mines of the minor millionaires

welcome again to my blog; a place where i share the things i see everyday on the street.

but before i proceed with my imageries, i want us to do a little magic with my pictures. ideally, #everypictureisastory is a series of pictures i documented just to tell a complete story from my own point of view. but today i will be doing differently. i'd love you to see my pictures from your own agle. and be possessed by the assumption that you are the subject in that picture. 

to do that, all you just need to do is to put off yourself, and feel in-into the lives of the people that i will be showing you soon in succeeding sequence. fit into the shoe of a kid; that shoe of a kid from a living water ghetto! and, until you begin from the intrologue, and outrologue, get out of here and don't  spoil the magic! 

[lights out]

action!!

intrologue:

'row, row, row you boat

gentle down the stream;

merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily

life is but a dream..'

call me the slum dog millionaire, because i will become a millionaire someday. though i look and smell like the slums in your hood, trust me, this heart has seen the future and i know what it holds. my humble beginning is only a reign keeping me from danger and a boastful attitude. i fear that some will pity me while they are the ones who need the pity the most.

i row away every morning, humming the fisher man’s song. i cast my net with confidence, it comes back empty at times but that doesn’t stop me. i spread my net and mend the torn parts then i cast my net again. this process has only strengthened my hope in the future. it ain’t rosy right now but i know i’m a millionaire, a minor millionaire at the moment.

nights when it rains like third world war, i fear that the wind will blow my family’s roof off. you could smell the sea and taste the salt in your throat as it rises to almost the entrance of your batcher. some nights, i wonder how we made it through. while you carry pity in your eyes for me, i worry about how you can have all you have and not have hope in your heart for a great future?

call me the slum dog millionaire; i’m a minor with the heart of an adult. i do not let the slum decide for me, i might never sit within the four walls of a school or visit a big library but i will be great. i will row and row till something change. i will take my family away from this slum; my fish with the gold box in her mouth will find me soon. my integrity will keep me till i make it.

these are honest words from the mind of a minor millionaire who’s patiently waiting for his time.

outrologue:

we dey find am hard to eat,  wear body for cloth,  flex like other pikins from the urban wey we like to  call them “ajebuttas”  because dem  don eat wella, come dey form join am.  but who that one epp? we too get our own local style and standard.  we na who we be “ajekpakos.” we too don weave out our pattern of living, feeding, clothing and flexing call am wetin you like – our papa and mama don create our own culture – “ghetto culture.”

when rain fall, me and the others go commot body for cloth go outside naked go bath and dance, this na opportunity wey the other ajebutta pikins no dey get.  unlike them our own shaw no need to get served for dinner table. we eat anywhere, any corner,  wey we see ourselves, whether na for ground o;  we fit dey waka dey eat for street; na slum be our hood, our own dining table. the gutters dey stink but we dey use to am already. 

my name na isaiah. this is my ghetto gospel: “being from the ghetto doesn’t make you’re a criminal nor a saint. it only gives you an edge against the others. i am a real “ajekpako and the street is our school. the faster you pick up you’re surely on the ladder of becoming a professor."

i am a ghetto child. we are a gang of five amos, ezekiel, jeremiah, and hosea. call us a prophet, a priest or a king, we are all three put together. we have got our likes and dislikes. together we would stand and fight.  but if it gets fiercest we know when to take a flight. nevertheless we’re ready to sacrifice. we have sown an oath even if it means we die. 

i was born a ghetto kid. i knew i was in for the ghetto life. at the tender age of five, a man in my compound burnt weed on my lips. i screamed like hell. the scar is there. i swallowed all fears. he said “son you’re re-baptized.” “go ye into the street and proclaim the ghetto gospel. what doesn’t kill you make you stronger.  

buckminster fuller said: 'every child is a born genius, but the processes of life de-geniuses some'

sometimes the experience we encountered was way too much for our age. but who send?

___________________________________________

c r e d i t

intrologue: maryanne poet

outrologue: ebuka okparauzoma

photographs: neec imagery

_________________________

#neecimagery #everypictureisastory #minesoftheminormillionaires #makoko #documentaryphotogography #streetphotography

black and white nsukka

when you dream in your sleep,

the film you see in your head,

is it black, is it white

or is it black and white or coloured?

 you might be surprised my dear that you do not know

the colour in your head, when you sleep.

there is a town i know in my head her name is nsukka and her coordinate is: latitude: 6°51.4698′ n and  longitude: 7°23.7462′ e.

nsukka is not a town of gigantic wonders, nor a town of hip-pop. rather it is a town of magic. a town of sunrise and sunset, of morning chirping birds, and night creaking crickets: a land of green grasses and red earth hiding under green carpeted hills. a town of gentle old folks and young scholars waiting for the first light of 'new' to break away and fly. it is not unnatural for me to find solace in wandering, hoping to find things art enough to tickle my wanting soul. and so, during my four years of stay at the university of nigeria, it became typical of me to hike the length and breath of nsukka, seeking for the unobviuos to document with my camera. below are pictures i documented, i chose to make it black and white because they're too saturated. enjoy, but do not forget to comment and share! voila!!

one: the rods of the iron god_

two: rusted but trusted_

three: the tree of life_

four: the house in the bush_

five: gravity is not a god_

six: anunuebe_

seven: the solo hobo of a king hopper_

eight: the rider and the raleigh_

nine: the tower of babel_

ten: the old shall young transport_

#neecimagery #everypictureisastory #nsukka #documentary
#blackandwhitephotography #enugustate #nigeria 

in partnership with darkness

in the begining god created the heaven and the earth. 

and the earth was without form and void;

and darkness was upon the face of the deep.

and the spirit moved upon the face of the waters.

and god said let there be light, and there was light.

and god saw the light, that it was good:

and god divided the light from darkness.

and god called the light day, and the darkness he called night.

and in the evening and the morning were the first day.

                                                  - genesis :1-5 [kjv]

pheeew! that is the first five verses of the christian holy book. you might want to wonder why i quoted from the bible, after all what's the relationship between the christian beginning story of the world and photography. well, it has everything to do with it! without light, there's no photography. ask the masters and they will tell you that god is the first photographer! okay, back to the purpose of this quotation and its relationship with the album: 'in partnership with darkness'. well, check out this facts:

one: darkness existed before light [genesis 1:2]
two: light originated from darkness [genesis 1:4]
three: there is no day without darkness [genesis 1:5]

darkness is life. darkness is light. darkness is attitude. darkness is photography. darkness is everything that veils the human and makes him beautiful before the sky. put out that scale, and man is naked, empty, restless, and ruthless. read the stories attached to these pictures below, and appreciate the beauty of darkness.

happy easter saturday as you celebrate the darkness of christ!


one: spiritum mgbashi_

i stare at the freshly dugout red sand heaped in the far corner of the compound. mounted like a farm ridge and filling the air with the raw smell of mother earth. your new home. i hope you like it.

“are you well son?” maa’s voice is filled with sorrow. she’s standing behind me absentmindedly rubbing my shoulder. her first son was buried this morning. he had choked on his own tongue a night ago while sleeping. maa had cried so hard. that confused me. didn’t she want him gone? everyone had wanted him gone. he had hurt us all so much we got tired of putting up with his irresponsibility and recalcitrance. and though his recent habit of pilfering wasn’t helping his notoriety, his attempt at molesting nana, our only sister, was the height.

paa had done same too. to maa. and nana. i still hear their muffled cries at night. and their puffy anguish laden eyes at dawn haunted my cowardice. the day we woke up to nana’s bleeding was the day i made up my mind. it had to stop. i wasn’t an mgbashi for nothing. paa  was tapping early wine when i loosened the baboon cord that held him safe  and he plunged to his death. maa had cried. but i could sense her relief.

till brother’s troubles intensified and we lived in fear again. we bore it for consanguinity’s sake. until nana. until two nights ago when her screams had pierced through my dreams. until that night i raged in the dark. again, my mind was made up. i had gone into brother’s room and watched him snore loudly. what disgusting sounds he made when i tucked his tongue in his throat. he had jerked awake at the point of choking to see me suspended on the door silently watching him die. killing him. slowly. and painfully. with eyes wide as saucers and a contorted face, he had stretched his hand as he struggled for breath in a plea for help. help i didn’t offer...

“let’s go inside” maa offered and carefully led me to her hut.

“you should be happy” i startle her. then she smiles at my disfigured imbecilic body form with something in her eyes. an emotion i can’t place. like a knowing.

“shall we?”

#abigail_ogbonna

two: orange dreams_

 

 orange skies welcomed me home after years of running. the city has changed but i still feel the heartbeat of the hustle. men still wait around the corners calling on every pretty skirt they see. girls wear their heads tall trying not to look terrified when silly boys look their way. their eyes desperate and waiting. i still see the longing in their eyes, the dreams that followed them to the city when they left the village. i still see the hope, it lingers in the air. we breathe in faith and hope that one day, our lives will be better. one day, the bags we carry will have jewels and dimes, fortunes and gold to take back home. for what is a city without treasures? what is a city without a key? we all want the key to the city. we want the sun to set and then rise again in deep orange reds, like fire through the sky. i see flames smiling back at me as i look to the clouds. the clouds are on fire and it won't be along until it all consumes us. but for now...i am content to just be home.

we are...in partnership with darkness.

#janet_mazibuko

three: out of the forbidden garden_

it was early hours of the morning, when the world was asleep. the moon had defeated the sun and the stars were in a jubilatory mood as they twinkled up there, causing the sky to look like a disco hall. the trees swayed gently as calm breeze made small music. 

.

the houses were in silhouettes with tiny illuminations peeping out from the window cracks. in one of those houses sat obiekwe, reading with an oil lamp by his side. concentrated like a seer, his eyes scanned through the lines of the pages. he did not notice the door give way, making a soft creaking noise. he was only brought back to his immediate environment when he felt a presence around him 

the yellowish flames reflected on her skin revealing how young and pretty she looked. the contours of her body formed shades that contrasted with the illuminated fleshy swells. obiekwe stared in bewilderment. “how did she arrive here” he thought. she ran her palms over his shoulders and obiekwe flinched. he has been avoiding all her advances for quite a long time now. she is her father’s last wife.

he had always managed to escape her charms, but today she has chosen the right time, he can’t escape her charms. she has made up her mind, it was either today or she dies. obiekwe stood up and made to talk but she quickly let the knot of her wrapper go loose and the most succulent of hills and valley were displayed. obiekwe’s parted lips could mutter no word as his eyes enlarged to absorb the immoral display.

.

her tricks were bringing forth the expected result. she plunged further without much ado and directed his hands to her twin proud northern hills. that was all it took obiekwe to become stereotyped. she dragged him on herself as she lay on her back. soon they were flapping their bodies like the wings of the eagle. he has entered the forbidden garden. 

 .

that was how he ran mad...a man and his son were not supposed to enter the same garden. obiekwe did and now dances to the tune of the music.

#izundu_artino

four: father, mother, son and me_

my father had a flat foot. not just a flat foot, but with crooked toes. toes that clustered together like conjoined twins. his feet always found shelter in bathroom slippers because a shoe could hardly fit his foot. he didn’t come into the world with these feet alone. he passed it unto my brother, and that is where the hereditary connection began. a crooked foot and a belly that never lacks alcoholic drinks. 

each time my brother comes back home in the nights, smelling of beer, i shed tears. he is my father’s only son. he started drinking since he was twelve. my mother had told me that my father had died of drunkenness and she is not surprised at my brother’s take over. she said she had long wanted to run away from my father, but she had no choice. her people didn’t regard women who had no husbands. yet, my mother always shed tears, her heart is always beating. she says she must do anything to stop my brother from drinking. she tried, but it was hard. her fears drank her trial. what does an ordinary christian mother do to halt the habitual life of an ancestral group? she does nothing, but pray, fast, say the rosary. still my brother does not stop. beer has captured his appetite.

my mother said my father vomited too much each time he didn’t eat before drinking. that is what happens to my brother these days. the only difference is my brother’s calmness. he is drunk, head dumped on a pillow, pillow wet with vomit, vomit filled with the smell of snifter, the odor of wasted beer, yet, he answers you.. not dead drunk. not alert, but in the middle of dizziness. my father made a lot of noise while drunk, threw up his legs and excreted meaningless words.  the other day, i went to his bedroom to ask him if he would take dinner. i do this every day, and every day, he says ‘no’. beer ties his stomach down and keeps him bare of food and then in the mornings, his eyes are dim, hungry for food. my mother sees him and smiles. i serve him food.

my mother is still afraid. she told me this morning that she would get a wife for my brother as fast as possible so that he doesn’t die before us.

#chimee_adioha

five: silent night_

lisa my wife travelled yesterday, she will be back tomorrow, that means a lonely night, her mum is ill. joe my randy friend came around to my delight; as usual he started talking about the various women he has explored. i shoot him that disappointed look which i always give to him when he recounts such details, he grinned his teeth and used his proverb on me again...”you don’t eat only egusi soup, you need to taste other soups.” that statement of his always got me laughing so i laughed away.

when he was about to leave he brought out a pen and a piece of paper, he scribbled something and tossed them on my laps. “today is friday, your wife is out of town, in case you change your mind to go explore, here is an address of a sweet lady, tell her i'm your referral and she will treat you right.” i frowned, squeezed the paper and tossed it across the room, joe just laughed and left the room. ‘what a perv.’ i thought.

it was past 7pm, joe had left about an hour ago and suddenly the house felt so dull, i got bored and decided to get myself a bit of excitement. that was when i looked across the room and sighted the squeezed paper. why not try it out? at least just go see what the brothel is like and who the girl was. i fought with myself and finally decided give it a try.

the venue on the paper was accurate and descriptive as i found myself in the brothel without much ado. ‘room 342’ was on the paper so i walked up the stairs. in front of the room i hesitated to knock but finally did and when she came out, i was pleased with what my eyes saw. she beamed me a smile that told she has been expecting me. ‘joe is a bastard!’ i thought. she held me by my hand and led me into the room. 

immediately we sat on the bed, the lights went off and i felt a swift movement, a piercing scream came from the girl. i groped around for my phone's torch, found and flashed it. the scene that greeted me struck me with great shock. the girl was lying on the bed with a pen knife dug into her fleshy skin. it happened so fast, that i couldn’t tell who the culprit was but i was the last person to check in. that was when in dawned on me that i will be charged with murder unless no one sighted me walk into her room.

#izundu_artino

six: the knight of the night_

the men are in hot pursuit, their long knives glistening in the dark. they have black hoods on and you hear one breathing down your neck. he smelled of burnt sulphur.
"kill and eat."
it sounds like a growl from a rabid dog.
land shifts. you're on the ground and they surround you. knives rise and fall and you watch them feast on your bloody body parts. 

you wake up with a throbbing headache and rush to the mirror. you gasp in shock at the bruises on your forehead and then notice your prominent canines. a long knife is on the bed with a note, the letters scrawled in crimson: kill and eat.

mom enters the room and screams on seeing you. you chase her down the stairs. minutes later, she is dead, your hands firmly gripping her throat. stop shouting, you say before biting off her ear. you chew for a while and turn at the sound of a cocked gun.

dad is facing you behind his double-barrel gun. he is shaking and you see a patch of wetness in his trousers. i will shoot, he screams and you laugh. he fires repeatedly as you advance. you grab the gun and hit his head with it. he lies limp on the floor, blood oozing from his scalp and staining the grey rug.
you head to your room and return with the knife and carve out nice pieces for yourself. their eyes go first; the juicy balls break in your mouth and taste like grapes. you feed for an hour and pack the remaining meat in the deep freezer.

a cold wind blows as you step out on the deserted street. there are twenty-three houses and you will visit each one of them before dawn. they were friends and colleagues. but tonight, they're meat.
you stop by the transformer and open the metal switchgear. you hit the disconnect switches and smile as a blackout envelop the street. a baby cries in the distance and you feel your stomach rumble. you smack your lips. hunting is best done in the dark.

#kelvin_alaneme


seven: sunset_
 

as the chickens came to roost in their giant, sloppy shadows, before the hue of blindness kissed all of mankind and the stars winked at the moon rising from a long slumber, the old men retired to their wives, picking the pimples on their backs and singing to the dancing boys and girls their favorite clan lore. then, the cringing blackness had not pushed the girl burdened with the waterpot on her head against the wall to rout the stilled streams with the crashing, clattering sound of its fiery fallen pieces.

then, snuff ridden gums glimmered with merry songs and flurry pledges of hope in cannons that only awakened the boy to his mother's breasts.

then, harmattan did not smack their lips with its grinding booths of soldiers sunken in the blood of sleeping children for smiling at the scorn of its crispy skin.

then, they did not ride to school with vans . 

we were reprimanded by the butt of ruthless stick pounding over our skull when they were not spitting fire at a fleeing horse.

then, we lost it. we lost count. milk has drained from the mother's yielding breasts and the bowel of her starving son had stolen their mammoth-ness.

from the cave, he is stacked, seated, side aside, back to back, with lifeless stones in a daunting agony. he sees the hunters arrow pierce through the heart of a bird flapping in liberating circles in gwoza, and his hope drips away with the bloody spurts. darkness pervades his soul as he feels his trust leap of his heart with the enraged feathers from the slain bird, that when the arms of hope slit through black curtains of despair, he doesn't stretch his feeble hands to grasp it. was it a new dawn? or is it just another twilight waiting to happen? he yawned wearily, and fell into an eternal sleep!

#enyoka_chinasa_njoku

eight: of dark inks and words_

a flow within my soul. i wonder why it glows this dim- a smile on my face, it looks so sadthe beautiful ones are just too ugly.

a room so bright, but i see nothing!

on that slate called mind, a lot i write, past words from past works, even works in present world, are carved from the slaty plan. i mean slaty pain!

i’ve once wondered why ‘why’ wasn’t ‘wyh’. i went a mile while proving ‘wyh’ to be ‘why’. your natural question is why?

i went miles of lines to prove the pains on slate; notes and words on sight and sites
‘keep it up’, ‘write more, words from other slates'

searched the world to and fro for love, and fame. name your own from steps to stairs and friends to friends.

the more you search the less you find, the more you seek to know,

the more know you don’t know

another room with a bright dim!

about five rooms i’ve shown you

consisting many rooms i’ve been to

the truth is hard to swallow

the world, a place of shadows

just like my kicker, you are in big bright dimness

i’d rather you are alone than,

go through the above, quite lengthy

a tip of the iceberg!

my hands have been to places i can’t be,

my led and ink from slates unseen

alone i ink with my friend, my link

the paper and light glows

my ink and beautiful quotes,

my smile on the rhyming,

excitement on witty stuff

i’ve tried the human world and the wordy, inky world

in all, i choose the inky world

alone with my thoughts and words

my decision and pledge is but one,

to make my ink my bestie

my lonely room, the slaty-inky hood,

the dim glows, the bright fog,

my choice, we’re done.

                                                       #samuel_fatokun

nine: preacher man_

the address matched. only i didn't come all the way here to visit a haggard looking lagos pastor, a road side pastor at that.

i looked closely at the hungry pastor and then back to the picture in my hand and almost choked in the anger that took over. "how could god descend so low as to using a common criminal as a servant?" he was not just a criminal.

just then my eyes fell on the message on hint table... "the guts", i muttered. even if the host of heaven decided to forgive him. they should have taken permission from me. they were all wrong because i could still hear my wife cry while he and his gang raped her before killing her in cold blood just cos she insulted him the previous day.

in a flash. i removed my revolver and sent him where he belonged. hell.

god was wrong and i won't apologise for the monster i turned into when no one apologised for creating one out of me. judgement should wait.

#unumadu_chukwunekwu_collins

ten: letter to idiot number one_

 

i used to think that the hardest thing to write on is oneself until neec mailed me someone's picture and asked me to scribble on it. it was then i discovered the definition of hardest. when you write about yourself, you have only the impression you want to make about yourself but when you write about someone else, you have to care more about that. especially when the person happens to be more than just a friend. can you now get the picture? this dude whose name is femd who i would rather call an idiot, is not my friend. he is a brother.

cat eyed, a little bit short of being an albino and average in height - femd is not the kind of person you'd wanna rush over and hug on meeting him for the first time. but give him the chance to talk to you and you may the one finding it harder to say bye. bet me, he'll do you the favour of expressing that desire not to say bye to make you feel it's okay to hang on longer. i bet you've figured by now, that he's one hell of a conversationalist. is this story taking its right course? i hope!

i got into the university of nigeria for a reason - to get the kind of education that would mold me towards becoming a professor and theatre art practitioner. guess what it took me to hop off that roller-coaster? just a short drama that got me some attention from my class-mates and femd stopping me half-way to my hostel to border my cool life with his desire to make a short film. it was there, at the university stadium, i stood for some hours listening to him tell me i could write a screenplay, asking me to dump a radio drama i was working on and collaborate with him on a film project i couldn't see coming through. guess what, a year later, i became a film-maker, and a year after-wards, i packed my bags and left school for good. i no longer wanted to become a professor so unn could go to hell with their certificate. all i wanted was to become a film-maker. at 23, i'm the youngest nigerian tv series head-writer. all thanks to femd. more reasons why i can't tell why i can't remember the last time I spoke with him...

here's the thing about relationship - the closer you get to know someone, the more you discover that way past the nice smiles from early impressions, everyone has some dark sides - including you. relationship fails when the two give up focusing on the light in each other. ours happened in calabar after a misunderstanding led to misunderstandings till i can't even understand how the beef all started. but maybe we should wait till ramadan to roast the damn beef.

now, i've given you some parts of the beginning of the story and some parts of its end. lemme see if  i can chip in some things from the middle. when i was leaving nsukka in july 2012, i knew only a very few people in lagos aside the people i wouldn't even think of hanging at their place. it was femd who called the guy who later accommodated me for the first years of my stay in lagos. should i talk about the jobs he helped me get? no, it would sound like i'm an empty praise singer. but since i really don't know how to write the kind of thing i'm writing, i would tell you this:

any day you meet femd, see him behind his crazy looks, listen beyond his flipping tongue, sip out the truth buried in between his occasional lies, watch how he covers his weakness under the carpet of his strength and never say 'no' when he tells you 'you fit do am na - wetin dey there?' that statement changed my life. and even if tomorrow, i don't get to acknowledge that, i hope you don't walk past him any day and not know that you're walking past a goldmine in human form.

#njoku_ebuka

#neecimagery #everypictureisastory #inpatnershipwithdarkness #light #photography #portrait #flashfiction #creativestories #africanstories #darkness #silhouetted