IMAX'S CORNER

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...