Poetry / Personal Projects Short Stories

Àkòdì Òrìṣà at sunset, Ile Ife, Nigeria.

ByMoyo Okediji November 29, 2018May 21, 2023

This is the location of the Àkòdì Òrìṣà, the home of the ancestral orisa in Yoruba country.

The curator of the Àkòdì Òrìṣà sent me this picture to inform me of the treat that awaits me when I return to Ile Ife. I’ll be there soon. Soon.

A land without hurricanes, wildfires, tornadoes.

No earthquake, no flooding, no landslide.

The land is so fertile, you can farm all year round.

Drop a coin on the ground, and it sprouts gold.

Oh. my home.

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Short Stories

Africans living in voluntary and compelled exile

ByMoyo Okediji February 3, 2020May 21, 2023

Africans living in voluntary and compelled exile:

Do we deserve the “comfort” of exile, if we are only concerned about the comfort of our immediate families?

We all realize that a country like Nigeria has become a lion’s den, and many of the citizens feel trapped inside it.

We realize that many of us escaped with nothing in our pockets. I left with only $98 in my pocket in 1992.

Short Stories

Sháyó Philosophy

ByMoyo Okediji October 7, 2022May 21, 2023

Yesterday we met again to see if they had hot pepper soup at the local African joint.

Logically, when these simple folks enter a pepper soup joint, it is like Ṣẹ̀lẹ́ enter spirit: matters get philosophically historical like magicadabra.

“We are in October again,” I said, just because the bottle of stout looked chilled.

Nigerian Experiences Short Stories

19 years

ByMoyo Okediji February 15, 2018May 21, 2023

I was 19 years old in 1975 and an undergraduate studying painting at the University of Ife when my friend, Augusta Akusu-Ossai, took this picture of me.

The attire I’m wearing in the picture is typical of what I always wore in those days: a long adire (batik) top that I designed and sewed myself, and the baggy pants of that era.