Before you Say no... [or: I am Right; you are Wrong]

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BEFORE YOU SAY NO... [or: I AM RIGHT; YOU ARE WRONG]
By: Tope Lanre Bello

The human world manifests the same reality and will not seek our permission to celebrate itself in the magnificence of its endless varieties. Civility is a sensible attribute in this kind of world we have; narrowness of heart and mind is not – Chinua Achebe, 1996.1

Achebe’s speech quoted above is a call to reject the notion of universality of experience. More than twenty years after the late Nigeria’s most celebrated novelist delivered the speech, a lot have changed to alter our perception of the reality of the world – most importantly, Information Communication Technology. ICT has greatly enhanced globalisation and the idea of the world as a global village is increasingly becoming daring. The internet has enriched our appreciation of differences in cultures and beliefs. Unlike Alexander, the Great2 who erroneously believed he had conquered the whole world while in actual fact, the farthest he had got was India; our generation cannot afford to bask in such ignorance because of the enormous pool of information, facilitated by technology, available at our disposal. The world is now on our palm. We cannot feign ignorance to the fact that there are around eight billion human beings in the world with several differing cultural backgrounds and experiences which have informed their beliefs, aspirations and worldviews.

Yet, despite the foregoing, most people still live lives, think and act as if the physical and social spaces they interact with are the whole world. When confronted with seeming improbable argument or point of view, they are prone to easily say ‘nay’. A Yoruba proverb says “he that has not got to another father’s farm will cheerfully boast that his father has the largest farm in the universe.” This is the danger of a single story, borrowing from the title of Adichie’s speech3. Had Adichie’s roommate been told by another American, rather than a Nigerian, that English was the official language of Nigeria, she might have argued and say nay to a fact.

I had been taught in Government class and at other platforms that the United States practises the Presidential system of government and that presidential system emphasises separation of power. I was therefore shocked the day my friend (name withheld) told me that the Vice President of USA is also the president of the US Senate. I called him all sorts of nasty names ranging from ‘fool’ to ‘moron’ because as I thought then, the United States of America was the symbol of the democratic world. I was so sure of my correctness that I did not even bother to check the internet. The argument took place in 2015 and so, such arguments had already become needless because of the internet. I later checked: I was wrong; he was right.

Notwithstanding the massive evidence available to our generation, many a person has still not been able to comprehend the fact that the world is large and that universality of experience is a mirage. It is for this purpose that many are always quick to say ‘nay’ or counter an argument that they deem improbable. They seem not to be aware that the world is vast and that experiences differ. The lethal dimension of this “narrowness of heart,” using Achebe’s words, is what Nobel Laureate Soyinka attacks as “if you do not accept that I’m right, I have a right to kill you”4.

Narrowness of mind-set is mostly evident in the display of religiosity and this is a universal phenomenon, perhaps the only reality that is universal (besides death). From the Pharisees’ prejudice (in the Christian Bible) to the persecution of the earliest Christians to the Inquisition to Jihad to Crusades to modern day fundamentalism, what we have is the sentiment of extreme sense of rightness (of self) and wrongness (of the other). The most unfortunate dimension to these extremisms is the underlying notion of ‘I am right and I have a right to kill you if you do not share my view.’ And the question is how many lives have been lost to this barbarity? Yet, there are more than eight billion peoples in this world with differing religious views. The human world will not seek our permission to celebrate itself in the magnificence of its endless varieties, said Achebe. Our duty as a human race is to join in the celebration of the varieties of our reality. After all, do the English people not say variety is the spice of life?

My argument is that we must not be too quick to discountenance another’s opinion, position or belief. The fact that the ‘self’ is right does not mean the ‘other’ is wrong. Sometimes, and, in fact, more often than not, reality is multifaceted. An Igbo proverb says, “when one thing stands, there is another thing standing beside it.” So rather than saying the ‘other’ is wrong, the most correct statement would be ‘I am right; you may be right too.’ I do not, in any way, advocate that every proposition is correct. What I advocate is a little bit of hesitation before writing off an argument, a belief, an opinion or position. A little bit of research will make enormous sense. In the case of metaphysical discourses, the best course to take is to celebrate our differences, creating for ourselves, therefore, unity in diversity.

[Endnotes]

This is an excerpt from Chinua Achebe’s address to the graduating class of Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, United States, on 27th May, 1996. The address is copied from Element of World Literature, Sixth Course: Literature of Britain and World Classics. 2000. Austin. Holt Rinehart and Winston. P. 1169.

Alexander the Great was a King of the ancient kingdom of Macedonia; conqueror of Greece, Egypt and Persia.

Chimamanda Adichie is arguably Nigeria’s most celebrated writer of the contemporary age. She delivered a speech in the year 2013 with the title ‘The Danger of a Single Story’ in which she advocated bringing in perspectives to a narrative.

Professor Wole Soyinka, Africa’s first Nobel Laureate in Literature mentioned this in an interview he granted freelance journalist Simon Stanford on 28th April, 2005. Sourced from www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1986/soyinka-interview-transcript.html

Writer's Bio:
Tope Lanre Bello, a seasoned essayist and once a campus journalist, studied English Language and Literature at the University of Ibadan. He can be reached via: radicalbeylow@gmail.com

(SEE THIS) An Interesting Poem You Will Love

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ONE IS BORN, ONE IS GONE
By: Yusuff Uthman Adekola (Y.U.A.)

The wintry breeze of the night
Dances around to the honey melody
Of rising songs that extol the sleep’s awakening;
Humble silence creeps in,
Encroaching the land cast in buoyant dimness
From which the unbridled din darts away.

One before one, one after one,
All are drowned in a weak merciful death
That throws a banquet of amnesty
At the birth of the exuberant sky-bulb
Whose flitting robe spreads its open palms
That spray the sparkles of a new sight.

One is born, one is gone.


WRITER'S BIO:
Yusuff Uthman Adekola, presently a student of the University of Ibadan, is a campus journalist, a poet and an essayist who believes in the correctional cum enlightening power that the pen commands. He can be reached via +2348166599760 ; adekolayusuff@gmail.com ; FB: facebook.com/adecaller01

(FLASH FICTION) No more Dawn or Dusk Here

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NO MORE DAWN OR DUSK HERE
By: Yusuff Uthman Adekola (Y.U.A.)

Danjuma, despite being a twelve-year old, knew that nothing remained as it once was. A thought, like the turbulence of a whirlpool, was roaming deep within his mind as he silently sat on a raffia mat, under their green tent.

He occasionally shook his head, in rejection, as he tried assuaging his pestering thoughts. The more he tried resisting the thoughts, the further he lucidly remembered all that he tried casting away.

He remembered how he had always helped his father on the farm; how his infant sister did tenderly suck at their mother’s breast and how he did outshine his peers at school. By now, his eyes were already getting bloodshot as he looked around him and could see the old and the young looking wistfully downcast with their necks limply bent downwards.

The feeling was no more tolerable such that welled up tears found their way off his now tightly-closed eyes— tears dribbled down his cheeks. His father, mother and infant sister had gone with the booming of the bomb and the rattling of the gun. His only family of strangers left, were stricken by endemic and rather infectious diseases and were unhealthy to stay with. He thought about the nonchalance of the government and shook his head in distrust.

Suddenly, he heard a cock crow. It was dawn already—he had been lost in thought all night. He felt undisturbed by this but only heaved a sigh accompanied with the fall of a drip of tears.

He looked at his sleepless cohabitants, amongst whom are either the ones busy scratching their skins covered with rashes or simply those grabbing at their stomachs occasionally as they try to relieve hunger pangs through caressing.

He sighed painfully as he mumbled to himself, ‘Is this how we all will slowly die here, forsaken?’

He haggardly shuffled with his gaunt body out of the tent; raised his face towards the sky and again muttered as he shivered in the cold, ‘There is no dawn or dusk here, anymore. If only we could be back in time.’


WRITER'S BIO:
Yusuff Uthman Adekola, presently a student of the University of Ibadan, is a campus journalist, a poet and an essayist who believes in the correctional cum enlightening power that the pen commands. He can be reached via +2348166599760 ; adekolayusuff@gmail.com ; FB: facebook.com/adecaller01

(OPINION ARTICLE) Feminism: a War Against Men?

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FEMINISM: A WAR AGAINST MEN?
Yusuff Uthman Adekola (Y.U.A.)

Some voices have been heard and have, as time keeps passing by, gone into silence. Slew of issues, as well, have been raised and subsequently dumped in the bin, owing to the lack of the spirit of commitment. There have been many causes fought only to be eventually forgotten. However, it eminently gets one flabbergasted that there is a seemingly ever-thriving fight – amongst others which have either died down or have been forgotten—that keeps waxing as each dawn and dusk goes by. This fight remains resilient, perhaps, because of the intrinsic nagging and fussy nature of some proponents of it. The feminist cause remains unbending as the feminists do not cease to recruit more and more females into the scope of their thoughts.

The feminist theory certainly did not just surface like a lightning. It of course came about as an offshoot to certain women’s and some men’s laudable stand against the female gender discrimination and victimisation years past. These preceding waves of feminists have apparently made tremendous achievements. They have been able to make come through, the women’s suffrage, equal rights to work, to assume public and political offices, to property, to education, and so forth. Again, they have been able to efface, to a creditable extent, sexual harassment, rape, domestic violence amongst other baleful acts of violence.

Nonetheless, the feminist movement is not without divisions of varying magnitudes of doggedness and aims. There are the liberal feminists who make do with the law as a tool for getting their aims accomplished. There are also the radical feminists who—as suggested by the name—are usually extreme in their approach as they are even at times tagged ‘anti-men’. There was a case where this faction of feminists sought the help of scientists in providing machines that would produce children without necessarily involving the womb or the need for a man, so that they could be ultimately independent of men. Another feminist type is that of the social feminists whose aims are targeted at having equal economic and social class. There are other kinds of feminists but, all in all, the radical feminists seem to be the commonest in this contemporary time, especially as perceptible from the current goings-on.

Gradually, the word ‘feminism’ –it seems—is dominating the world’s lexicon of words, especially in Nigeria and Africa at large. All over the internet—Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and so forth—, in day-to-day conversations, classrooms, articles and in the media, the word, feminism is what is usually said, written, heard or read. Almost any human possessing whatever physical features that suggest who a woman or lady is, now claims to be a feminist albeit not knowing what the term itself connotes. Of recent many who claim being feminists – radical feminists – believe all they need do is do away with men as they are believed to be ‘trash’. This is what has been trending these few days especially on Facebook. Yes, some so-called fourth-wave feminists otherwise called internet feminists write disparaging and vilifying things about men, as if only they (men) are guilty of violence or sexism. If feminism is all about war against the male gender, then, it is utterly pitiable that this so-called radicalness is none but sheer ludicrous rascality, for this amounts to nothing but absolute misandry at its zenith.

There Is no gainsaying the fact that women, just as men, should be entitled to political, economic, personal and social rights which would engender equity, justice and fairness. It is nevertheless germane to note that men and women can indisputably never be equal. If anybody tries balancing the scale between these two obviously dissimilar genders, there would surely be a problem as that would only be tantamount to a fight against nature which ultimately means a fight against the Divine (in the case of non-atheists). Again, culture and societal reasons aside, the male gender is usually naturally above the female gender, even by merely considering their distinctive anatomy as well as their varying physical strengths. Why then is the need to fight for equality rather than equity? If nature herself has set a gap between what men and women are capable of, why then should we be lost in the love of beating up a dead horse? On the whole, equity can surely be realised but never equality.

Without a shadow of a doubt, there are a countless number of men who, evidently by their actions are uncultured animals only being quarantined in the human skin. Now, the prompted questions here are these: are men only the human folk engaging in the so much disavowed psychopathic violence permeating every North, South, East and West? Are men not also being raped to death by women? Are they not also subjected to domestic violence or murder in the hands of their wives? Do we not hear of, read about or even witness tender babies or infants being  dumped on wastelands as though they were a lifeless insignificant tissue paper? Are there not cases of incessant abortion and even the legalisation of this murderous cum suicidal act by these so-called feminists? If women are also not sacrosanct of these gross savageries, then, calling men ‘trash’ only brings to the fore the fact that some erring women themselves are also ‘garbage’ as a virtual friend of mine did say.

Progressing further, it is uncalled for and, as well, disheartening that this once good cause is now steadily getting blotted like an oil-stained white fabric. The cause now seems to be crossing the separating borders between the commendable and the reproachable. Some group of overzealous feminists are now set to alter the Divine Books, forgetting about the forsaken rebellious Satan. How utterly audacious and brazen it is that even God himself is challenged. Some have requested that the God-referent pronoun ‘He’ be abolished for it is held that it discriminates against the female gender. Perhaps, the naturally ingrained weakness of humans is being ascribed to the Infallible Being, due to their success of eventually stopping the general use of ‘he’ rather than ‘he/she’ for both gender, in the English Concord. Let us not allow our wants or needs debase us into becoming blind bats and hence making us trespass what ought not be.

More so, the truth of certain aspects of African and, more precisely, Nigerian culture being uncouth and gender-biased cannot be denied; but then, not all of these cultural practices can be justifiably revoked. Apparently, a great deal of Nigerian tribes subject women to marital victimisation, amongst other forms of barbarisms. Many a time are widowers forcefully made to drink waters used in bathing the corpses of their dead husbands, having the hairs on their heads shaven or married off to the brothers of their late husbands; and whatever property or possession left by the deceased is avariciously but insidiously confiscated by the tortoise-brained lazy family members. This, certainly, is justifiable; but when there is hue and cry against the different natural roles of the husband and the wife in a marriage, there arises absolute absurdity of thought. Why would a wife ever declaim cooking? All right, if the maintained stand is that women are not slaves – of which I also firmly uphold, why then should you ever request for a housemaid when the help most probably would be from this same female gender?

Finally, it should be clearly stated that this article is not at all condemning the feminist movement but only trying to sober us up a little and to mitigate the overly radicalness corresponding to rascality being displayed by a particular set. A discerning mind would realise that this article itself is, even if in the least, feminist. Now, this is a projector of the sounding gong to get the extremist feminists’ mind off the stray path. Conclusively, let it be known that feminism is not a war fought through libel and slander; rather, a struggle that should be targeted at, I reiterate, equity but never equality.


WRITER'S BIO:
Yusuff Uthman Adekola, presently a student of the University of Ibadan, is a campus journalist, a poet and an essayist who believes in the correctional cum enlightening power that the pen commands. He can be reached via +2348166599760 ; adekolayusuff@gmail.com ; FB: facebook.com/adecaller01

(ARTICLE) Check This Out, About Nigeria

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WHAT STORY SHALL WE TELL?
By: Yusuff Uthman Adekola (Y.U.A.)

Stories recounting past experiences are to be told and heard. They may on the one hand exhume moments of glee which would whip up glitters in a reader’s or listener’s heart. They may also on the other hand provoke sullenness cum tears welling up in the eyes, if reviving dark, painful memories. Only a man who has lost his wits would ever wish to always tell sad stories, but every thinking man has a single refrain: “to tell success stories.”

As it remains indisputable that there is no present without a past to it, the contemporary Nigeria, our country definitely has a past to her present. Our country has its stories (told and untold). We have heard and, of course, still hear our parents and elders alike narrate to us stories about how serene and blissful their society –which we would term primitive—was. We have heard or read of how they travelled anywhere in the dead of the night, without fidgeting for the fear of being assaulted or ambushed. They would leave their doors unlocked and still feel undaunted by any form of fear. They could buy more with less, compared to what presently holds. There used to be healthy marketing of goods and services across the surfeit of tribes there were and still are. In short, our country, Nigeria once witnessed moments of security of lives and property as well as moments of stone-solid unity. Those were stories to be told and retold. Now, what have we?

One may, to some magnitude of rightness, say that time is guilty of Nigeria’s languishing in the horrible pit of backwardness as over the years, the once sweet stories have drastically but gradually become sour. There insidiously have come the influx of voracious rats of slumbering brains into the nation’s government; thereby leading to the undoing deterioration of all that our dear country could pride in. Our currency wanes bit-by-bit and we now pay more for less. Valuables kept in safes are no longer safe, let alone keeping our doors ajar like they did then. To even walk or travel in the day is not without prior days of earnestly praying and fasting for the uncertainty of whether one would end up being kidnapped or being a victim to the bad roads replete with slew of “death holes” which we probably erroneously call “pot holes” – considering this, can travelling ever be without fear? Also, our unity as a nation is nothing to be spoken well of. The country, on the whole, is dying.

Nigeria has become a land where hunger, wailings, insecurity and all forms of anomalies have become a norm. no one cares about the other, as everyone only doggedly strives to achieve his or her egocentric purposes, at anybody’s expense. Our brethren in the North have suffered and are still suffering unimaginable loss in the hands of the despicable Boko Haram Terrorist Sect whose want is clearly known to no one. Many are victimised and rendered helpless as some armed Fulani Herdsmen occasionally make do with their killings to perhaps assuage their perturbing thirst and hunger to spill the blood of the innocents. Again, we almost on a daily basis hear, see or read about cases of kidnapping for all sorts of eccentric reasons. In most of these terrible occurrences, the so-called religious and political leaders onto whom many look are usually the culprits; but they oftentimes go unscathed and subsequently take to their malevolent acts again. When our brethren and leaders are the ones ready to butcher us like cattle; and the law’s blade has gone blunt, have we any glint of hope of security or justice?

How utterly desponding it is, that Nigeria is now being regarded as a leper whose place of dwelling is only in the woods; far from the midst of healthy men. In the world today, our country is perceived to be a place of great threat to lives and properties, especially as a result of the exigent Boko Haram terrorism as well as the many riots occurring now and then: all defaming us as a nation. From a report, it is held that the Foreign Office of the United States of America has warned Westerners about Nigeria, as it is believed that they are prone to being abducted for a ransom by the dreaded Boko Haram Sect ruthlessly looking out for various unscrupulous means to raise funds for themselves. Now, one does not cease to wonder as to whether insecurity and all other bedevilling problems within which Nigeria wallows is her birth right. Also, looking at the Global Peace Index, one would realise that Nigeria remains one of the most low-ranking countries, as if it were some generational curse laid by some witch or wizard.

Again and ultimately, the talk of unity in Nigeria is none but one only to be remembered of the past or perhaps envisioned for the future as it obviously does not hold in the Nigeria of today. This is generally concerned with the inter-tribal clashes permeating almost all news stories. Another instance corroborating the issue of the country’s lack of unity is the case of the so-called Biafran people seeking secession so that they may found again the long-sought nation of theirs which came about in the 60’s albeit its short life of three years of hunger. These people are nonetheless never to be blamed but the political, economic, religious and tribal tensions rousing from the government’s nonchalance and inept policies take mountains of the blame. More so, our ailing politics is also one of the problems plaguing the country’s unity. None can contravene the conspicuous fact that the federal seats of governance –the presidential, ministerial, senatorial, federal houses, to mention a few seats— are, more often than not, usually held by a larger population of the Northerners. Yes, they constitute the largest population of the country; but, I put, does that give them the ultimate right to these seats, especially the presidential? If there truly would ever be harmony in the country, there should be a fair share in the government. All these issues of godfatherism (better still, dog-fatherism or demon-fatherism) impeding the emergence of other tribes for certain political posts should be brought to a halt and buried; so that our unity may be revamped.

Now, with the exasperatingly exacerbating state of the country, what sweet-to-the-hearing story have we to tell about this dear country of ours to the coming generation? With the depressing stories we write through our undesirable actions, are we then on the track to recounting saddening experiences to our unborn children or growing infants and toddlers? Are we to get their ears and hearts aching as we will be unfolding to them, how we have got this nation decrepit by the cold shoulders we have given her welfare through our lack of unity and our carefreeness against security? As we already heard our parents and elders tell us sweet stories about their days, what good ones are we set to tell to the next generation of this great country, Nigeria? Now, this is a clarion call to all, in a bid to get us plunging into all that is right and necessary, so that we may rewrite the story of this country, such that it would engender nothing but smiles. To all and everyone, let us get the nation marching on to glory; and we shall write the best of stories.

WRITER'S BIO:
Yusuff Uthman Adekola, presently a student of the University of Ibadan, is a campus journalist, a poet and an essayist who believes in the correctional cum enlightening power that the pen commands. He can be reached via +2348166599760 ; adekolayusuff@gmail.com ; FB: facebook.com/adecaller01

(TRENDING) Call for Submissions: Praxis Magazine For Arts and Literature

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Here is an opportunity for artists and writers across the globe to have the products of their artistic and literary talents brought to the world.

An online magazine, Praxis Magazine for Arts and Literature, is calling for the submissions of artistic or literary works.

These works may include photography chapbooks, essays, poems, prose works, spoken word poetry amongst others.

On their website, a short information about the magazine is given thus:

"Praxis Magazine is a platform for artists and writers to commune, debate, and progress their craft respectively.

"We cover literary events across Africa, give voice to emerging writers and artists, and even promote literature in indigenous languages, e.g Yoruba, Hausa, Swahili, Naija Languej etc.

"We are equally interested in promoting podcast culture in Africa which is why we have a podcast feature on our website that is dedicated to Interviews/Discussions on matters concerning Arts and Literature in Africa as well as Spoken Word poetry.

"We also publish reviews of Books and Films.

"Articles on any form of art, or introducing any particular artists, are welcome."

A number of guidelines, which are to be followed by anyone who wishes to submit his/her work(s), are also given on the website.

To have an in-depth understanding of the instructions, you may CLICK HERE.


SEE ALSO: Apply for Nigerian Students Poetry Prize 2018

(ARTICLE) Social Media: A Tool for Effective Human Interaction?

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SOCIAL MEDIA: A TOOL FOR EFFECTIVE HUMAN INTERACTION?
By: Yusuff Uthman Adekola

With no manifestation of any doubt, it is quite assertable that interaction, amongst the human race, is traceable to the inception of the universe as an entity. Going by the most widely accepted school of thought as to the creation of earth by an Almighty Supernatural Being, as against the Big Bang Theory, amongst others, the creation of the first human beings, Adam and Eve did quintessentially lead to the manifestation of the first known human interaction. The duo did have an interpersonal relationship which unavoidably evinced interaction. And ,subsequently, when the first man and woman were eventually on the soil of planet earth, and gave birth to offsprings, there necessarily emanated an expansion of the interaction circle.

Significantly, from that period —which is now layered with numerous centuries— to this contemporary age, the human race has definitely grown in expansive multitudes. Resultant to this, interaction has also consequently met with intricacies as to limitations arising from inter-boundary and inter-coastal exchange of information: distance has overtime proved a baneful problem to communication and interaction between and amongst humans. Though, science and technology have unceasingly proffered various solutions —ranging from the fax, letter posting, landline, et cetera— there has perpetually been the need to bridge the global communication rift, by dint of an easily accessible tool; hence, the introduction of the social media as the deux ex machina of the modern world's yearn for easy, efficient, and smooth interspatial interaction.

From the foregoing, for anyone to stand by the assertion that the social media platforms are not tools for effective human interaction is to comfortably but pitiably ensconce in the pre-modern sofa of distance-restrained communication. The reason is not a far-fetched one: it is simply because the springing up of the various social media that there are has prominently made communication and interaction easy amongst humans — rich or poor—  and across races —black or white—. Thus, the world is now being referred to as a global village where seamless interaction across distances has been made possible through such social media as Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, Tumblr and so forth. Information, which is vital to humans' meaningful existence, is also now easily and efficiently dispensed to the whole world, even when the informant is right at a corner of his or her house.

In addition, the social media have, to a significant magnitude, helped to curtail the natural situation of missing one's loved ones, when not close to them, perhaps as a result of a journey. With the presence of the social media, the cutting of contact from friends and relatives due to distance has become vehemently defied so much so that one conveniently ensues a chat —which may be video or graphical— with anybody around the whole wide world and maintains the needed human interaction and intimacy, provided there is a functional internet service. That anybody, in this present time, would complain not to have been able to interact with some others owing to spatial farness may, undoubtably, be that he or she is not engaged in social media activities, for whatever reason. This is because, even when one is not chatting, interaction could be discernibly observable through the different posts by different people.

Again, like the web of a spider has its tiny wools intertwined, social media has estimably helped allow for a great deal of networking possibilities. If the social media be prudently and efficiently utilised, one would avail oneself of the ample opportunity inherent in it. Happily, through the use of the social media, interaction could be dragged beyond its social function and brought into monetary use. By getting oneself networked with others, one's goods and services could be brought into a wider customer area, by means of the virtual stores of the internet. In fact, inter-continental boundaries have not been able to deter this possibility, as there is the availability of shipping. Moreover, whatever skill one has could be advertised through the various social media and, through this, one has the chance of been easily known and massively sought for one's service(s). With these, effective interpersonal and Intersocietal interactions are reflected.

To add more, the world has now come to an age where even introverts have encouragedly found a means through which they undisturbedly let out their probably timid thoughts. Whereas they may not be able to confidently assert themselves in the midst of their peers, they find solace in pouring out their caged opinions through the various social media platforms. For them, ease of interaction, expression and communication are found through their use of the social media. Consequent upon this, rather than being estranged from their fellow humans due to their reserved nature, they are brought closer to friends through their social media presence. Now, would it not be unnecessary to ask whether the social media have been effective tools for human interaction?

In conclusion, it is important to reiterate that the social media have always proved, right, their being not just a tool, but an eminently beneficial one to mankind. They have consistently advanced human interaction by bringing ease to it. Of course, many who never dreamed of having friends across continents have had that come true, still owing to the availability of the social media. To close it all, one must mention that the pivotal role of the social media in human interaction is beyond overestimation.

WRITER'S BIO:
Yusuff Uthman Adekola, presently a student of the University of Ibadan, is a campus journalist, a poet and an essayist who believes in the correctional cum enlightening power that the pen commands. He can be reached via +2348166599760 ; adekolayusuff@gmail.com ; FB: facebook.com/adecaller01

Apply for Nigerian Students Poetry Prize (NSPP) 2018

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Having recorded success in their previous editions of the poetry prize, the association, Poets In Nigeria, has come up with the 3rd edition of the Nigerian Students Poetry Prize.

For this year, 2018, there happily is an increase in the total amount of the prize money. The top three entrants are going to have a total sum of 300,000 naira shared amongst them, in the order of their respective positions.

The money is going to be shared as represented below:

1st Prize: 150,000 naira
2nd Prize: 100,000 naira
3rd Prize: 50,000 naira

While only the best three will win the cash prizes, the best 100 are going to have their poems featured in an anthology which will be distributed globally.

It is important to understand that this contest is open particularly to Nigerians who are studying in any tertiary institution— whether in Nigeria or the diaspora.

To have a better understanding of the requirements of this contest, kindly  CLICK HERE.