there are only two things that 'qualify' an individual to even nurse a political ambition in our country... They are money and the strong backing of … - Lola Akande

When I arrived home... [I] met my mother sitting on the cement slab outside the kitchen door, looking agitated. She said my father had gone out with Ify because Dayo, my immediate elder brother, wanted to make trouble. She said Dayo was categorical in his rejection of Ify because he was Igbo and had threatened to ensure that the marriage never happened... My mother said there was something disturbing about the way he spoke; she said she detected a level of vehemence that was troublesome... Finally, everybody was home and all hell was let loose. Dayo's vituperations astounded me.

When a man is looking... happy..., the woman in his life deserve commendation.

I took a firm decision also not to share my misery with any of my mates because I knew what advice most of then would proffer. They would tell me I had no option but to succumb. They would give me a thousand and one names of students, past and present, who had succumbed; that I should be 'realistic'. And so I kept the matter to myself. I was suffering internally; I was going through agony trying to think of a way out. Nonetheless, I managed to maintain a calm exterior as I went about my other academic activities.