₦airaland Forum

African women have also been pioneering in business. Aspiring young female entrepreneurs today have several role models they can follow such as Ghana’s Esther Ocloo, who pursued the idea of formalising local women’s credit associations and became a founding member of one of the first microcredit banks, Women’s Worlds Banking, in 1979.

According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, African countries have almost equal numbers of men and women either actively involved in business start-ups or in the phase of starting a new firm. And in countries such as Ghana, Nigeria and Zambia, women are reportedly more likely to be entrepreneurs than men.

These changes are evident not only at the grassroots but, to an extent, at the highest levels. Female representation in boardrooms worldwide is very poor, but Africa’s rate of 14.4% is only slightly behind Europe (18%) and the US (17%), and ahead of Asia, Latin America and the Middle East.

Finally, a younger generation of activists is emerging throughout Africa today and redefining feminism from an African perspective. One sees this not only in the work of the African Feminist Forum, which first met in 2006, but also in the work of figures such as novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie who issued a clarion call to women in her video We Should All be Feminist, adapted from her 2013 Ted Talk, in which she explores what it means to be an African feminist. Her book length essay by the same title is found on bookshelves in major cities around the world, and the Swedish Women’s Lobby has given it to every 16-year-old in Sweden to help them think about gender equality.

Feminist discourse meanwhile has become commonplace throughout the continent on websites, blogs, journals, and social media. New feminist novels like Dust by Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor (Kenya), Kintu by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi (Uganda), and Americanah by Adichie (Nigeria) have offered new ways of imagining women.

There are clearly still enormous hurdles for African feminists to overcome in fighting for gender equality. But as they have over the past half a century, Africa’s women activists of today are reshaping not only African feminist agendas in tackling these challenges, but global ones as well.

culled from: http://tushmagazine.com.ng/african-feminism-changed-world/

lalasticala

cont'd

******

Dec 31st, 2016

A whole year had passed and Tochi hadn’t been able to forget the kiss she had shared with him. She still didn’t know his name, a factor that had hindered her from finding him on social media. She had questioned her decision not to pursue an affair with him. Her affairs were usually short and void of emotions. But that kiss had felt different. An affair with him would be difficult to control. She couldn’t trust herself with such a man, she couldn’t put him in that position. She wondered if he had thought about her, missed her, and looked forward to seeing her. She wondered if they would kiss again at midnight.

She looked in the direction of the door as as yet another couple made their way in, into a flurry of air kisses and firm handshakes. Where on earth was he, she thought for the umpteenth time. She sat alone in a corner, glad her husband’s attention was occupied.

At about half an hour to midnight, the stream of guests coming into the hall had thinned out, and he still hadn’t come through. She looked around the room, searching, maybe he had come in from the side door, but she was certain she would have seen him if he were in the room. She walked around the room, careful enough to appear as though she was casually looking around and not desperately searching for someone. She stood by the flight of stairs where they had first met and just stared blankly at the dance-floor, not really seeing.

“Looking for someone?” her husband whispered in her ear.

His voice startled her. She hadn’t seen him come over.

“Huh? What. No,” she laughed nervously. “I’m just looking at what the women are wearing, to see if anyone outdid me,” she winked.

“Then I’m sure you’ve noticed you’re the most beautiful woman in the room,” he replied jovially, kissed her and walked back to meet his friends.

Tochi sighed. Her husband was a good man, he loved her almost to the point of obsession and made sure she had all she needed, but the age gap had always affected their communication. She had never loved him. Nothing he gave her could fill the void she was starting to feel.

She turned once more to the door and sipped from her glass of wine.

When it was almost 12, Tochi slipped outside to the garden, careful not to let her husband notice her. She sat down on the same chair she had shared with him last year, hugging herself. The weather was cold and a cool breeze enveloped her, causing goosebumps on her arms and thighs. She heard footsteps approaching and for a moment she held her breath, willing it to be the person she hoped it was. But it was just one of the security guards patrolling. He flashed a smile at her in greeting and moved on. She stayed on until after the countdown before she went back into the party.

It was 2 a.m. and it was time to go. Tochi said her goodbyes with little interest. She was nursing her disappointment over what’s-his-name not showing up. At some point, she considered walking to the group of men she had seen him with the previous year and asking about him, but how could she when she didn’t even know his name.

After saying goodbye toeveryone that mattered to her husband, they both walked outside to their waiting car.

As she sat beside him, while the driver sped through the night, she stared out the window, watching fireworks go off.They reminded her of the previous year, the kiss she had shared as the New Year fireworks went off. She touched her lips as she nursed the feeling of disappointment in her chest.

Mr Osiobe, as always, had drunk more than was necessary and was tipsy.

“Tochi,” he said.

“Hmmm,” she replied absently.

He took her right hand in his bigger left palm, and held it there. It felt warm and a soft sigh escaped from her lips. He cleared his throat and said in a very serious voice,

“Everything I do, I do for us. I hope you know that.”

Tochi looked at him, confused at first and then slowly, things started adding up in her head. She withdrew her hand from his grip, which suddenly felt cold and turned back to the window. The thought nagging at the corner of her mind all night now took centre stage, and she knew. Her insecure, obsessive husband had somehow gotten wind of her involvement with the lad and he had made sure she would never see him again. Whether he had got him transferred, fired, hurt, or worse; she was sure she would never see the young man again. This wasn’t the first time it had happened.

She sighed again.

cont'd

******

Dec 31st, 2015

Tomiwa dabbed at the beads of sweat that had formed on his forehead as he waited to be let into the party. All year long he had hoped to run into Tochi somewhere. He attended every work function he imagined her husband might be at, but never ran into her. He looked her up on Facebook and Instagram but was greeted private accounts. He had decided that it would be too creepy to follow her social media so instead anticipated the end of year party, where he was sure he would run into her. He had seen Mr Osiobe a number of times during the year, and wondered if Tochi ever told him about their encounter. Tomiwa almost danced when Mr Nnaji invited him to the party once again. He had made sure to stay in the man’s good books all year in order to score the invite.

As soon as he exchanged pleasantries with his boss, he stood at a corner, spanning the vast room with his eyes, but Tochi wasn’t there. She was the kind of woman whose presence announced itself. You didn’t have to look around a room to find Tochi. Her presence was distinguished, it found you.

Disappointed, he took a glass of wine and went to mingle with some colleagues.

It was an hour to midnight and some of the guests had started leaving. Tomiwa had been standing around talking to guys from his office, all the while searching the room with his eyes, willing Tochi to show up. Someone commented on his restlessness and he lied that he had a headache then excused himself to the bathroom. He was washing his hands when an usher came in and handed him a note.

“I’ve been watching you look for me. You’re cute. Meet me behind the sculptures in the garden. You know who.”

He pocketed the note, patted his hair in front of the mirror and excitedly headed out to find the sculptures.

******

Tochi sat on a chair in the garden, waiting for him to show up. She hated the parties her husband dragged her to. He never wanted to come alone, insisting on taking her with him and showing her to everyone like some kind of trophy. She sometimes loved being the trophy wife of a billionaire, but these parties were tiresome. She hadn’t expected to see the young man again this year. She had forgotten his name. He crossed her mind several times over the past year. She had been genuinely offended when he insulted her husband the previous year, but had laughed at the outrageousness of her anger the next morning. She was curious about him, the way one was curious about a baby or a cat. However, she wasn’t going to get involved with him, she assured herself. He was the kind to fall in love with her and get himself in trouble.

Even from behind, Tomiwa thought, approaching Tochi silently, she looked like what whoever had created the word “stunning” had in mind. He suddenly felt very conscious of his own average looks. She heard him approach and stood up to face him. She had on a long blue dress that reached her feet, with a slit in the front that climbed all the way to her thighs. She was effortlessly sexy even with her face looking tired. She held her silver heels in her hand and walked towards him barefooted. Tomiwa thought she had the most beautiful feet he had ever seen.

She stopped right in front of him, looking into his eyes, smiled and said, “I caught you looking for me.”

Tomiwa smiled as well and replied, “Yes.”

She walked back to where she had been sitting and he followed her. She sat down and he sat beside her. She shifted in the seat, facing him and crossing one leg, revealing spotless, smooth dark thighs. Her dark skin shone even in the dark, like she polished it everyday. She reminded him of the pictures of women referred to as “Nubian Queens” that he had seen with flawless dark skin like hers. She ought to be immortalized and worshipped, he thought.

“Penny for your thoughts.” She said, bringing him out of his head.

“I was just thinking that you have really beautiful skin,” he replied sheepishly.

“Oh. Yes.” she said in a tone that made him feel like she was disappointed at his uninteresting train of thought.

“You weren’t in the room, how did you see me?” he asked, eager to change the topic.

She smiled. “I was upstairs with the big boys. CCTV.”

“Oh okay. So I guess you aren’t enjoying the party this year again?” he asked.

She shook her head smiling and they both laughed.

“You know, you can actually just stay home instead,” he continued.

Tochi laughed again. She did that a lot. Short but hearty and infectious bouts of laughter.

“I only attend because my husband can’t attend alone, he needs his woman you know,” she finally replied.

“Ah yes! The husband.

You seem so young, yet …” his voice trailed off. He hadn’t completely thought the sentence through before beginning and now he wished he had said something else.

“You’re wondering why I’m married to someone so much older than me. It’s just 15 years,” she shrugged, “he makes sure I’m happy and he gives me everything I need. I’m comfortable.”

“Are you happy?” he blurted out before he could stop himself.

“Yes. I have everything I want.”

He was going to push on the subject but she spoke first, changing the subject, asking about his life. They had been talking for close to an hour when she covered his mouth with her palm.

“Listen! They’re counting down,” she said with excitement in her eyes.

Later, he would realize that in that moment, as he sniffed in the scent of her perfume on her palms, he had fallen in love with her.

He heard the faint voices of the guests at the party. He didn’t realize so much time had passed.

“… Six! Five! Four! Three! Two! One! Happy New Year!!!”

Removing her hand from his face, she looked at him and said, “You’re supposed to kiss me at midnight.”

And he did.

Tomiwa wasn’t sure whether the explosions were from the fireworks going off around the compound or in his head, but as he kissed her, the world around him exploded. She kissed him eagerly and explored his mouth, searching for secret spots and finding all of them. She placed her hands on his chest while they kissed and he was certain she felt his heart beating wildly. Tomiwa grabbed her waist possessively and kissed her deeper. In that moment, she was his and he relished it. She was the first to pull away, smiling.

“Well, that was …”

“It was magical,” he offered, almost too eagerly.

Tochi smiled and used her finger to trace the outline of Tomiwa’s lips and for a second he thought she was going to kiss him again, but she didn’t. She bent and began wearing her shoes instead.

“I thought about you all year.” he said, standing up.

She looked up at him and smiled.

“I know. I thought about you too,” She said, standing up, “I have to go inside now.”

Her face had lost the excitement it held just minutes ago and was now expressionless.

“Can I see you again soon?” He asked, taking her hands.

“That’s not a good idea, Tomiwa. I’m sorry.”

She kissed his cheek and started walking away before he could object.

By the time Tomiwa could gather his wits and go back into the ballroom, Mr and Mrs Osiobe were saying their goodbyes. Tochi didn’t give him as much as a glance as she strutted off with her hands around her husband’s upper arm.

http://tushmagazine.com.ng/fiction-story-phidelia-imiegha/

“Her glance is that of the fabled basilisk, her voice a siren’s voice, with her voice she enchants, with her beauty she deprives of reasoning, voice and sight alike, deal destruction and death.”

******

December 31st, 2014.

Tomiwa straightened his bow-tie with one hand as the doorman checked for his name on the guest list. He had underarm a bottle of the best red wine he could find at the convenience store down his street. It was New Year’s Eve, every branch of ShopRite would be full; jostling with people in their most festive moods, and he didn’t care to go through the stress of joining the long queues that would form at cash registers. The doorman finally found his name and gestured at him to go in with a smile on his face.

The magnificence of the hall took Tomiwa by surprise and he sucked in a sharp breath as he walked in. He had passed by the hotel in Victoria Island several times but had never had any cause to see its insides. There were tables bearing platters of small chops and bartenders mixing cocktails in every corner, while the elegantly dressed guests stood around in small circles, picking at their plates and talking loudly.

The CEO of the company where he worked, Mr Nnaji, was standing right at the centre, with his beautiful wife greeting the guests as they arrived. Tomiwa approached him uncertainly with a smile on his face that only broadened when he called out his name and held out his hand in a handshake. As they shook, Mr Nnaji thumped his back playfully and beckoned to an usher nearby to take the bottle of wine from him. Tomiwa smiled at Mrs Nnaji as he turned around to join the party but she glanced at him expressionlessly and looked away.

He got some chops and a cocktail and instead of socializing, went to sit alone in an empty corner, almost hidden by a staircase, grateful that he had found a spot to hide and observe in peace. As he picked at the snacks on his plate, he surveyed the entire room, feeling out of place. It was an end of year party meant for the executives, board members, partners and even richer clients of the company at which he worked, but for some reason, his boss, Mr Nnaji, who had taken a liking to him, insisted he attended even though he was merely a tech guy.

Tochi frowned as she sipped from the now warm glass of champagne she had been holding for almost an hour. Beyond bored, she wished she was at home, curling up with a good book. She looked across the vast room at her husband. This was his world, she was merely living in it. She suppressed a mild yawn and decided to find someone to talk to. She swept her gaze around the room carefully and finally spotted a young man seated beside a flight of stairs, obviously trying to be invisible. She refilled her glass and headed towards him. He was handsome and looked a bit naïve and she smiled, thinking he would be fun to tease. He looked confused as she sat beside him instead of going up the stairs like the other people who came his way. She had a smug smile on her face, knowing what her presence around men did. She wasn’t just beautiful, she was strikingly beautiful. She had distinctive features, a pointed nose, big eyes that made people feel like she could see through them and the full lips always covered in red lipstick. She was tall and imposing, confident in the way she walked, head held high, moving her slender body with supple breasts swaying ever so slightly as she walked.

“Hello”, she said as she sat down.

Stuttering, he replied, “Um hey. Nice party right?”

“You don’t seem to be enjoying it,” she paused to drink from her glass, “and neither am I. Boring lot.”

Tomiwa laughed uneasily.

“I’m Tomiwa. I work at Alto. And you?”

“You look too young to be an executive. I’d have placed you as a client.” she said.

“I’m just a tech guy. My boss sort of instructed me to come.” He said, gesturing at Mr Nnaji with a movement of his face. “This isn’t normally my scene.”

“It’s not my scene either. It’s my fifth year attending. They organize these parties annually, you know?”

“Oh! Wow. Are you a staff or a client?”

She made an incomprehensible sound absentmindedly. She was looking across the room at her husband, watching him as he looked around for her; time to go, she thought. She didn’t think he would remember his promise to leave before midnight. She was beginning to enjoy the conversation with the young man beside her. She watched with annoyance as her husband spoke and laughed loudly with his friend who had just arrived. She reckoned that he had had a lot to drink. Maybe too much.

“He’s too loud,” Tomiwa said, startling her out of her thoughts.

“What?”

“Mr Osiobe. The man you’re staring at. He’s always loud like that.”

She turned to face him, feigning indifference. “You know him very well?”

“Not really. He’s the President of Alto. I’ve seen him at the office a number of times.”

Tochi laughed.

“That’s a rather rude thing to say about someone who can make you jobless with the snap of a finger, don’t you think? And at an office party? Careless.”

She stood up and he did the same.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know why I said that. I say stupid things when I’m nervous.”

“I make you nervous?” she smiled sweetly, and turned to leave.

“You never told me your name.”

“Tochi. Mrs Tochi Osiobe.” She said as she walked away.

Tomiwa watched with a sinking feeling in his stomach as she walked to Mr Osiobe, kissed his lips lightly and held his hand as they walked out together. She looked so beautiful, so elegant, and so powerful. He was so sure he had lost his job. She would tell her husband what he had said. He tried to remember if he had given her his name but couldn’t. He drank what was left of his wine and left the party without saying goodbye to the hosts.

read more: http://tushmagazine.com.ng/fiction-story-phidelia-imiegha/

cont'd

Their mother was an abusive mother — she liked to call herself a disciplinarian but she was really just taking out her frustrations on her children. Whenever she had a bad day at the market where she sold second hand clothes, she would verbally abuse them and curse their father. She never told them why she had left their father’s compound or why she hated him so much. She would call him all sorts of names and blame him for everything that went wrong in their lives. When she didn’t have money to buy food or to pay bills, she would lament and curse the day she met him. Sometimes, she would tell Ivie and Amenze that giving birth to them was the biggest mistake of her life.

Amenze was the only solace Ivie had known. They would stay up at night for hours and talk about all the faraway places they would travel to, to escape their mother’s bitterness. They had inside jokes and nicknames; they shared everything and did everything together. People often asked if they were twin sisters. They both went everywhere together, and when Ivie got admitted into the University of Benin, Amenze studied very hard to ensure she also got in two years later. They both had plans of becoming successful women and proving to both their parents that they weren’t useless after all.

When Ivie was in her final year at Uniben, Amenze fell sick. The doctor said her heart was packing up and she needed a transplant. Ivie couldn’t understand how a heart could suddenly pack up. The surgery could not be done in Nigeria and when Ivie heard the amount needed to fly Amenze out for surgery, she almost wet her pants. She went on the internet and searched for heart foundations and NGOs for people needing heart transplants. It would take months for Amenze to get to the top of the waiting lists and according to the doctors, she barely had weeks. After thinking very hard for a solution, Ivie finally came up with a seemingly brilliant plan and happily went to share it with her mother who was at Amenze’s side at the hospital. She told her mother that she would go to her father for help and her mother screamed that it would be over her dead body. Shocked, Ivie asked why and her mother became silent. Ivie tried to get her mother on board with the plan but she blatantly refused and kept insisting that ‘God would provide’.

A week later, with Amenze’s condition worsening, Ivie decided to go to her father on her own. She wasn’t even let into his compound; who would give a strange girl claiming to be the estranged daughter of a rich chief any audience anyway. She returned to the hospital in dejection, lost as to how to save her only sister’s life. The hospital ejected Amenze 3 days later due to lack of funds. Apart from the small deposit made by her mother’s brother, they had not paid a dime. Ivie cried and begged her mother to reach out to her father for help but she refused, and chose instead to borrow from her friends. After borrowing all she could, the money wasn’t even enough for the flight ticket.

The day Amenze passed away was a peculiar day, the sun was shining and rain was falling at the same time; it made Ivie think of elephants in labour in faraway lands. The house was very silent, apart from Amenze’s loud breaths and her (Ivie) own silent sobs. Ivie was massaging Amenze’s head with a wet cloth to bring down her fever when suddenly she had a seizure. Not knowing what to do, Ivie held Amenze, screaming, crying and praying it would stop. It did eventually, but so did Amenze’s breathing.

Ivie blamed her mother for Amenze’s death back then and she still blamed her. She hardly spoke to her after her sister died; talking to her only when necessary, in mono syllables and when her mother, frustrated, finally screamed at her about her attitude, she screamed back at her and said a lot of hurtful things. About a year later, to her utmost relief, she got posted to Lagos for her NYSC. She never returned until now.

A nearby sound awakened Ivie from her reverie. She looked at the watch — 6:45pm — they had to get to the hotel before it became too dark. She got up from the bench she had been sitting on and headed into the dark living room.

“Iye, ma kian kpa. We have to go, it’s getting late.” She said to her mother.

Her mother, reluctant to part with the children replied,

“Ovbiemwen! I don’t know why you won’t stay here, ehn. There’s a lot of room for the three of you.“

When Ivie remained silent, she continued,

“You will come tomorrow abi?“,

She looked very hopeful and for once, Ivie felt sad for her. She truly was old and alone. Still Ivie replied curtly,

“Eho, no, we have to leave very early tomorrow. We won’t be stopping by.”

As her mother averted her face quickly to hide the tears that had just now formed in her eyes, Ivie felt a pang of guilt.

Her mother walked her and the children to the front of the house where the taxi she had called was waiting. After she and the children had hugged and said their goodbyes, her mother tapped her as if to say something.

She looked at her pleadingly and said,

“Ovbiemwen, my child, I know you may still be angry at me over what happened to our dear Amenze. But you can’t desert me like this, you are all I have”

Ivie winced a bit when she mentioned Amenze. They both had avoided the topic during her short and forced phone conversations over the years; the ones where she informed her of her marriage and then the birth of her children, more to fulfil obligations than from the need to share her life’s details with her mother.

Now holding her palms together, as if she was begging, her mother continued,

“Tohan mwen, please forgive me. I wronged you and I failed as a mother but I want to be a grandmother to these children. They are my children. Ivie, ghė gui.”

Ivie stared at her mother for a few seconds, wondering how a mother would rather watch her child die than swallow her pride. Ivie muttered weakly,

“I’ve heard you. The children are tired. Goodnight ma.”

As Ivie made to open the car door, her mother made one last attempt to change her mind.

“I did not kill Amenze, I didn’t kill my child.”, She said weakly.

“You didn’t kill her, but you let her die”, Ivie replied accusingly.

“Stop running away from your mother, Ivie“, she said, finally letting the tears fall.

“You chased me away“, Ivie replied quietly after a brief pause. She then got into the car and it sped off into the night leaving her weeping mother in a cloud of dust.

7 months later, Ivie received the news of her mother’s death and it affected her in ways she didn’t expect. It opened up fresh wounds and she regretted not forgiving her mother when she still had the chance. It dawned on her that she had become exactly like her mother – stubborn, cold and unforgiving.

source: http://tushmagazine.com.ng/inheritance-is-accidental/

“Ovbiemwen, Lahor, bring the children to see me, the end is near.”

Those were the contents of the text message Ivie received a week ago from her mother that forced her to take her children to Ologbo, Edo state, to visit their estranged grandmother. Ivie had bluntly refused to stay at her mother’s place, she chose instead to lodge at a hotel a comfortable distance from the house. She had a premonition that staying at that familiar, old house would awaken the demons she had left behind. The hotel had poor service, poor food, no hot water and rude attendants, but she didn’t care.

Surprisingly, little had changed in the last 10 years since she left Ologbo. The red sand which was everywhere still had the same bright and fierce color she remembered, the families that lived in her street when she was a child still lived there, and the street tap, although now rusted from lack of use or repair, still stood at a strategic point in the middle of the street. Ivie’s mother’s 3 bedroom bungalow remained unpainted and ungated, the same old furniture lying around the living room; a tattered couch and three arm chairs arranged in a semi-circle; even the tiny black and white TV which had gone bad a few months before she left home remained on a small stool at the front of the room, unrepaired. The pots and pans and plates in the dark, warm kitchen, had not been changed. The familiar smell that had enveloped the house all those years ago still lingered, carrying a lot of memories with it. Ivie found herself wondering how ten years could go by with so little changing.

Ivie had spent 3 days in Edo State, taking the children every day to visit her mother but never actually talking to her. She would sit in a corner, allowing her mother and the children talk and play until she decided it was time to go. It annoyed Ivie that her mum still insisted on calling her ‘ovbiemwen’ meaning ‘my child’, a name she had always called her as a child.

On the evening of the 3rd day, Ivie visited her mother with her two children to say goodbye. Approaching the house, she heard a soft, familiar song playing loudly from one of the houses in the street; an old bini song by a local artiste whose name she tried to recall but failed. The song instantly made her feel nostalgic; it was one of her late sister’s favourites back in the day. She felt a lump form in her throat as she held back a sob.

As Ivie watched her mother tell her children ancient Edo tales and sing songs she had sung to her as a child, the memories of her childhood which she had tried so hard to forget for years came flooding back & she felt an overwhelming feeling of nostalgia, again. She felt her eyes brimming with tears and quickly excused herself to the veranda. It was almost 6pm and dusk was already beginning to set in; the chickens that moved out in groups at dawn to search for food in the streets and in dustbins had already returned to roost. Ivie hugged herself tightly, only just noticing that the cold breeze had caused goose bumps to form on her skin. The familiar sound of men laughing and talking loudly at a nearby beer parlour and of women loudly conversing in their backyards while cooking dinner transported her decades back. She had lived in this compound for twenty years; more than half of her life. This was where she had grown up and shared a life with her younger sister, and suddenly, the reality of her sister’s death hit her harder than it had in years. Unable to help it anymore, she burst into silent tears.

Ivie was raised by her mother, along with her late sister, Amenze, in abject poverty in this house. Their father, now dead, was a prominent titled chief, who married dozens of wives, who in turn bore him scores of children. When Ivie was barely 3 years old, shortly after Amenze was born, their mother left their father’s compound and brought them here to stay in the house she had inherited from her grandmother, so there was very little she could remember of her life in her father’s house. She only saw her father on the local TV channels, ITV and EBS when he either hosted or attended events. The only time she had seen him physically was when, against her mother’s warning, herself and Amenze attended his lavish birthday party in Benin. She struggled through the crowd to get close to his seat, expecting some kind of recognition, willing him to look at them and say, “Oh! There you are my daughters; I’ve been looking for you.“ But Chief Imade had looked right through her, and when she and Amenze tried to go further, his huge bodyguards warded her off. They both returned home in disappointment, the kind of disappointment that numbed the pain of her mother’s lashes as she flogged her later that night for disobeying her orders.

more read on: http://tushmagazine.com.ng/inheritance-is-accidental/