IMAX'S CORNER

Eid Mubarak to all my beautiful Muslim brothers and sisters. I pray this season brings you nothing but joy and overflowing happiness, but I can't say that much for the women right now in Ozoro, Delta State, who are being harassed, raped, and molested all in the name of "tradition and culture." No matter how much we try to defend our dear African culture, time and time again it proves to be very patriarchal, oppressive, and taunting for women. We don't hear enough about "culture" or anything from these cultural enthusiasts, except when it's to tell a woman what to do, how to dress, how to speak, and everything in between. I don't know what separates a woman from a domestic animal in the eyes of some people. And then when women speak up, they say we are "angry," a bunch of "angry feminists." I am angry, and you should be too. Are these reasons not sufficient enough to be angry or bitter, even?? If you hear of things like...

Could you do me a little favour before we enter this piece? Play 21 by Ayra star, not too loud, just at the perfect tempo to continue reading without distraction. Now that that is done, let's get to business. It's the 9th of December, 2025 at 7:45 and I'm officially 21, yessssss, 21. I am legal everywhere. It's a bit surreal because I was 16 like a minute ago, and at 19 I was so afraid to turn 20 because it meant I was getting old but now I am 21. Every year brings testimonies for me and this year is no different so let's go down (or up) memory lane.  I met someone at the beginning of this year, we'll call him the man I met turning 21.  It must have been the morning of January 4th on my way back to Lagos, alone, after Christmas. Sitting in the back of the Sienna, sulking over my phone that had fallen two days before, reflecting on what a time I had during the holiday and how much I hate good byes. Maybe I was extra emotional because it was the first ...

 Merry Christmas La Familia! I pray the abundant joy that comes with this season never ceases from your lives. Typing this is a bit uncomfortable for me because I have nail on (I wonder how bankers do it), but I'll do anything for you. Plus I have been putting off writing for some days now. I didn't start writing to feel smart, I started writing to express myself properly. But  these days that has been a little hard for me maybe because I am searching for a perfection that doesn’t exist. And that search shouldn't stop me from sharing my heart with you, it's currently 13 minutes to 10 p.m., and I have noticed inspiration usually hits me at night no thanks and more blames to a certain someone from Oraukwu, Anambra state for turning me into a night owl. Don’t ask questions.  It's my first Christmas without my mum, and probably the first December in my life I didn't travel to Illah or see my grandpa. I don't know how to feel. I don't feel bad but...

I always said I’d save this story for Forbes, but I’ve been AWOL for too long. So take this piece as my apology. Sometimes you hear a song and wish you could go back to the very moment you heard it for the first time, nostalgia does that to you. Well, not this time. I don’t want to relive the first moment I heard CashApp by Bella Shmurda, but it remains what I’d call a canon memory. “Scar her.” Those were the words that greeted me that morning. “Madame, I’ve thought about other solutions, but I don’t want her to have complications in the future. I’m afraid… we have to scar her.” My doctor said apologetically. “Scar her, as far as there is life,” my mum replied immediately. No hesitation. No questions. Just a mother choosing life for her child. I didn’t know how to feel. It meant I would never know my stomach without a scar. At fifteen, that felt huge. But better scarred and alive, right? So I held on to faith. It was the 24th of November, 2020, around 7 a.m at Military Hosp...

Buhari and Charlie Kirk died, and Nigerians reacted the way Nigerians do best; loudly, passionately, and in very different directions. Some were celebrating, some were reflective, some were calling for conscience. Me? I just want to be spared the hypocrisy. You can’t guilt trip people into grief. You can’t force sympathy for someone whose life left more scars than smiles. The life we've lived is a testament whether good or bad to who we are. Death doesn’t suddenly erase who a person was or what they did. It only amplifies it. This isn’t about Buhari or Kirk alone. Their death dragged up a memory for me, one I had felt guilty of over the years. It was the first time I didn’t feel bad about someone’s passing. I was about fourteen or fifteen. My mum tried to soft launch it to me but it didn’t land. I could see how visibly affected she was but it really meant nothing to me and that was my concern. That nothingness disturbed me. It felt cold, heartless, wrong. It didn'...

Abuse doesn't always start with a slap, harassment doesn't always have to be physical, some words cut deeper than knives and Akin knew that. There was no physical proof. So how could I explain that our last trip to Bali felt like walking on hot coal? That every tourist attraction carried a new memory of embarrassment? Jumoke would always say " Ore mi, you don't know how lucky you are, Akin is every woman's dream". What she didn't know, What none of them knew was i was trapped in a nightmare I had no clue how to wake up from.  He placed me in invisible chains. Somehow I found one excuse after another to escape my reality, I'd rather drown in delusion than explain how not-so-perfect my perfect husband was. Maybe if I didn't let all those " jokes" slide while we were courting, my story might be different. Maybe. I hadn't worn shorts in the last three years not because I had outgrew them like I told everyone but because my husband said th...