They promised no girl would ever disappear again.

My new short story, The Offline Girls, is now available to read free on Sona Books.

Set in Nigeria in 2059, the story follows a country where girls are fitted with government-issued safety implants designed to track their location and send an alert when they are in danger.

💌 This post is a full on love fest, where I am being super positive and oh so thankful for my literary community at the Ake Arts and Book Festival 2025.

Ake Arts and Book Festival 2025 has come to an end, but my heart is still full and I will be carrying this fullness for days to come. I’m currently wrapped in that warm, fuzzy feeling that reminds me, “I’m loved and I am exactly where I’m meant to be.” There’s something about the literary community, the energy, the madness of being surrounded by people who genuinely see you, and it totally reminded me of the only thing that has kept me going this year, friendship and community. My life-saving affirmations that I am here and I am alive.

Which is why, today, I am writing a sort of love letter to the people I have gotten to know, who have shown me what it means to be seen, held, and loved genuinely, with the Ake Festival acting as the backdrop for my confession.

⚠️ This post contains references to sexual coercion, emotional manipulation, and exploitative relationships.

Dating in Lagos has shown me almost everything. I keep telling myself I’ve decentered men. That whatever script society has—about women needing men, marriage being the prize, keeping herself small—doesn’t apply to me anymore. I know better. I am not waiting around for rings or empty declarations. I don’t need someone’s son to validate my existence.

And yet, somehow, men still find ways to touch the edges of my life. With their promises, their demands, their selfishness disguised as love. I see the pattern now, I can laugh at it, I can walk away—but that doesn’t mean I escape unscathed. Sometimes I let myself play along, even if it’s just for a moment.

What I have are stories. Words that came too quickly. Desire that punished me instead of holding me. Care that twisted into exploitation. Marriage dangled like bait. None of these men are the centre of my world. But I still stepped in, wanting to see how far their words could really carry.

⚠️ This post discusses workplace stress, misrepresentation of events, and authority overreach. Take care while reading. This is my personal account based on contemporaneous emails, logs, and documents. Identities and non-essential details have been withheld for privacy.

It’s been a hell of a professional year for me. The one goal I had at the beginning was to upskill—learn more, get better at my craft—and then by next year I’d quit and find another job.

By April, I was already thinking maybe working 9–6 wasn’t for me. I was stressed and tired. There was a lot going on at the office. A lot of drama. A lot of queries. A lot of moments where I’d crash out and say I need to quit this job and just go, because I couldn’t stand the way some people reasoned, how they could only see my fault, never acknowledge they might also be at fault. How I had to keep doing things I didn’t even want to do, being steered in a direction that would leave me unhappy.

Despite all my crash outs, I didn’t really plan to quit. Instead, I built a five-year financial plan to save aggressively so I could bow out for a year or two, find myself and just exist, maybe start my own thing and get retainer clients. I know I can do it, but I also like job security; it’s faster this way tbh, because man, I can be irresponsible when it comes to myself.

⚠️ This post contains references to child abuse, domestic violence, and trauma. Please take care while reading.

I didn’t plan to stay up late on a Monday night, especially knowing I had to be up at 6am.

You know those nights when you’re already tucked in and fully committed to getting some actual sleep? Especially after days of barely resting, cause of the endless cycle of commute to and from the office. That was the kind of night I was having. But then I made the mistake of opening TikTok. Just for a bit, I told myself.

Lies from the pits of hell. Guess who got sucked into doomscrolling, completely forgetting that time isn’t her friend. Moi.

For some reason, my For You Page decided that was the perfect night to dive into True Crime TikTok. And me? I can’t look away when a story starts. My curiosity goes into overdrive.

While Àànú Ifẹ́ is still months away from being published, before readers dive into the story, I want to offer readers a poetic introduction to the emotional core of the story with three poems I’ve carefully crafted: 'Lost in the Void,' 'A Quiet Unfolding,' and 'Return to Self.' These poems reflect the protagonist’s journey through loss, the search for renewal, and the path to finding wholeness.

Without giving away the plot, these verses introduce the central themes of isolation, transition, and community that shape and propel the story forward.

About three weeks ago, I participated in a fun flash fiction writing contest in my office, with a couple of my colleagues. The rules were simple. One hour to write a hundred words story that begins with the words “The floor tastes like…”