Welcome to Ikenna Ugwu's Blog

                                                Photo credit: Candid Press It was in Nsukka, Enugu state. Saint Teresa's Catholic Cathedral saw the gathering of people, faces wreathed in overt expectancy, waiting to see Ebere and Amechi - hands tied - walk down the aisle, all the way to the altar.   It was a moment long anticipated, and today we are here attesting to God's amazing grace. It was a sea of heads in the church, people gorgeously dressed, bearing witness to the only mathematical equation that proves 1+1 is 1 not 2. Today, Ebere joins Amechi in holy matrimony. God is alright.

The day Nigeria marked her 56th Independence Anniversary; Pastor Poju Oyemade of Covenant Christian Centre gave us a real treat on The Platform. It was a good moment to reflect on the ordeals and trajectories of our nation. Pastor Oyemade assembled a coterie of highly cerebral speakers who seasoned the event. Ever since that day, an eccentric kind of feeling has filled the air, and the social media is awash with certain impetuous hash tags. 

It promises a beautiful night of literature as Thought Pyramid Arts Centre hosts the brilliant duo of Elnathan John, author of Born on a Tuesday and Abubakar Adam Ibrahim author of Season of Crimson Blossoms. Nothing to lose. Everything to gain. See you there.

The man must be dead who refuses to dream; who has stopped believing. There is no life in him. But life (and strength) comes from, and is in him who knows and believes that “the world makes way for the man who knows where he is going…” In every “casting down”, I know there is a “lifting up”. I am a firm believer. Yes. I am. It has been ages (and I miss you guys) since I said or shared anything here. I have been on a hibernate mode, grossly distracted by life issues.  My friend calls it “life grinds”. They try to knock me off the ground. The latest of all that happened was devastating, a deep shock. It still shocks.  But pain demands to be felt. I know. I have a child-like believe in what I do. I believe in it, the way people believe in fairytales. And that’s why I can’t stop. My blogger friend, Chiegboka once wrote about her ItchyFingers , “…my fingers …have been silent for so long, the joints ache to come back to life. They had big dreams when they were firmer and more

The man, truly, must be dead in him who keeps silence in the face of violence. But what happens when you are continually suppressed, strangled and crushed, to the point there is no voice left in you; and the press, whose major obligation includes adequate surveillance on the society, time and again thinks your stories trivial, and scrambles for ‘juicy’ political stories? And then you are, pathetically abandoned, in your vulnerability, to the mercy of a government that sees a man with money or power before you. What happens when the police, an institution that ridicule itself as your friend turns its back to hunt you? You must be a pawn of fate. All over the world today, the protest is mounting against perceived and glaring government injustice against her people. And the people must unite to defend herself against the government she voted to protect her. “If we do not have the right to speak freely, we will turn into a society that suffers from intellectual malnutrition, a nat