Engineering Ants

A response to the break down of law and order in Igboland.

Sit at Home or Die

A Short Story written by Chuma Nwokolo and Published in How to Spell Naija in 100 Short Stories, translated into Pidgin by Victor Ehikhamenor, and read by Eghosa Imasuen.

Fish

The Public Intellectual as Part-Time Hooker

Podcasts

The Hooker Intellectual

…we spend our lives celebrating Independence Day, on the very anniversary of our reenslavement, unaware that we are lost in a matrix, living in a delusion so deep that we think we are free whereas we are living a loop, chief wardens of our private mental prisons, policing our social, religious, economic and political delusions so well that not only do we reject the red pill that would wake us to reality, we warn those who dare to break our comfortable delusion, in Liam Neeson’s voice, ‘I will look for you, I will find you and I will kill you.’ We took a step on the mile-long road to Freedom, and giving up, built our homes right there, a sprawling refugee camp for slaves. We gave up on freedom, and blocked the road for others. We spend our lives celebrating Independence Day, on the very anniversary of our reenslavement, unaware that we are locked in a matrix, living in a delusion so deep that we think we are free whereas we are living a loop…

The Sweet Delusion of Freedom

(Insert Name Here)
The End comes like a power failure. One moment you are at the party with friends, red rice in right hand. Shouted conversation over music. Suddenly it dies. The music. It is pitch dark. You hear cries around you, but instead of NEPA! you hear your name. Yet, you no longer hold the title deeds to the well-dressed bag of bones and muscle slumped on the sofa, amidst the spilled jollof and wine. All you can do now is rise above it all. And you do. The sound of mourning begins to recede, as does the acuity of the mind with which you articulate your thoughts. At first there is exhiliaration at this freedom from body, this soulish travel. But even as you soar and grift, drift, you feel yourself begin to kajam- to, to dissipate! You find it so agamsi- so difficult to comp- cont- concentrate. You realise you are kamukar... how to say... losing one faka, one language, gaining another. You feel the first kamaba, the first stirrings of joy but this is not just joy. This is something different, something quieter. Like aramakana. Bonemarrowrest. Yes that's the word. The same Bonemarrowrest interrupted by your birth. And bonemarrowrestfully, you sink into the preternatural darkness whose power failure comes like the End.

(insert Name Here)

The bottom line is that the Problem with Nigeria is not a problem for her leaders. It is their Business Plan.

Ending The Govt Of Leaders By Leaders For Leaders

Based on a Keynote Lecture to the 2019 Benue Book & Arts Festival, Makurdi.  "The war next time is upon us now. The fire we refused to quench when it was burning our neighbour’s house is now a wildfire, ravaging our land. The ‘I’ word, impunity. Ordinary citizens find the reins of public office and give the middle finger to nation: I can do what I like, when I like, without consequence."

The Bleeding Of The Niger, Justice, The Bribecode & The War Next Time

Kayo Bodera had lost his wife in this tale from the short story anthology, How to Spell Naija in 100 Short Stories, Vol. 2,  by Chuma Nwokolo

How to Spell Naija in 100 Short Stories

Lost and Wife

The Zebra Crossing Mystery is a poem from the collection, The Final Testament of a Minor God.

The Zebra Crossing Mystery

the 64th poem in the anthology of 100 poems, The Final Testament of a Minor God, published in commemoration of the centenary of Nigeria's amalgamation.

Chuma Nwokolo

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