In all my teaching experience, in Suruleria University and elsewhere, I have never heard of the chronicles of an academic career to rival that of Andrew Zubair in its ability to inspire. It is the story of a young man who found out that doing what was just enough was never going to be sufficient…

They’d run off every girlfriend he’d ever had in his life, and had fought him valiantly each time he’d wanted to settle down. They’d failed when it had come to Danai. She had a strong fighting spirit of her own, and had fought together with him for their love and their life....

He began to find love elsewhere, and not where he expected. She was still in Law School and she said she was unready for anything called marriage. She said she loved him, especially his perceivable diligence, but she was unready. He said he would wait for her to even start practicing her law, she said he should not bother. She did not know if she would be ready, then...

My journey home was uneventful until I stumbled on a group of policemen. They had mounted a roadblock at a roundabout. I was sure the blockade was illegal because the group was so concealed, that I nearly walked through it before a voice ordered me to halt. I knew instantly I was in trouble...

I had been warned that city people were conniving. She absolutely couldn’t be one of them. Conniving people were rude and unkind. She had woken me up and offered to help me - that is a sure sign of kindness, right? Lamely I tagged behind…

She rushed him to the hospital. She would seek orthodox remedies for her husband. She also sent for her father. He would consult a Babalawo, to seek the source of his ill health and if possible, appease the gods to intervene. She was shocked when the doctor announced that her husband had AIDS...

Do the dead speak with words, serrated by syllables as is known of walking figures? Are words thrown up, like mines, from relegated sepulchers in the manner of whispers heavier than the songs of heroes? Do they crack shells of obduracy, and, with light strides, seek out change; illuminating, with the speed of rays, the path to progress and the skeletons that had been out of sight?

I knew my siblings had not been too happy about my decision to come back to Nigeria when I finished my master’s program in Canada.  They could not understand how I could give up the opportunity to live abroad, an opportunity people prayed for, queuing up at embassies for visas and giving testimonies in church about…

The piano was the finest and most comforting thing in the loneliness of our big house. My fingers usually galloped out of it confused sounds and chords and chaotic arpeggios. But not so when Munachi’s gifted hands lifted forgiveness and sorrow and complexity out of the dark rooms of the piano...

The strain of doubt that is often cast like a spell between strangers was put aside. She felt relaxed talking to him. This stranger who walked in from the rain with a beautiful smile and gentle eyes made her forget for the moment, the loneliness that had kept her hurdled in a dark bar on a cold Monday night…