Words matter.
Choose them carefully today.
Don’t use words to hurt others,
however good it might feel to hurt them.
Use your words to empower others.
Use your words like building blocks.
Words are worthy and useful only when you use them
to build a better world.
When you are hurting inside,
especially when you are hurting really awful,
offer words that heal and nurture:
never give up on love
even when others exhibit hate
The Massacre of General Okoro
Is it funny
or merely coincidental
That, as they killed her son,
the mother was dreaming
She was breastfeeding him?
My Dear Child
Before you were born—
if you raised your binoculars,
if you could peep
through the keyhole of life
Would you open the door
and walk right through?
Or would you run back
Teacher: Nigeria means NIGGER AREA. Spell it.
Student: I-T.
Teacher: River Niger means NIGGER river. Spell it.
Student: I-T.
Ghana was named Gold Coast.
The people were smart enough
Two of my work hanging in the exhibitions‘Wole Soyinka: Antiquities Across Times and Place’ in Haiti, curated by Awam Amkpa of New York University.
There is no fear except the one we make up.
The fear we harbor is us.
On this planet, there is nothing to lose.
I turn the same painting upside down, as Iya Afilaka instructed me. And it still remains legible.
Why?
Because we have paid Iba (homage)
to the vagina that is turned
upside down, yet
does not drip