Akinwumi Isola.
Akinwumi Isola (1939-2018).
One of the greatest.
The only Honest Man
Interested in some of my published works?
Follow Me
Similar Posts
SONG OF THE BANDIT 1: The Stupid Man
“Ina jin yunwa, Sule,” said the short, stocky man holding the cellphone.
“You are always hungry,” hissed the tall one. “Yaro will soon be back. Then you can eat yourself silly. I only need a cigarette. Really, really. bad. If I don’t have a smoke soon, walahi, I will kill this stupid man. He makes me jittery with his stupid coughing. If he coughs one more time, walahi, I will blow off his head.”
With his heavy boots, he delivered a severe kick to the fellow sitting on the ground. The blow caught the man in the ribs.
The three of them were directly under the shade of a large mango tree, its huge branches drooping from the weight of fruits hanging all the way from the top to the lowest branches.
ENGLISHMAN IN BENIN CITY: (Part Thirty-Three).
Madam Ngu looked at my most recent painting and from the expression on her face, I could see that she did not like it.
She sat on the big chair in the center of my studio in the Ekenwan campus. I had arranged my paintings around the wall as she requested, ready for her critique.
“Muyo,” she said, “you need more life drawing classes.”
“Yes, madam,” I responded.
CAMPUS TALES
CAMPUS TALES
She said, “I’m certain I’m not a C grade material,” she complained to me. “During my School certificate exam, I scored A grades in most of my courses, and was admitted to the university. Once there, I attended all the lectures, studied really hard and was always ready for the exams. But then, whenever I got my scripts back, I always scored a C grade. I became curious and confused because my friends who did not study, partied throughout the semester and paid no attention to classes, always scored A and B+ grades.”
Last night, I went to get some fruits at the groceries.
Last night, I went to get some fruits at the groceries.
As I returned, there was an unusual line at the intersection with a gas station.
Rather than wait, I cut through the gas station and joined the road to my house.
Immediately, a police car followed me, it’s light flashing like it was Christmas, commanding me to pull over.
ENGLISHMAN IN BENIN CITY, 1981 (Part Nine)
Madam Ngu finally cornered me in the buka.
If I had any inkling she was coming to that buka that fateful day, I would rather have starved than be found dead there. She had been looking for me for weeks. And I had been evading her. I was trying to break free of her influence and she was trying her very best to ensure that she stamped herself into my art, my being, my style of creating, and my idioms of expression. She had studied at the Royal College in London and was trying to make me a master draughtsman who painted in the European fashion. And I was a radical looking for a way to break out of the western mold of painting.
AFTER THE CIVIL WAR
AFTER THE CIVIL WAR
When the civil war officially ended in Nigeria in 1970, a different type of civil war began.
It is what you may describe as the asymmetrical civil war: the war by the desperate and poor against all others in the country.