A Man To Remember
A. One morning, while taking a walk in Afikpo, I tried to emulate a man whose strides fascinated me. He slanted his neck at an improbable angle and raised his shoulders perpetually. He walked, [...]
Author: Yinka Elujoba
All My Kilometers Unjourneyed
A. I know a familiar tinge of sadness intimated with the rituals of leaving. I can declaim the sudden disarrangement in time—usually a dark, windy dawn, a cold hurried bath, the picking up of [...]
The Roadside Intellectuals #3 (S2.EP1) — “Freshly Acquired Perceptions”
What happens when your preconceived notions come in contact with freshly acquired perceptions? In this episode of The Roadside Intellectuals we examine how we have entered into new knowledge. Yinka Elujoba begins the conversation by [...]
A Thinking, Moving Body
The road is long and narrow and demanding to traverse but sometimes you come into the company of two men simply shaking hands under some tree in the early Sokoto wind for example and [...]
My Life is a Consistency of Echoes
I met a boy in Ilorin who spoke of time in a way that startled me. Sulaiman—a dark, muscular boy with brown teeth. He preferred to be known as ‘Slice’. He spoke of how [...]
Artist Statement—”Man, Witness, Writer”
I begin my thinking again with Adichie’s character, Odenigbo, in Half of A Yellow Sun: “I am a Nigerian because the white man came and created Nigeria, but before the white man came I [...]
Final Notes on Movement
Brethren, let us now hear the end of the whole matter: A. Movement is a dialogue in continuum: the body and the mind are always in crisis, trying to reimagine what they [...]
A Concerto for All the Walks I Have Taken
1. I have always imagined the most potent way of reducing immapancy to be putting feet on the ground, and breathing the air of a place. So I began to walk in Umuahia. Early [...]
After the Full Stop
I think a lot about how most of our work on the trip has happened in the space between preconceived notions and freshly acquired perceptions. This space—referred to by Emeka as ‘the bracketed [...]
There is a Fear That Binds
Uche: ’Pwo n’uzo Even before the van stops and we step out, I know I will not like it here. It is noisy and smelly and throbbing with testosterone, adrenaline. Boisterous men lead herds [...]