olufalusi.blogspot.com

Freedom is sweet. Its thought alone fuels that strong desire to break hitherto barriers that have proved stubborn to give way on its path. One of its greatest weakness is its boldness to drop hints of its presumed lofty ambition which is always met with a resistance. Its never far from each of us, we only need to find it. Freedom is many things, but one thing is certain, taking one owns life is not, harming your loved ones, and disobeying rules and regulations of a society is not, else, if we all do, that's a call for chaos. Laws and orders are not meat to deny us freedom of expression but to deal with those hell bent on preventing it to happen. Freedom means different things to different people. To some it is actually being free of any cause to a responsibility and more especially break laws without a corresponding consequence. They kind of resent established authorities they perceive as a measure of control to limit and allow them to do as they want. I once fell into this c...

November looks to be the loveliest month to me though I wasn’t born in November.  After my month, November comes close. Perhaps the beauty of the month is in its pronunciation. I hope to name one of my unborn children ‘November’.  It does sound cool, right? As much as the weather changes in November, something hasn’t changed! I have heard it many times when they say it’s a man’s world, true to it, especially in Africa, it really is. Especially where I come from, the male dominates the society in politics, corporate organizations and many more. It is generally believed the females are better as house wives as it is their duty is to raise the children. In some part of Nigeria, as young as 13 years old they are given up for marriage! This is no fable but a reality check. While commuting to work, I listened to a drama play addressing the issue of child marriage in our society. I was taken aback, what does a thirteen year old girl know about been a wife and mother? A girl ...

I had thought I wouldn't be writing this week, I had made up my mind not too. So what made me come up with this piece eventually? There are one thousand and one reasons not to come up with something, I could say am tired, busy and really have a kind of uncaring attitude. After all, I owe no one any explanation if I publish a story or not. Perhaps you've been in my shoes before, probably your reasons more genuine than mine. Perhaps when you were supposed to pick up that book and read, when you lay on the bed when you ought to be preparing your meal only to be jolted by hunger some hours later, that could have been avoided if only you have ignored that voice of 'No am not hungry'. Something suffers at the long run for every reason we give not to do what is expected of us at the right time. In my case, I would have denied my faithful readers some pleasure they derive from my stories. They will waste their precious data searching for new stories on my blog. My consci...

I remember the day I watched that Will Smith movie 'The Pursuit of Happyness, I was close to tears. If you haven't seen it, I advise you to watch it. Now lets take a deep look at ourselves and consider the present way we live. From the those commuting passengers from one spot to the other, no thanks to the hot demand for Uber these days to construction workers on various sites across the country. There is even a particular profession that amazes me the most. I won't call names here. They suit up wearing beautiful ties, well-polished shoes and driven in brand new cars with the air condition blowing like the harmattan wind but yet they sweat under it. They are charming and beautiful, like they were carefully selected for the job. They are full of niceties but deep down in their heart, they carry an heavy weight. In fact they are unsung heavy weight champions in the weight lifting (lols). You know why? It’s all about 30 billion for the account (as Davido sang in his son...

A question caused me great distress this morning while picking a cab to commute to work. Here it is: why are Africans so unnecessarily aggressive? It all  started from an experience I had while coming to work this morning.The day started well for me with the hamarttan wind whistling behind my house, no doubt I sighed, my favorite weather is here. There is this way it does make me feel. Perhaps, it reminds me of Christmas.Woke up as early as I could, ran around the neighbourhood for some petty things I needed, all done and dusted, I set to sail.  Greetings to the left and right, waving here and there, hopped on a bike and off I got to the main junction to connect with a cab going my route, with no t much time left, I knew was going to clock in late, the thought of deduction from my wages for this offense made me feel quite uneasy knowing the budget at hand and the debts to pay. The least thing I needed that morning was any untoward thing that could lead to a transfer of...

Iya Alakara (The Beans Cake Seller) We call her Iya Alakara (Beans cake seller) because her akara is the best, though she sells other fried foods. Akara is a popular delicacy eaten in Nigeria , it is made from grinding beans,  then mixed with various sauce ingredients and then shaped in the form of a ball before being fried in either a hot palm or vegetable oil. It is eaten with variety of other foods like fried yam, pap and even bread for a proper balance diet. Her spot cannot be mistaken, it is strategically located for commuters and passers-by to easily spot. Walking through my street about three nights ago, I thought hard on my next content for the blog.  Only a hot akara and pap would do at the moment; the thought of cooking would have been  a mission impossible. I have had enough for the day.  So here I was, readily seated right in front of her,  the little smoke emanating from the firewood was not enough to deter me from satisfyi...

Indeed it was the beginning, it did last for a complete two weeks, 14 days, 336 hours, 20160 minutes and 1,209,600 seconds. As each day passed by, I consumed 36 pieces of the drug in 3 days. Days spent having the windows shut, lying for long hours on the bed and eating what you had to eat and not what you actually desire. I looked forward to resuming at work. Seeing my colleagues once again and the ever friendly work atmosphere filled me with joy  but then I began to feel some pains inside my bones, I felt it was due to the cold weather, how wrong I was. Getting up each morning was difficult for me, wondered perhaps it's something else because I vividly remember the pharmacist did try to convince me to buy a drug for treating typhoid. Each time I passed the front of his pharmacy store or saw him, I felt guilty, perhaps I should have listened to him. Every twist and turns in my stomach sent a signal to my senses, either it was true or false, it must be typhoid. Did a research o...