Imade had not been sleeping well. And she knew why.  It had been three days since she last saw Pastor Dapo, since she almost had an unnecessary breakdown, and three days since she spoke to him. She had ignored the nudging of the Holy Spirit to reach out and apologize.  Shame, not pride was her […]

Smallie had changed, and Imade couldn’t stop stealing glances at the grown man who sat opposite her in the hotel’s restaurant.  “What?” he asked, when he caught her looking, a tiny smile lining his lips. “You should take a picture. I hear it lasts longer.”  “Oh, you’ve got jokes,” Imade laughed. “I wish I could […]

Mrs Osakwe’s ‘office’ was a small space carved out in the common room area, with wooden boards demarcating it from the rest of the room and giving a false sense of privacy.  Her desk was a scratchy dark-blue plastic table with piles of paper crowding it. Our Daily Manna devotional sat atop the hill of […]

Benin was demure in a way Abuja wasn’t. There were no men in flashy sports cars zigzagging through the streets, intimidating other road users. Some of the roads were riddled with potholes and patches of elephant grass. Where Abuja thrived on the cab system, most of Benin’s occupants ambled about in red and yellow buses. […]

“We have a project that we think you are the perfect person to oversee,” Mrs Ajayi said.  “Is it church project?” Imade asked.  “No, my dear. It is personal. Something that has been on our heart for a while. We want to acquire an orphanage.”  Imade gasped, “that’s amazing!”  “Yes. We want to do something […]

After Yvonne and Olive left that evening, Imade didn’t feel up to going out with Mena anymore. What she had wanted to talk to Mena about had already been taken care of, and she was in a bad mood.  Why couldn’t life come easy? She wondered. Why did one have to fight and fight for […]

It was Olive Imade hugged first when she met them at the door. Pretty, vivacious Olive who wrapped herself around Imade, like a branch clutching the nearest support for its growth.  Imade inhaled the cocoa-buttery scent of her hair as she held her, and it struck her how much she loved the girl.  “Hi baby,” […]

The rest of that week, Imade could not get Lamide’s proposal out of her head. Every time she picked her phone to read or check her social media accounts, she found her thoughts straying to Lamide. They had resumed their daily chats on Whatsapp and she remembered what it was like to date him – […]

The boyish grin on his face was irresistible and his three-day-old stubble added to his charm; so even though Imade knew she shouldn’t let him in, she did.  He was dressed casually, in grey shorts and a black T-shirt saying I’m awesome and you know it.  “I was passing and decided to drop by with […]

“Yvonne? Can we talk? I have to tell you something.”  Imade’s voice was gentle, prodding.   “Yvonne,” she called again.  This time Yvonne looked up from her phone in response.  “What?” she asked.  “I…I need to talk to you about something.”  Yvonne sighed, turned to her.  Five weeks had passed since Olive’s diagnosis and even though […]