stall the water board's progress. Nagado places his deputy, Babarinsa Aramide, at the helm of the EPCC, and together they orchestrate a charade of activity, all while deliberately hindering the restoration of Bakowa's water supply.

However, their elaborate plan is threatened when Habiba, an EPCC employee, grows tired of the commission's inaction and takes the initiative to eliminate two rats. Infuriated, Babarinsa, under Nagado's instruction, has Habiba arrested. This act of injustice sparks the curiosity of Hamisu, another EPCC employee, who, driven by a sense of justice and the recent loss of his grandmother due to the water crisis, contacts a prominent journalist to expose the truth. When Nagado's charisma proves effective in deflecting accountability, Hamisu takes drastic action, kidnapping Nagado and holding him captive. Hamisu demands a one million Naira ransom and, more importantly, the immediate restoration of Bakowa's water supply in exchange for Nagado's release. Faced with his own mortality, Nagado mobilizes resources to bring the contractors back and expedite the treatment plant's completion.

In the den, a bond forms between captor and captive as Nagado gains respect for Hamisu's unwavering dedication to Bakowa's well-being. Finally, water flows through the taps of Bakowa, and an unsuspecting public hails Nagado as a hero. Honouring his word, Hamisu releases Nagado, leaving him with a final test of character and the profound weight of his choices.

makwala

Jackson and Ende growing up in a post-conflict and cosmopolitan Kano city slum of the early 2000s, find themselves in a world where they have to grapple questions that relate to identity, destiny and society. While Ende is troubled by the absence of a father he knows nothing about and a rather strange father who makes matters worse by withholding information regarding his mother, Jackson, a biracial boy called also Lebanese pickin is trapped in a deep self-hate resulting from his abhorrence of his mother’s prostitution.

Their friendship begins on the day Ende discovers Jackson’s drawing of “a frail woman stuck against the wall by a long iron bar.” It is the beginning of a haunting narrative of hate and love, of violence and compassion, of concealment and revelation.

men dont die

In possession of stolen wealth, Brume Lauva takes a big step and decides to run away from a life he has known for over a decade. A life of consistent failures and from a girlfriend that shattered his heart and his last feeble grip on a broken dream.

He believes Lagos could offer another chance at life, where he could mend his broken heart and perhaps start to dream again. But en route to his land of promise, a fatal bus crash occurs, and Brume is the only survivor—without a scratch. He flees the scene of the accident and hitchhikes his way to Lagos.

In Lagos, he begins to live again. He reconnects with a long-lost friend with whom he shared dreams at the university. He invests the stolen money and finds love again. He gets all he craves on a plate—money, comfort and something resembling happiness. But there is more to this world—a monumental test that would change his life forever. MEN DON'T DIE is a thought-provoking story of love, money, death, and spiritualism.

It is about a man's personal struggles against the unfairness of life and the search for true happiness.

money while you play

Peter is a compelling writer, who supports his narratives with astute observations, brilliant and technical insight, and memorable anecdotes. His book is much more than a real estate 'how to' but actually a guide to intergenerational wealth planning. He highlights the effectiveness of team cooperation and collaboration, which he places at the heart of success in real estate. His keen analytical assessment of the different categories of real estate and their potential returns is excellent and exemplary. This is required reading for the visionary real estate investor.

more than a miracle

More Than A Miracle is Chinwe Ezeanya’s account of her son Dike’s life from conception to his first twenty-two months of life when he returned home after having a liver transplant.

This is a story of trials and triumphs, faith, hope and love. Chinwe Ezeanya tells how she held on to faith as she encountered numerous revelations, confirmations and miracles whilst she struggled against all odds to save her only son.

And Dike Ezeanya’s story is phenomenal. Having survived necrotizing enterocolitis from birth, he also suffered a deteriorating liver condition as a result of biliary atresia thereafter. To have survived these two life-threatening ailments during infancy was indeed more than a miracle.

From a medical perspective, India recorded a medical first when a swap liver transplant took place in a thirty-six hour stretch of surgeries performed by 36 medical personnel operating in four theatres led by Dr. Arvinder Singh Soin and Dr. Neelam Mohan (Dike’s liver pediatric specialist/consultant.) The positive effect of this landmark surgery began a new way of organ transplantation.

The foreword is written by Dr. Neelam Mohan, Dike’s liver specialist who was destined to help bring about a cure for Dike’s ailment.

Dike’s story is heartwarming and inspirational. It is a success story and reaffirms our faith that indeed miracles do happen.

music of the dead

A collection of poems by Musa Idris Okpanachi. The author was shortlisted for LNG in 2009.

my book of success stories

If you have been searching for the secrets behind the success stories of some of the most incredible nigerians ever, search no further, it is all buried in this book. The book contains the compelling journeys of some amazing nigerians that have kept you in awe. It also contains incredible insights on the secrets of success that will certainly set your dreams on overdrive. You are going to fall in love with this book. Be warned!

my fathers daughter

My Father’s Daughter is a riveting narration of Onyeka Onwenus enthralling journey through life. We are held captive as she takes us into her world – from the heart-warming affection of her father to living through the anguish of the Nigeria-Biafra war, from remarkable mothers love to family intrigues, from feminism to a career that has put her in the limelight for decades. Her reflections and reviews are expressive and stroke our senses; nothing is left out.

This book is deeply personal and emotional; it is about strength of purpose in the face of adversity, the struggle to overcome seething obstacles and the tenacity in surviving the odds. Interesting and vibrant, Onyekas story is laced with wit and the underlying humour is infectious.

Provocative and audacious, Onyeka Onwenu gives gripping details of her trials and triumphs- and everything in between – as she shares diverse experiences from her childhood, the travails of being a performing artiste, personal encounters with eminent personalities, and the lessons learned that have shaped her life. We are taken through the agony of her dark moments, the thrill of her successes, and her unwavering awe-inspiring trust in God. In descriptive and pulsating detail, she talks about being a wife, a mother and breadwinner, of being a woman with a vision and purpose. She tells us about her relationship with her father, the qualities she inherited from him and the strength of character of her mother. It is a story about life, love and living.

Onyeka Onwenu’s passion for her country, Nigeria, goes beyond patriotism. In this book, we read how she challenged and defied the status quo through her work in government, her career as a journalist and as one of the country’s foremost musicians. It was daunting and thought-provoking, yet with a clear message of hope.

My Fathers Daughter is a compelling story of strength, determination and integrity. This is Onyeka Owenu’s story, and she tells it well. This is her truth.

She is, indeed, her father’s daughter and her mother’s legacy. Ngozi Osu, Book Editor & Literary Consultant

my mind is no longer here

“…let me tell you something nobody else will tell you, hunger is a very good thing. Our people do not know this that is why they remain poor…the thing pushes you to do something that you did not imagine you could do before… You are very lucky to be chosen…this thing that Yinka has brought you people for is not for people that are not hungry.”

Four men – Donatus, Chidi, Haruna and Osahon—find their fates tied to a devious man, Yinka who poses as a self-styled immigration consultant but who really is the front man for a powerful human trafficking syndicate. The men from different backgrounds: Donatus – an unemployed graduate; Chidi – a soon to be graduate worried about the gloomy life that awaits him; Haruna – a doctor who could not save his ailing mother; and Osahon – a fugitive seeking freedom from his past, are bound together by one goal: a desperation to seek a better life in Europe and Yinka was the man to make their dreams come true.

Though they individually suspect there is more to Yinka’s offer, they are convinced any risk was worth taking to achieve their goal. Unknown to them however, they were pawns in Yinka’s grand plan of exploiting his employers to achieve his own secret selfish ambition. Being caught in this web of deception exposes the four men to more danger than they ever imagined and sets in motion a course of events that could shatter their already fragile worlds. The story unravels from each of the four men’s point of view, revealing their individual motivations for wanting to leave and what beautiful promises a life abroad held for them. These are stories of greed, love, ambition, unfulfilled dreams and the fear of failure. It is also the story of a nation, how it kills the dreams of its youths, leaving them naked, in the hands of preying vultures. But even more, it brings to fore that often unspoken fact that life abroad, away from Nigeria, does not always mean freedom.

Yinka’s employer, the self-styled Otunba Ayorinde who leads a secret Organisation of influential persons involved in trafficking learns of Yinka’s plans and pulls the plugs just at the point Yinka thought he had achieved success. The four young men survive, rescued by a fate that offers them a second chance, a privilege many others like them never get to enjoy.

Fresh, lucid and laced with just the right amount of humour- typical of the rich African story telling tradition, My Mind Is No Longer Here is as absorbing and compelling as it is remarkable. It tells the very important story of a generation of young Africans who are disillusioned by their reality but are daily being consumed by the illusions of life elsewhere.

naija no dey carry last

Naija No Dey Carry Last by Pius Adesanmi gathers his most important reflections on Nigeria over the last decade, mostly published in his Premium Times, Sahara Reporters and Nigeria Village Square columns. Naija No Dey Carry Last is a tribute and an argument for the place of memory in Nigeria’s sociopolitics.

new york my village

From a suspiciously cheap Hell’s Kitchen walk-up, Nigerian editor and winner of a Toni Morrison Publishing Fellowship, Ekong Udousoro, is about to begin the opportunity of a lifetime to learn the ins and outs of the publishing industry from its incandescent epicentre. While his sophisticated colleagues meet him with kindness and hospitality, he is soon exposed to a colder, ruthlessly commercial underbelly —callous agents, greedy landlords, boorish and hostile neighbours; and, beneath a superficial cosmopolitanism, a bedrock of white cultural superiority and racist assumptions about Africa, its peoples, and worst of all, its food.

Reckoning, at the same time, with the recent history of the devastating and brutal Biafran War, in which Ekong’s people were a minority of a minority caught up in the mutual slaughter of majority tribes, Ekong’s life in New York becomes a saga of unanticipated strife. The great apartment deal wrangled by his editor turns out to be an illegal sublet crawling with bedbugs. The lights of Times Square slide off the hardened veneer of New Yorkers ploughing past the tourists. A collective antagonism toward the “other” consumes Ekong’s daily life. Yet in overcoming misunderstandings with his neighbors, Chinese and Latino and African-American, and in bonding with his true allies at work and advocating for healing back home, Ekong proves that there is still hope in sharing our stories.

Akpan’s prose melds humour, tenderness, and pain to explore the myriad ways that tribalisms define life everywhere, from the villages of Nigeria to the villages within New York City. New York, My Village is a triumph of storytelling and a testament to the life-sustaining power of community across borders and across boroughs.

night dancer

Night Dancer is set in Nigeria and tells the story of Mma and her stubborn mother, Ezi. Ezi's unexpected death leads Mma to learn about her mother's past and rethink the resentment and contempt she has held for her mother her whole life. Mma resents her mother who likes to say things twice like 'dance-dance' and 'happy-happy' and who won't let Mma know anything about her father - Ezi left her husband, Mike, and life in Kaduna, when Mma was a baby to raise her as a single mother.

Written in three parts, Chika Unigwe tells a beautiful story, which reveals what happened, why everything is the way it is and why every character in the book did what they did. It starts in 2001, after Ezi's death, and concentrates on Mma's very negative feelings and hatred towards her mother. From Mma's point of view we see what being raised by a proud single mother did to her childhood and how it affected Mma's life. When Mma starts reading Ezi's letters or her 'memoirs', Mma finds out the truth about her mother, her past life and why she did what she did. Her mother's letters also leads Mma to be reunited with the family she never knew she had - grandfather, uncles, aunts, father. It then goes back to 1960 where we find out what exactly happened to make Ezi leave her husband Mike, and raise their daughter Mma on her own. And it comes back to 2002 when Mma eventually meets her father, Mike, and begins to change her mind about her mother. In these three parts, we hear both Ezi and Mma voices.

obito

Obito is about the unconfirmed death of a Benin King and it’s cover-up, the uncertainty of its validity amongst the towns citizens and its chiefs. The role of the media and the tradition.

Based on a recent African story, the play dramatises how rumours of a king’s death inspire a conspiracy between modern media and technology to expose the lies of tradition.

Of Gods and Shadows

oil cemetery

Oil Cemetery is the story of Rita, a fragile young girl living in the Niger Delta, whose father becomes a victim of an oil company’s activities. On the one hand is the obscene wealth enjoyed by a few while the majority of the delta’s citizens live in poverty and suffer from the degradation of their environment. Oil Cemetery shows the quest of these people to seek a solution to their suffering, while delving into the intrigues of the elites. By a twist of fate, Rita leads a subtle revolution that will shock the entire community.

Dr. May Ifeoma Nwoye is a Nigerian academic and university administrator who studied in the United States of America. She was the former national Vice President of the Association of Nigerian Authors.

oil on water

Helon Habila’s third novel explores militancy and petro-politics in Nigeria’s Niger Delta. Told in Habila’s award winning prose, Oil on Water follows two journalists, the younger Rufus and the more experienced Zaq, in a descent through the creeks of the delta to unravel the story of the kidnapped wife of an expatriate oil company executive. . .

“As they struggle up the river in a canoe, guided by an old man and a young boy, the reporters encounter nightmarish scenes of devastation: ‘dead birds draped over tree branches, their outstretched wings black and slick with oil; dead fishes bobbed white-bellied between tree roots’. By the flickering light of oil flare, they find some villages abandoned, their fields and water contaminate; others scrape a miserable existence on the frontline of a civil war between the army and anti-government guerrillas.” – Guardian UK.

This is a novel about the limits of journalism; it is an incisive exploration of the death of truth in a country of varied corruptions addicted to oil. Oil on Water confirms Habila’s dazzling talent, evident in his earlier novels, and reinforces his place as one of Nigeria’s most important writers.

ordinary saviour new stories from nigerias northwest

Ordinary Saviour: New Stories from Nigeria’s Northeast is an anthology of short stories edited by Richard Ali and Abubakar Adam Ibrahim. Comprising eleven stories written by the Northeast Regional Initiative’s NEIEF Fellows, the collection provides a voice for local experiences of the conflict as well as counternarratives.

“The stories contained in this concise anthology have been written mostly by people from northeastern Nigeria, who have chosen to use fiction as a vehicle to convey the nightmares, dreams and hopes of the region. The fact that the vast majority of these writers have never attempted fiction writing before, and have never been published before, demonstrates the urgency of the stories they tell in this anthology. Also, for these stories to have taken this shape, within the short period of intensive tutorial and mentorship they have had, is a credit to the writers and their zeal to learn and grow, but most importantly, to be the drivers of a new narrative of the northeast.”

From the Editors.

our voices

patriots and sinners

Leo and his men are desperate for change. Their quest is blind till they abduct Siella, the president’s daughter. It is not just abduction. Their encounter redefines radical change; it redefines Leo and his men. They find new zeal. Their criminality comes with reduced acrimony as they become philanthropists and the ‘true patriots’ – cautiously loved by the people and wanted by the government and power-drunks

real enemies of the niger delta

The Real Enemies of the Niger Delta is the first-hand account of a Nigerian born and bred in the oil-rich but depraved Niger Delta region of Nigeria. Traversing his journey from childhood to his experiences as a professional, the author sheds light on his biggest influences, gives a no-holds-barred account of his service in the private sector and shares an honest account of his experience in the public sector where he is currently a Director at the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).

At the same time a memoir, a collection of priceless historical records, an inspirational piece for youths and a clarion call to the nation, The Real Enemies of the Niger Delta captures a myriad of sensitive and contentious issues bedevilling the Niger Delta. Investigative and reflexively examined, it exposes, among others, the "monumental fraud" the 13 percent Derivation Fund in the oil-producing states of the Niger Delta has become. It blows the cover off the untouchable IOCs and the inglorious role leaders and indigenes of the region have played in the colossal corruption as well as the resultant underdevelopment of the region.

riot in ubahu

Riot in Ubahu is the story of a school - a federal government college, as she fares under her principal, Chief Obama Orizu, fondly called Obama by students, staff and family members. A strict disciplinarian, Obama works tirelessly to raise the academic and moral standards of the school. Inadvertently, he is known for discipline and fairness. The school itself thrives – having both excellent Academics as well as infrastructure to show for the principal’s hard work.

Not unlike any mixed boarding school, FGC Ubahu is home to various kinds of shenanigans - bullying, extortion, bounds breaking, sorcery, and the occasional riot. In this narrative, a riot occurs at the end of the novel of the novel when Obama is transferred, and a new principal leads the school to the edge of ruin.

The riot is ruinous as it can be – leaving rape, destroyed school property, and hooliganism in its wake. A side of the school – especially the students, that had never been seen comes to the fore. And it falls to Chief Obama Orizu to restore order and splendour to a school he once called home.

ruffled butterflies

“Till death do us part…” Seemingly innocent transgressions like squeezing toothpaste or leaving pee on the toilet seat lie in wait to trip up these characters, who become so stifled by their partners that they can’t wait for death to part them. Some stories in this collection end with cliffhangers, making room for self-reflection and numerous possible endings. These thirteen stories traverse various domestic issues that call for more meaningful steps than grumbling, as the Morgans, Olabisi, Kayode, Vera, and John soon find out.

Ruffled butterfly wings are used as imagery for the delicate family ties of everyday people who are sewn together in marriage. Suspenseful, dramatic, romantic and dipped in an amalgam of Nigerian and Western cultures, these relationships pass through crucibles, with the couples spreading their ruffled, ripped mosaic wings to flutter and fly against all odds.

sacking the potter

Michael Owoyemi is about to close a multi-million-dollar business deal on behalf of his demanding employer. On the Monday morning scheduled for the closure of the deal, Biola Owoyemi, his usually reserved wife, physically restrains him from leaving their Ibadan home, insisting that he must stay at home to protect her and their first and only child, their two-month old son, from unnamed forces keen on snatching their child away from them.

Trapped in his own home on a day with serious make-or-mar potential on his career, Michael Owoyemi employs every device he can conjure to resolve the first crisis in his three-year old marriage. With a supporting cast of family and friends, some of his choices lead to a gripping tale of betrayal and mysterious consequences.

sakabula

Sakabula is a resonant song from the belly of the Weaverbird. This tale is a tribute to life as much as it is a toast to resilience. Future, Past, and present coexist in a speculative tapestry. The mystical and real coalesce so frequently that one is left gasping at each page turn.

sankara

On the 4th of August, 1983, in a military coup in the city of Ouagadougou, a revolutionary hero came to power in Upper Volta. He was Captain Thomas Isidore Noel Sankara. He was a young idealist with Marxist and Pan African leanings and was thirty-three years old.

In the space of four years, he renamed the country – Burkina Faso – meaning - The Land of Upright Men. He singlehandedly rewrote a new anthem, and with the force of his will, vision, courage and integrity he transformed the country from a dusty Sahel wasteland of want and deprivation into a bustling self-reliant economy that was brimming with cultural, social and historical renaissance.

This play is about the last 100 hours in the life of a great African patriot. It recreates the cumulative events that led to his assassination by his best friend and deputy in collusion with foreign governments. It also espouses his vision for a new Africa and his hope that one day, Africa will rise from the ashes of its past into the magnificence of its glorious future.

It is a story of vision, faith, patriotism, treachery, betrayal and one man’s indefatigable love for his country and continent.

scores to settle

Being an orphan is not by choice but a life occurrence that is dreaded even by the strong, how much more seemingly helpless teenagers! SCORES TO SETTLE is a fictional story of strength in the face of damning situations, making the right choice even when one seems left with no option and holding unto one's positive ideals when everyone else differs. From a life of affluence to a life of abject poverty and homelessness, two orphan boys must sail through the turbulent life of adulthood even before coming of age. The novel speaks of dreams that go beyond sleep and the shining diamond that could come out of the rough. It is also about not being swayed in the face of consistent persuasiveness of evil because, at the end of it all, the brunt will be borne by no other but the individual.

seabreeze

Although twelve-year-old Amen constantly draws unwanted attention from the people of small-town Kilcock because of her eyes, life could not be more normal for her and her twin sister, Iska. Until a fateful day, Amen experiences a life-changing event that she and Iska desperately need to share with the only person they trust: their mother, Aré. But things go from bad to unimaginable when they arrive home to find Aré’s lifeless body.

With no other living relatives, Amen and Iska are taken into an orphanage run by Aré’s best friend, Aunt Nikki. There, the twins are haunted, for years, by their mother’s untimely death; however, just when it seems like they are finally ready to move on, a piece of news from Aunt Nikki starts a chain reaction of events that forces Amen and Iska to journey to foreign lands in search of answers, while trying to keep themselves and the people closest to them from getting killed.

smile my beloved country

Smile, my Beloved Country is the story of a young Nigerian, Ayo Musa Okeke, who on a visit to Nigeria witnesses the assassination of a presidential candidate, Boni Konida, during a transition to civil rule programme. Within a broken country where civic obligations are ignored as corruption runs rampant, suspicions begin to point to Ayo who is saved by the friendship of a conscientious cop. From his base in New York where he is a tenured Agricultural Science professor, Ayo unwittingly sets in motion events that will lead him to face off the ruthless Chief Wewe Jumanji in an electoral battle for Aso Rock and Nigeria’s future.

some angels dont see god

An ambitious young banker’s stable but uninteresting life is disrupted when he comes across a book of fiction recounting torrid experiences he lived through as an undergraduate. The banker is Peter Idenala; the writer is Neta Okoye, the girl who broke Peter’s heart six years ago.

When the book brings them together, these former lovers are forced to confront the violence of their past. Peter bears a physical scar from those years. Neta’s scars are entirely psychological, including one concerning an incestuous secret she has carried for years. Will the stupidities of their youth pull them apart again? Or will they overcome the trauma of their past to create a future together?

son of man

OUR MEN… A university graduate in desperate need of a job. A father’s vengeance for a dead son. A young pragmatic man humbled by the horrors of incarceration. An old man’s dying gift to a generation. A journalist’s courage in a notorious military government. A youth corper’s temperance of religion, love and survival …THEIR STORIES.

From the quiet town of Umuahia to the creeks of Bonny Island, the sweltering plains of Jos to the bustling hub of Lagos, these Nigerian men have a story to tell. Stories of life, love, family, happiness, sorrow, pestilence and death—situations faced every day in their lives. Armed with objectivity, some find peace with their resolutions, while some face dire consequences with prices to pay; with their freedom, or worst yet, their lives.

song of benasoro

Kpakiama’s poetry is energetic and direct as it addresses the issues of the oppressed headlong, calling a spade by no other name but a spade. He draws from his Ijaw oral tradition, the strength of which lies in its performative expression. His vast knowledge of his people and their traditions and culture give voice to his immensely lyrical lines, rich in proverbs, metaphors, fables.

South Side

From uncertain beginnings as a refugee student in England in the 1950s, Abel Dankor has risen quickly to become a prominent writer and a true, though ill-at-ease, citizen of the world.

Author of five acclaimed novels, well-traveled, temperate yet self-absorbed, and possessing sharp social skills, Abel is worldly and cultured. Marked by a family history of displacement and endless migration, he also nurtures a desire to find a permanent home somewhere. He is on the verge of naturalizing as a citizen of Mande, a West African country, when he receives news of the death of his mentor and sponsor, the poet Sir Koroma Fouta. Following this devastating news Abel’s final option disappears. His unexpected encounter with Valeria promises to turn things around.

Here is a woman dedicated to an intuitive pursuit of the kind of dream he has come to regard as nightmare. Even after a brief encounter, she comes across to Abel as harboring a shadowy but intriguing past. With new signals that Abel’s childhood friend, Yacouba, will occupy a high office in Mande, he must decide whether to resume his pursuit of a permanent home, or trust in Valeria’s companionship.

sunbeams and shadows

Sunbeams and Shadows is a collection of eighty-Six poems spread within three sub-titles that include Continuum, Silent Pixels, and Homage. The one hundred and ten page book is published by Origami, an imprint of Parresia Publishers limited, Lagos. The well designed book is of fine quality and the poems gush with ripe innocence, a quality of true beauty. The poems talk about love, pains, philosophy, uncertainties and the absurdities of life. The collection’s romantic ambience is as effective as the lamentations therein.

surrendered yet alienated

The Nigeria –Biafra war (1967 – 1970) was gruesome and genocidal with more than three million dead. In the absence of Biafra leader, General Odumegwu Ojukwu, General Effiong surrendered to Nigeria's Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon. Gowon declared, 'No victor, No vanquished', to the relief of the entire nation, even though the eastern region had been split into states to prevent the Igbos access to the oil resources and outlet to the Bight of Benin and the Atlantic Ocean.

The quick recovery of Ndigbo as they moved back to Nigeria was unpredictable. But the Federal government did not run an inclusive governance as she removed the Igbos from all sensitive posts. The unhealthy rivalry within the southern ethnic tribes compounded their woes to the northern oligarchy's advantage.

The Igbos feel alienated as the present 1999 Nigeria Constitution is grossly repressive, with lack of Federal presence in Igbo states and the dire need of infrastructure to enhance commerce and investment. This book is a clarion call to encourage Ndigbo to go and rebuild their homeland with the tenacious resilience for survival, which made them bring development to all parts of Nigeria. With the global recession, Nigeria is not left out. There a is need to encourage the creation of autonomous states for the fast recovery of the economy, at this period of terrorist insurgence when citizens live in fear, and farmers cannot grow crops. To regain Nigeria's pride as the leading country in Africa, she must restructure now.

the angel that was always there

Julius Bokoru’s “The Angel That Was Always There” is a memoir that tells the story about a child grappling at life, trying to make sense of who he really is. Struggling and failing. Confused and lonely. Saved intermittently by the love of his mother, but losing that mother when he most needed her. It is heart breaking. It is heartrending. The story leaves you shivering long after you’ve left it. Because here comes young Julius, ambling down the pages, whispering haunting memories in a swaggering bravado—sputtering pretty prose-poetry.

The 141 paged Memoir written in 17 Chapters portrays the plight of single motherhood with its setting in Ijaw land. The Memoir exudes picturesque and poignant tales that give account of Julius Bokoru’s childhood experiences while skilfully weaving a gripping tale portraying single parenthood, its pain and struggles.

This debut Memoir seeks to answer some of the most disturbing questions: “Where is my father?” “Why don’t I know him?” “Why is society disrespecting my mother because she is a single mother?” In the process, the Ijaw and Niger Delta social life is being presented to the world in a lush narrative.

the beast of ephesus

The Beast of Ephesus is a gamut of the spiritual and physical challenges Reverend N.C. Thompson had to face in the course of carrying out his ministry. It is an evocation of the grace of God to preach the gospel during hard times, through rough terrains, and among people of diverse cultural leanings. When Reverend Thompson was called on the 26th of July 1971 as a minister of the gospel, he delved into it immediately. His gusto was met with the joys of evangelizing and discipling new believers, and the daunting angst of fellow church workers and denominations. Although the road had been awash with difficulty, Reverend Thompson endured the grind and enjoyed the grace of God, which has kept him at the Master's business for 50 years and counting.

The Beast of Ephesus is a beautifully knit narrative. It is an encouragement to the ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ to draw inner strength from the Holy Spirit while they fulfill the divine call upon their lives in the face of challenges.

the beginning of everything colourful

Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko are welcoming Spain’s King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia, who are visiting Japan as state guests at the Imperial Palace, with Crown Prince Naruhito and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe also attending a related event there. But there are two nameless people who are not happy with this visit – a Mexican Musician who hates the Spanish and a Japanese businessman who hates the Chinese.

They meet at the Transit Lounge in Doha International Airport, waiting for their connecting flight to Tokyo and begin telling revealing stories, which take us to Lille, Paris, New York, New Delhi, Lagos, Tel Aviv and down to Tokyo.

THE BEGINNING OF EVERYTHING COLOURFUL IS A MASTERFULLY WRITTEN NOVEL THAT DRIVES ITS NARRATIVE WITH FACTS INCORPORATED INTO FICTION, BRINGING REAL-LIFE CHARACTERS TO LIVE ON THE SAME PAGES WITH IMAGINED CHARACTERS. IT IS FILLED WITH AMUSING IRONIES ABOUT RACE, CULTURES, RELIGIONS AND POLITICS.

“ The Beginning of Everything Colourful is one of the most powerful novels I’ve read. If you want a novel that talks about everything in a controlled voice, then you must have read this. If you haven’t read it, you must. Beautifully coloured” - ThisDay

the bofak illusion

FC Newsday reporter, Zack Liman, is murdered by government agents in Tinland when he finds something sinister lurking beneath law and order. . .

Stubborn journalist Billy Dada is hot on the trail of a murder case, which becomes one of high political crime and ultimately, a matter of hard drugs. . .

Gloria Dan, femme fatale and drug baroness, dies in police custody and is resurrected . . .

Ayuba Giok, amateur sleuth with a mind for conspiracy and a nose for trouble. . .

Kim Shykes, biracial Santomean ex-cop, with a beef against organized crime. . .

Jion Belleck . . . Libyan trained assassin with a mission to extract Gloria Dan from Nigeria. . .

In The BOFAK Illusion, Nigeria’s new king of crime weaves a story reaching from the beaches of Sin City to Tinland to the gates of Aso Rock itself in a game where the desire for good to win over evil is not enough.

the chibok girls

WHERE ‘D YOU GO is a collection of short stories about terrorism in Northern Nigeria. From Captain Shola and his men, who are ambushed by killer herdsmen while on patrol and need to hold their ground, to a retired Special Forces officer who leads his men to protect his village and its environs from killer herdsmen; to Lieutenant Colonel Abel, whose team had to extend their tour by two days to escort the Senate President’s daughter to an IDP Camp and then wait out an assault by Boko Haram insurgents; to Kunle Pierce who is a CIA operative, but comes to avenge the murder of his brother-in-law by the Boko Haram sect; to the Corps members caught in a post-election violence and fight back; and then there is Halima, an abducted girl from Chibok who suffers from Stockholm syndrome, and tries to settle down to normalcy after her release with some other girls.

The stories are action-packed, depicting loss, justice, vengeance, bravery, courage under fire, sacrifice and patriotism.

the child of his mercy

This 20 chapter volume tells the story of Right Reverend Professor Emmanuel Bayade Ajulo in a fitful, episodic style from 1947 through major and critical points in his life. Through testy waters of secondary education at Igarra Grammar School, with an “eclipse” a few months to graduation, God preserved him. In the centre of great difficulties, little did Emmanuel expect God’s turning point that came to him with the baptism of the Holy Spirit in 1969.

This book covers the years of childhood and difficulties; his marriage to Apeke Victoria on 13th December 1975; life together as Graduate Assistants at University of Ife; having their first child in 1977; their sojourn in Sheffield during Bayode’s doctoral study; sharing and worship life in Christ’s Church, Fulwood, Sheffield; their “second coming” to Ife with their second child; the experience of intrigues and connivance in universities and the Church, and much more.

With five children and many grandchildren, Bishop Ajulo retired from service in 2017 with rejoicing.

the citizens book on governance

The Citizen’s Book of Governance is a composition of the author’s notes on governance in light of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The book offers a vision of the “Nigerian Dream” as portrayed in the Nigerian grundnorm, with an objective of creating a concise pamphlet that can aid the understanding of the Nigerian system of governance and the roles of her democratic institutions.

the cracked screen

“Swipe right for drama, left for love.”

After four years alone, 33-year-old marketing whiz and single parent, Esohe Eweka, is ready to dive back into the dating pool.

IK, a charming architect, seems the perfect match, but his cracked phone screen becomes an uncanny metaphor of Esohe's fractured past.

Just as she's about to hit delete, smooth-talking lawyer, Eddie Williams enters the picture and pursues her relentlessly.

But hold up! Her ex-husband, Folarin, is desperate to ctrl+z their divorce, escalating the situation into a dramatic abduction of their son.

Now, Esohe is forced to choose between her heart and her boy.

Eddie, not one to accept a 404 error in love, refuses to log out of Esohe's life.

Will Esohe's cracked screen finally get the upgrade she deserves? Stay tuned to find out if love truly conquers all in this digital age romance!

The Dilemma of An Outcaste

Having grown up hearing chilling tales about the Osu/Diala divide, Jide finds himself entangled in its realities when he falls in love with an Osu girl on campus, Agatha. His relationship is met with resistance, especially from Diala students, who warn him of dire consequences should he marry across the ancient caste line. Determined to understand the truth behind the age-old discrimination, Jide journeys to southeastern Nigeria in search of firsthand knowledge about the Osu system.

Meanwhile, his closest friend and fellow Kegite club member, Ifedi, faces a similar ordeal. Deeply in love with Ruth — Agatha’s friend from Enugu State — he struggles against his family’s refusal to accept her due to her Ohu (servant) lineage, another layer of ancestral prejudice.

Together, Jide and Ifedi must confront the ghosts of tradition and fight for love in a society shackled by inherited beliefs. Dilemma of an Outcast captures the emotional and moral crossroads faced by individuals burdened with inherited labels. It echoes the pain of those ostracised by no fault of their own. The story interrogates these constructed boundaries, urging a reawakening to the truth that nobody is born lesser than another.

the domestication of munachi

On a hot Sunday afternoon years ago… …Two sisters walk in on their father’s sexual liaison with the family’s hired help which leaves them both scarred in different ways.

Years later… Unable to bear the thought of marriage to a man she barely knows, the younger and more adventurous one, Munachi, runs away from home on the eve of her traditional marriage, unwittingly resurrecting a long buried feud between her religious mother and eccentric aunty. This conflict leaves a door open for the family’s destruction.

The Domestication of Munachi is a novel about the unnecessary pressure on women to take on life partners, regardless of who these partners are and the psychological impacts seen through the stories of two sets of sisters—Munachi and Nkechi versus Chimuanya and Elizabeth.

the emanating era

The Emanating Era exposes everything that must happen on the earth and her inhabitants at the end of days. As it stands, the people of this generation (according to the apocalyptic books) are the people of the end-time. All prophecies in the Bible’s apocalyptic books are exposed in this book in everyday language, to show the reader what is coming globally. Inside, you will see some strategies about how to survive this era (See 1Thessalonians 5:3).

It is written, that for the elect’s sake, those days should be shortened else no one will be saved. The saints of the end-time are people of grace; that is why God revealed these secrets to help them (See Amos 3:7). The expositions made in this book will show you what we must do at this time, to stay safe and happy amidst global uncertainties.

This book shows exactly what God’s people must do to stay safe from the coming catastrophe and global holocaust. As it is written, ‘’when they say there is a casting down, the Children of God shall say there is a lifting.’’ (See Job 22:29).

The woes that should befall the Earth in this generation were not fashioned for the elect. Because the word of the Lord states that, ‘’they are in the world, but they are not of the world.’’ This book is a must-read for every believer; it exposes everything that is coming and shows us what we can do to check it.

In this book, you will see what you can do to position yourself for safety when these events begin to unfold. It is a universal truism that every adverse circumstance favours some people, so shall it be! We need ‘’the anointing of the sons of Issachar’’ in this dispensation. The sons of Issachar were men who had an understanding of the times and seasons of life. They knew what Israel must do at every point in time, to maintain peaceful living and prosperity. As you read through this book, you will be imparted with wisdom and power to do exploits in the name of the Lord! (See 1Chronicles 12:32, Psalm 50:14-15, and Daniel 11:32). All mysteries and parables codified in the Bible have been uncovered here; after reading, you will never be the same again!

the forest dames

The Forest Dames is a pulsating story about the devastating effects of war, in which AdaOkere Agbasimalo dwells on the sordid consequences of civil war on humanity and the tortuous effort to achieve normalcy. It features Deze, a young girl with a keen mind, who lived with her parents in a typical African setting and felt the pain of war. As an adult, the memories remain intact, haunting her

the ibo lobby

The scion of the Mbelede-Ogu family, Nwora, in his youth joined the West African Frontier Force to fight, along with the Allied Forces in the second world war. With the war over, he came back home to his village Ogidi-Idu only to find out that his wife Agbomma had had a son in his absence fathered by someone else. The boy was eighteen months old when Nwora came back.

From thence, things started happening. The boy grew up to become a soldier himself, cutting his military teeth in the Congo War. Subsequently, the young man deployed in the Biafran war, every trait of an authentic Warlord.

The story is set in Igbo heartland of Eastern Nigeria. It is divided into three parts.

The Man Called Elizabeth Martins

Oweilade’s mother’s death shatters his world, unleashing a flood of enemies determined to destroy him. He must also contend with a sham marriage, a treacherous brother, paternity fraud, vengeful scheming, and a public eager to see him brought to justice. He tries to stay strong, fighting it all off as best he can, but the forces against him are brutal, complex, and unknown. The harder he fights, the more his troubles multiply, utterly engulfing him—he is disbarred, bankrupted, and sentenced to death for a crime he did not commit.

Yet, as he awaits execution, one obsession consumes him: winning the upcoming presidential election. But just as he plots his survival, letters surface—written in his mother’s hand—suggesting that she might still be alive. And now, to save himself, Owei must first confront his past, beginning with the murder that started it all…

The Man Called Elizabeth Martins is a crime-cum-legal thriller that delves into the murky intersection of power, justice, and survival, offering insightful commentary on class and crime.

the keen mustards

Arewa. Closet beneath the closet but if a mountain can be moved, mustards might be the ones to do it. Size seems irrelevant here, so how about enthusiasm as tough, resilient, opportunistic, and resourceful as a mustard seed? These fiercely told stories are so important. They shed light on what it means to grow up and live queer in northern Nigeria and what it feels like to advocate for queer rights in the north despite the harsh laws stemming from the ultraconservative politics.

Here are stories told with so much life, joy, naturalness, expressivity and representation. Stories of self-discovery, struggles, love and friendship, wins and losses, heartbreaks and adventures. They will make you cry, laugh, giggle and feel all kinds of emotions. This non-picture-perfect anthology reveals how sexuality and gender can exist outside CIS heteronormativity and that everyone can be a star in their own story, a mustard blossoming into a giant oak in their own right.

The Keen Mustards: Navigating Queerness in Northern Nigeria is a timely and necessary anthology of color with a central message that queerness is innate, not learned.

the last secret of prayer

This book is a product of revelation knowledge from the Lord, in conjunction with personal experiences as a prophet in the work of ministry. The motivation to write this book came from the compassion for humanity and enthusiasm to help Christians who pray so much with little or no result to show for it: knowing how frustrating it can be to pray without getting one’s desired results.

As Christians, we are expected to pray without ceasing, yet we have to do it the right way. The Last Secret of Prayer is a practical guide to getting answers when we pray, a handy approach to simple prophetic acts that can accompany the one’s prayers; it is loaded with secret knowledge about the spirit realm, the Angels of God and ordinances of dominion.

The knowledge in this book will indeed renew your fire and deepen your personal encounters with the Lord Jesus Christ.

the magic gown

Join Priscilla whose day is turned upside down when she has to chase after a magic gown that steals her porridge; or best friends Tina and Emily as they excitedly get ready for their school’s costume party; or get as excited as Daniel who can’t wait to meet his new baby sister! An imaginative collection of over thirty tales by a brilliant 10 year old.

the mercy streak

VINCENT OSATOHAN AZETA - a prince, pastor, and patriarch - tells a captivating story of God’s Mercy in this powerful, outstanding autobiography.

This startlingly true narrative follows Azeta’s life from his early years, offering an intimate exploration of the unwavering grace that shapes destinies and turns trials into triumphs. The book weaves through his turbulent relationship with his father, near-fatal accidents, and mysterious events, which become the crucible on which his faith is tested and refined.

Celebrating Azeta’s thirty-fifth year in his journey of faith, The Mercy Streak is a story of redemption, deliverance, and the transformative power of God’s Mercy. Anchored by the truth of Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope,” Azeta’s life unfolds as a living testament to God’s boundless compassion. It will resonate with anyone seeking inspiration, resilience, and a deeper understanding of the ways in which God orchestrates every chapter of our existence.

the past has a voice memory of stone

Finally thriving as a criminal in an infamous rundown city nicknamed The Bottoms, 18-year-old Nyx is forced to leave to rescue her only friend. When she is imprisoned for her damning discoveries she must do everything to regain her freedom, even if that means losing everything she’s ever known.

Loran’s Blade is a mask-wearing commander and a living legend at only eighteen. Coerced into a life at court, he finds that not everything is as simple as death on a battle field, especially when he discovers secrets hidden down dark corridors in court. When the attention of the king lands him on a dishonorable mission, he must decide where his loyalties lie.

When their paths cross, they must discover why they are drawn to each other, or remain enemies. In a world of magic and buried secrets, there is a thin line between normality and danger.

the remains of the last emperor

Haunting, intensely lyrical, its canvas teeming with unforgettable weirdos, The Remains of the Last Emperor is a memorable portrait of the last moments of a mad tyrant and the extraordinary events leading to his final extermination. A spellbinding narrative on power dementia, this novel reveals that not even the most crafty ruler can win against an enraged populace and that a determined people can unseat any tyrant. The book is a powerful political fable from the author of the award-winning book The Year of the Locusts.

the son of the house

The Son of the House follows the experience of Nwabulu, a woman who survives her childhood as an abused housemaid to become a woman in her own right.

When Nwabulu’s father dies, she is eight years old. At that age, she is a complete orphan, having also lost her mother at birth. Nwabulu is left with her stepmother, Mama Nkedilim, who constantly abuses her physically and verbally. One day, when Nwabulu is barely eleven, Mama Nkedilim sends her to Lagos to work as a housemaid for a woman called Mama Emma.

In Lagos, Nwabulu suffers physical abuse from Mama Emma, who uses her to the point of exertion and refuses to send her to school as agreed. Apart from physical abuse, Nwabulu, almost eleven at the time, is regularly raped by Papa Emma. Just when Nwabulu is coming to accept her fate, Mama Emma catches her husband. Mama Emma pours her venom on Nwabulu, wounding her with a knife and almost killing her. Eventually, Nwabulu is sent back to the village, where she returns to a life of chores and curses.

Years later, Nwabulu, an accomplished fashion designer, wife and mother acquires a new client, a wealthy older woman who Nwabulu comes to call Aunty Julie. Nwabulu and Julie come to become good friends. One day, when Nwabulu goes to Julie’s house to deliver her clothes, they are both abducted by kidnappers who demand ransom for their release. While in Abduction, Julie and Nwabulu swap stories.

The Son Of The House won the 2019 Sharjah Best International Fiction Prize Award. 2021 NLNG Prize for Literature.

the spiders web

The Spider’s Web follows the lives of a handful of Nigerian women, focusing in particular on Nnenna Nwakuche, and Ejiro. They are the two main recipients of the violence in the novel.

Nnenna is, in the beginning, portrayed as weak and submissive. She endures abuse inflicted on her by her husband, a clergyman, in order to provide for her parents and to protect her children from his cruelty. Emeka, her husband, values Nnenna only as a sexual object and a caretaker for his home. To her friends, Nnenna is the perfect woman. She is kind, considerate and can balance her life with her role as the loving wife of a clergyman. But slowly, the problems in Nnenna’s life start to show themselves. Tension creeps in, and it becomes clear that Nnenna is stuck with a loveless pastor against her better judgment. Her devotion and love for her family cause her to stay in one place a little too long – a mistake which may well prove fatal.

There’s Ejiro. In the 1980's, skinny, ugly, dirt-poor Ejiro, 14, runs away from her family's apartment to escape her lecherous father's drunken advances. Down and out, she hooks up and falls in love with Jayjay, a cute boy who's a few years older--and who turns out to be a monster: a pimp who forces her into a whorehouse, and then takes her for a disastrous abortion (she nearly dies and is forever sterile) after she becomes pregnant with his child in a pitiful attempt to force him to marry her. Naturally, all Ejiro can think of is revenge.

Nnenna and Ejiro, form a deep bond; their suffering brings them together in a strong solidarity. Through fate, they become fast friends, quilting together, offering advice to each other, and offering mutual aid over the years. When Nnenna mourns her child and her husband’s betrayal, her friend nurses her wounds and gives her comfort.

She unravels the complex threads of family, identity, and desire that shape a woman's life, even as she begins to create a new one.

the spirit of danfo

THE SPIRIT OF DANFO is a story of class, power, the legacy of civil war, and maverick gods in Nigeria.

In DANFO, Ebulu, a brilliant student, longs to restore his mother, Nkoli, who was ostracised by the village at his father’s death. Ebulu makes a tragic mistake and tempts fate by switching majors from medicine to philosophy. The choice is the first mistake in a chain that imperils his family and promising career. The gods are saboteurs. Ebulu will learn hard lessons on the streets of Lagos, where the pace is set by the city’s pushy, death-defying, and improvisational danfo drivers.

DANFO is an intimate portrait of Nigerian city life, illustrating the resilient kindness and humanity of everyday people like Binta and striving to capture the voice of Lagos—most dialogue is in local patois, including Yoruba and Igbo—while aiming a critique at the city’s notorious patronage and corruption

the square pegs

This is the story of three ambitious young men: a scientist, an artiste an a writer who were raised in backgrounds but through different circumstances had their paths crossing one another. Along the way, they were confronted with obstacles. Some of these obstacles were life threatening and some others resulted in painful losses.

This is a story that combines thrills, frills, pains, humour, ardour and defiance in a manner that unfolds the twists and turns.

the travails of a first wife

Razinat Mohammed teaches African Literature, Comparative Literature and Gender Studies at The University of Maiduguri. She has published a collection of short stories, Love Like a Woman’s and Other Stories which won the maiden edition of the ANA/Lantern Books Prize.

thorns in my boots

In this powerfully wrought work of fiction, Ojo Makanjuola Stephens tells his own story. Of how he tries to rise from the ashes of poverty. He becomes an army officer, only to discover that life was not done dealing with him yet.

Seven years later, after having to Prison on a false charge, after having seen his beloved mother move to the edge and lunacy, he begins to see a light…

beads of gold beads

through the window of a sandcastle

times thoughts and ideas

tribe and prejudice

vaults of secrets

In one story, a conscience takes it upon itself to keep prodding its principal until she tells the truth about the paternity of her four children. In another story, a woman cannot live with the result of her promiscuous lifestyle. In the title story, Vault of Secrets, a man has a special gift of walking into places at the most inopportune times. In another story, a woman facing the death penalty relives the story of a friend who has already suffered the same fate. In yet another prison story, a man comes to terms with his complicity in activism gone wrong.

The stories in this collection flirt with the limits of freedom and bondage, they are a means with which Olukorede Yishau examines the nature of man and his ability to choose; more so man's ability to live with the choice he has made.

village boy

Thrilling, funny, irresistible and full of suspense, Village Boy is not just a real life saga of a poverty-stricken boy who overcame incredible obstacles and prevailed against all odds. It is the inimitable and absorbing adventure into village life in southern Nigeria, especially AkwaCross States. For adults, it is a nostalgia to relish. For the younger generation, this is not just a breezy window to the 60s and 70s, but the veritable binoculars to trace the footsteps of their parents and grandparents, in the proverbial good old days. And for teachers and students in secondary and tertiary institutions, this is a study in creative writing. Unputdownable.

viral load

Kayode Oguntebi’s Viral Load is a poignant narrative of various discourses, of the simple and predominant things that make up the trajectory of the African post-colonial experience. Tunde Lewu, a young Nigerian from a rather challenging middle class reaches a breach in his expectations when he realises that he has HIV from forgotten escapades, but this story isn’t only about Tunde Lewu. It is a story that intercepts the realities of military incursion into politics, the involvement of the western powers in contributing to the paragraphs of aid and the establishment of social organisation.

Lewu is only a character who navigates and engages other characters in the global sphere that are looking for answers to personal, social and economic preponderances. The health of the protagonist in Viral Load is subtly linked to the health of Africa. The health of a family shattered into specks of darkest brilliance props up unpalatable dissatisfaction that transcends the present and morphs into the novel’s future. This makes the author attempt a new proposition for a plot of this nature while retaining a flow from flashbacks and imaginations.

Kayode Oguntebi’s debut novel is full of promise. His futuristic narrative of what Africa would be when Africa leaders turn their paradigms towards improving the lives of the people. What you will find in the Viral Load is the cosmopolitan Africa capable of engaging the rest of the world as it presents its own cultural solutions packaged in a more acceptable, and verifiable quality.

waning strength of government essay on nigerias governance

In Waning Strength of Government, Obaze draws on twenty-three of his various speeches, policy briefs, lectures and op-eds, to render exploratory essays that dissect some common patterns and trajectories that point anthetically to factors and conducts, which ought to constitute the strength of government, but don’t. In so doing, he unmasks the prevailing weaknesses and waning strength of government - the attendant consequences, and their prevalence and implications for Nigeria.

Such developments, with the attendant reversals, some nondescript and some dramatic, but replete with absence of resilience, leads the author to assert that democracy, “once characterized as probably the greatest expansion of freedom,” has come under assault from within its ranks, as shifts in geopolitics combine with ascendancy of non-state actors to undercut democracy. Cognizant of the suggestion that the democratic system as conceptualized, has not just worked as expected, but is rather dysfunctional, the author asserts that nowhere is this consideration more evident and concrete than in Africa, Nigeria included.

we are all biafrans

In this provocative book, Chido Onumah argues that many, if not all, of the problems of Nigeria are rooted in the structure of the country. He makes a case, as he did in his previous books, for the socio-political restructuring of Nigeria. He argues that the country needs to engage episodic political convulsions that threaten its very foundation, including Biafra, June 12, Boko Haram, the “National Question”, citizenship rights, and “militocracy”.

In We are all Biafrans, Onumah takes on Nigeria’s indolent and reactionary ruling elite – civilian and military – and their allies, as well as bandits in uniform, scoundrels posing as statesmen, and conservative ideologues, religious bigots and ethnic chauvinists posing as patriots. He raises fundamental questions: What is Nigeria and who is a Nigerian? If Nigeria is a federal republic, what constitutes or should constitute the federating units? He posits that the different manifestation of Biafra may well be a metaphor and, to that extent, we are all Biafrans as long as we seek to confront the clear and present danger.

we wont fade into darkness

The past and future of Nigeria comes to a head in We Won’t Fade into Darkness. The common thread in these stories, indeed the only reason why every Nigerian pulls out of sleep to face the countenance of life every morning is hope.

what can words do

What Can Words Do? Everything that a compelling compilation of poems can do.With his generous and emotional words, K. I.

Samson opens the reader’s mind to the challenges he will not evade: his rage when facing oppression, family and environmental concerns, social injustice, violence and war, the torments of love…His collection of poems rings like a poet’s progress through life, until he reaches the ultimate climax of his spiritual quest. It is sharp, forceful and literate. Simply riveting.

- Brigitte Poirson Poet, teacher and promoter of African Poetry

Kukogho Samsom’s poetry resonates with a soul that is as trenchant as it is alluring. And it is delivered with aplomb and a finesse that is typical of accomplished poets.

- Abubakar Adam IbrahimAuthor of The Whispering Trees

There is no doubt that Samson is one of the emerging voices in poetry. His poems treat contemporary issues in a meaningful, interesting and incisive manner. He is one poet to watch in the years to come.

- Chinyere Obi-Obasi Finalist NLNG prize for literature

whered you go

WHERE ‘D YOU GO is a collection of short stories about terrorism in Northern Nigeria. From Captain Shola and his men, who are ambushed by killer herdsmen while on patrol and need to hold their ground, to a retired Special Forces officer who leads his men to protect his village and its environs from killer herdsmen; to Lieutenant Colonel Abel, whose team had to extend their tour by two days to escort the Senate President’s daughter to an IDP Camp and then wait out an assault by Boko Haram insurgents; to Kunle Pierce who is a CIA operative, but comes to avenge the murder of his brother-in-law by the Boko Haram sect; to the Corps members caught in a post-election violence and fight back; and then there is Halima, an abducted girl from Chibok who suffers from Stockholm syndrome, and tries to settle down to normalcy after her release with some other girls.

The stories are action-packed, depicting loss, justice, vengeance, bravery, courage under fire, sacrifice and patriotism.

within their reach

paschal dozie onyemaechi

women of the north

The Arewa Anthology is a collection of stories from northern Nigerian women. It highlights the highs and lows of being a woman from different aspects of Arewa life: as daughters, friends, wives, sisters, and mothers.

Fareedah Mohammed Munir writes about health, culture, and education. She has a bachelor’s degree in Biological Sciences from Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey. Fareedah’s first published article was a class assignment in high school. Since then, her articles have been published in newspapers and online platforms. She also indulges in teaching, photography, painting, poetry and activism.

Fareedah was born in Iraq and has lived in Nigeria, Libya, Venezuela, Burkina Faso and Turkey, where her interest in different cultures flourished. She has three children: Muhammad, Omar and Nafisah.

yoruba boy running

In this book, Bándélé is turning to history for inspiration. Like Burma Boy, which drew on Bándélé’s father’s stories, Yorùbá Boy Running was partly inspired by the history of Bándélé’s great-grandfather, who, like his protagonist, Samuel Ajayi Crowther, was formerly enslaved.

At the age of 13, the real-life Crowther was captured with his entire family and most of his village by Fulani slave raiders, taken to the slave barracoons on Eko island, or Lagos, as Portuguese merchants named it, and eventually sold off to transatlantic slave traders. The slave ship, bound for Brazil, was captured by British navy boats, and Crowther was set free. He was settled in Freetown, Sierra Leone, which was founded for returned enslaved men and women.

What Bándélé brings to this well-known story is his ability slowly and painstakingly to build his protagonist’s character, not just as the public figure known to every schoolchild in Nigeria – the first black man to be ordained a bishop by the Anglican Church of England, the first African to earn a degree from the University of Oxford – but also as a father, a son, a husband and a citizen. The book paints a vivid picture of an emergent Lagos, with its slave markets and its vibrant Saro (returned slaves) community; its king, Dosunmu, was forced by the British to sign a treaty at gunpoint, ceding away his kingdom for its “protection”.