Poets From Nigeria

"Taming our speech, mind and heart would contribute in achieving peace in the society, thus promoting it at a global level"

"Children orientation, mind shifting programme, These projects have greatly impacted on the lives of many children and youths in the society."

"“Be ready at all times. Think small but look at the bigger picture. Understand whom you are. Dress the path and turn up for respect so you can be taken seriously. Act the path. Be the Boss. Do the job. Choose your battles and be kind to your staff and colleagues. Hold on to your Faith and your God, keep your family front at peace and be ready when the opportunity knocks.”"

"“We need to have a group of writers who will form a watering hole for writers to bounce back on, a group that can serve as a link between the publisher and a good writer.”"

"‘We want to hear about your values as a political candidate. What are you doing that is newsworthy? Have you learned to write press releases? Learn how to write a copy. Learn how to request for press coverage. This is how to get votes, by appealing to the people.”"

"What we want in Africa is social transformation. It is not about warring with men, the reversal of role, or doing to men whatever women think that men have been doing for centuries, but it is trying to build a harmonious society."

"The liberation of women is conceived as the desire of women to reduce men to housekeepers. Since most men despise manual work for feudal and middle class reasons, women’s liberation is feared as an effort by women to ‘feminise’ men, that is, degrade them."

"The transformation of African society is the responsibility of both men and women and it is also in their interest."

"My mother took her place very firmly as a leader in many structures, though in the"

"“We have many young persons with stories to die for. There is brilliant writing from everywhere. It’s a renaissance.”"

"“One of the things you must be is confident and well researched. Know a little bit about everything. And although I did not plan to be a Journalist as a young girl, my socialisation helped.”"

"“Don’t do your body, it can only take you as far as the bed. Do your brain, it can make you the President of Nigeria. You need to have a functional brain in your head. Pay attention to all you can learn. Work over and beyond the call of duty. Research to be on top of your game. Read. Research. Read. Take up every assignment with dedication, passion, deep-seated hunger to learn. Be tried, tested and proved by your superiors. You can make your space matter.”"

"We must remember that there were radical outlets for women in indigenous African cultures, and in our colonised societies, contact with Europe brought with it the inheritance of European movements and social concerns. So there were inheritors of the British suffragette movement in Nigeria, while my mother, a teacher's college professor, was a practitioner of many of the radical ideas of the Victorian period about women. My perceptions of gender hierarchies were sharp growing up. I was raised with a male sibling as well as female and male wards living with my mother. I was much of a tomboy then. I did not have any important position in my nuclear family of five children, meaning I was neither first nor last boy or girl. No position! I could also see that boys had advantages, even though my progressive mother made all the boys in her house, including my other brothers, do housework. They learned to sew, knit and embroider! She also made us share the housework with the house help or servants. She said her children could not grow up spoilt while others learnt to be effective and efficient. So from very young I had a healthy attitude towards class differences, having been raised to respect everybody in the work they did.Gender hierarchies were so sharp for me that I always wondered as a pre-teen whether marriage was a good idea. Many folktales and other forms of informal educational modes existed to help prepare women for accepting male dominance in marriage. I saw marriage in the Christian world I was in as restrictive, though my mother was a suffragette, if there was any such thing. I say "Christian" world because I could also see that women in the local, unWesternised society around us had different values and freedoms. Within Yoruba marriage, the woman was culturally expected to defer to the husband. Yet Christian marriage restricted Yoruba women of my mother's generation in an unusual way (dress, freedom of movement, association, and gainful work outside the home beyond the financial control of the husband). There were dignifying and structurally important roles for women in Yoruba culture, even within its patriarchal assumptions, and some would say, androgynous cultural practices and cosmology of the Yoruba, expressed in the philosophical fount to the culture that Ifa Divination Poetry with its thousands of verses. One argument is that women were weighted equally with men as human beings, but had to defer to men in certain contexts, while men deferred in others."

"The oppression of women, economic or personal, is not solely a White-Black Race confrontation although the oppression of Black Women is deeply tied to the variable of race in the history of imperialism."

"“People are looking for headlines and it doesn’t matter whether Nigeria burns.”"

"“I got into media by accident.”"

"“If you speak well, and have great communication skills, you’re half way there. However, someone with great communication skills may be a disaster at customer service.”"

"“Every woman who works must find creative ways to ensure she is doing her best to juggle them well.”"

"“My toughest challenge was with the toxic environment, strange fellows, and the poor camaraderie in a lot of instances.”"

"“Women issues are not as hot on the front burner as they ought to be. I doubt that it affected the increase in the number of women writers. Most literary men do not tell out stories well. It is time for the women to pick up the gauntlet.”"

"“You will fail miserably! If you’ve not been reading, you can’t write well.”"

"I believe this was their way of ensuring we understood our heritage, where we came from, who we were and what we stood for. I think that is really key for any child to know who they are and be proud and confident in that.""

"Men and women complement each other in a home and in the society at large. God has given each a place, a role and responsibilities. It does not make one any better than the other or give any the right to lord it over or ill-treat the other."

"Our writers must continue to educate our people and promote the cause of nation-building by producing powerful, inspiring and enduring works of art."

"Bombing the Terrorists with planes from the skies is not enough, we have to go to the source of their sinning souls and bomb them, condemn them and shame them, with all the power of our pens, our computers, our smartphones and our creative works!"

"....The prestige African literature enjoys globally today is a result of the ground-breaking work done by Achebe (especially with his Things Fall Apart) and a few other writers like him."

"In a society, a woman should be able to tolerate others, work with others and maintain a very humble attitude towards others but at the same time be herself."

"My mum always taught us not to expect favours but to work hard to make our way in life and to aim to get things through merit."

"I think, when you grow up as a black person or an African in a black and African country, identity isn’t something you are particularly concerned about. I only became conscious of racial identity when I moved to the UK and started to understand the subtle and sometimes not so subtle ways in which this compounds the way you are seen and how you move through the world."

"I think hosting events are a side hustle but everything else part and parcel of my career. I think when you see things as a side hustle then they become that. Journalism, poetry and documentary film are all full time careers I juggle and I put the same soul, energy and resources into each and every one."

"I am inspired by the different ways that women stand up for themselves, and are constantly navigating through the waters of patriarchal traditions to take up space."

"My work is also very minimalist aesthetically, which is an extension of me. I think as an individual I am constantly living and dealing with a myriad of complexities, so I crave and need simplicity to function and I think those same principles drive my work."

"There are a lot of incredible artists doing amazing work. Unfortunately, there aren’t many spaces for them to showcase the incredible work they do.I wanted to create something that would illuminate the works of these individuals and their creative process. So as a lover of all things art and culture, I thought it was time to have a go at a video interview series and thus Culture Diaries was born."

"Energy is a real thing, so whether it’s with people or what you read it comes with the spaces you enter. You allow yourself to absorb those things and they will have an impact on you. If you are consuming a diet everyday of negativity and danger, and thoughts that everyone is out to get you, this is all that will consume you. Even when you are saying your prayers this is all that is going to consume your prayer pattern. You are going to keep fighting demons in your prayers."

"I worry about myself because I have too many dreams and ambitions. The future includes writing and creating plays, films and documentaries, touring the world as a performance poet, curating contemporary art, hopefully presenting more television and more journalistic work as well. I hope to continue supporting the work of the Mirabel center and hopefully start my mentorship workshops for teenage girls."

"I don’t do macho, hard man, inexpressive, or dictatorial. Partnership is important to me."

"So at 16 I decided to be a journalist, that way I could tell the stories of people and bring it to public attention. However now I think I am still telling stories but just in different mediums. For me it is still a way of helping people seek some kind of justice or resolution or at least it will be the beginning of it I hope."

"I hope to use this form of story telling as a way to humanize, educate, highlight some of the healthcare inconsistencies and stigmatization of people living with various illnesses."

"It is always very easy hide with poetry. The bones of some of the poems were written as part of a month-long challenge that I was part of in a closed Facebook group. Everyday we got a prompt and had to produce a poem before midnight. It was quite grueling, and I don’t think any of us finished the thirty days but it really opened me up emotionally. I also wrote many of the poems traveling."

"In all the challenges women face in this environment, feminism means way too many things to me, but two words that encapsulate all those things would be freedom and choice."

"Getting to host the Airtel Touching Lives television show has to be one of my high points. I can’t really think of any low points because I tend to just see every experience as something to grow from. I am also a person that rolls with the punches so I don’t have very much time to notice low points as I just keep it moving."

"We can now line up along with our countrymen and women of honour and share the rights to be remunerated even while we are "resting", we can now ask for Arts Endowment fund, to encourage the development of talents and the industry, especially now our government is interested in our skills. As plants grow on from the soul, so films grow from stage."

"Inverse of the word live is evil."

"Reading, therefore, is a co-production between writer and reader. The simplicity of this tool is astounding. So little, yet out of it whole worlds, eras, characters, continents, people never encountered before, people you wouldn’t care to sit next to in a train, people that don’t exist, places you’ve never visited, enigmatic fates, all come to life in the mind, painted into existence by the reader’s creative powers. In this way the creativity of the writer calls up the creativity of the reader. Reading is never passive."

"What hope is there for individual reality or authenticity when the forces of violence and orthodoxy, the earthly powers of guns and bombs and manipulated public opinion make it impossible for us to be authentic and fulfilled human beings? The only hope is in the creation of alternative values, alternative realities. The only hope is in daring to redream one's place in the world - a beautiful act of imagination, and a sustained act of self becoming. Which is to say that in some way or another we breach and confound the accepted frontiers of things."

"If we could be pure dancers in spirit we would never be afraid to love, and we would love with strength and wisdom."

"Be like the tortoise- grow a hard shell to protect your strong heart. Be like the eagle- soar above your pain and carry the banner and the wonder of our lives to the farthest corners of the world. Build your strength. Destiny is difficult."

"Our society is a battlefield. Poverty, corruption and hunger are the bullets. Bad governments are the bombs."

"Responsibility is active. Vigilant. Actions become character and character becomes destiny. . .the moment you see something is wrong, you have a responsibility."

"To see the madness and yet walk a perfect silver line. ... That's what the true story-teller should be: a great guide, a clear mind, who can walk a silver line in hell or madness."