7 ways to build a healthy relationship

 Building a healthy relationship requires effort and communication from both partners. Being in a relationship is not always an all-around positive, happy feeling. It also has many adverse psychological effects, especially when you’re in the wrong relationship.

However, a relationship can also have a positive and beautiful side. When you're in a healthy relationship, it brings about a unique feeling that adds value to your existence and plays a central role in your search for happiness.

Here are some tips to help you build a strong, healthy relationship:

1. Communication: 

Open and honest communication is key to building a healthy relationship. Be willing to share your thoughts, feelings, and concerns with your partner, and encourage them to do the same. Communication should be respectful, non-judgmental, and focused on finding solutions to problems.

2. Trust: 

Trust is a crucial component of any healthy relationship. Trust your partner, and be trustworthy in return. Keep your promises, be reliable, and avoid engaging in behaviours that could damage the trust you've built.

3. Respect: 

Treat your partner with respect, even when you disagree. Respect their opinions, feelings, and boundaries, and expect the same in return.

4. Compromise: 

Relationships require compromise. Be willing to give and take, and work together to find solutions that benefit both of you.

5. Quality time: 

Spend quality time together, doing things you both enjoy. Make time for each other, and prioritize your relationship.

6. Independence: 

While spending time together is important, it's also important to maintain your own interests, hobbies, and friendships. Encourage your partner to do the same.

7. Forgiveness: 

No one is perfect, and mistakes will happen. Be willing to forgive your partner when they make a mistake, and ask for forgiveness when you make one.

Remember, building a healthy relationship takes time, effort, and commitment from both partners. By prioritising communication, trust, respect, compromise, quality time, independence, and forgiveness, you can build a strong, healthy relationship that lasts.

Transparency in relationships.

Relationships are crashing faster these days than before. We are shocked at stories flying around, the outrageous things people endure, and the unimaginable experiences they go through in each other’s hands, all for the sake of being in a committed relationship. 

If you must be in a relationship, create a toxic-free environment through transparency to enjoy the benefits of a healthy union. Most causes of mistrust and insincerity are due to a lack of transparency. When people are not outrightly sincere and forthcoming with their emotions, feelings and actions from the onset, their relationships get immersed in games and intrigues that undermine their sustainability.

Transparency in relationships is when partners willingly share feelings, fears, concerns, ideas, thoughts, hopes, ambitions, aspirations and expectations with each other. The keyword is a willingness to share and communicate openly, even when they find it uncomfortable. It also means being honest about your actions, even when you make mistakes or have disagreements. Transparency is vital to the growth of every relationship, whether romantic, friendship or professional.

The Importance of Transparency In Relationships.

Transparency builds trust and credibility, especially in romantic relationships. Being transparent about your actions, decisions, and processes can foster dependability, a feeling of believability and acceptance from your partner. And where both partners practice transparency in their communication and actions, it creates a safe environment where they can feel secure. Being transparent about your experiences, feelings, and goals can help your partner understand you better and build a stronger connection and support system for both of you. 

Honesty is an integral part of transparency, but there is a difference between the two. Honesty simply means you’re not dishonest or lying to your partner. It does not come willingly, like transparency, which requires a willingness to be open and not withhold information or thoughts from your partner to make them suspicious of your intention. Trust and transparency complement and supplement one another in a romantic relationship.

The secret to having a successful relationship is transparency, and it creates stronger bonds. For instance, being open about your feelings and intentions prevents misunderstandings and miscommunications with your partner. Transparency builds intimacy. When partners are transparent, it enhances intimacy and understanding and strengthens their emotional connections. 

Transparency in relationships shows how much you trust your partner. How transparent you are with your partner is proportionate to your trust quotient with them. Partners who trust each other feel safe enough to share things about themselves. They will share their deepest fears, secrets, darkest thoughts and feelings, knowing their partners will not judge them or their actions. If you don’t trust your partner entirely and they don’t trust you, that willingness, desire or sense of security to be open will not be there.

Benefits of transparency in a relationship

1. Emotional intimacy:

The more emotionally intimate two people are, the more likely transparency will occur. Emotional intimacy involves sharing personal thoughts, feelings, and experiences.

When partners build trust and non-judgmental, positive affirmation of each other, they experience a deep comforting sense of support and security. When there is a deep, intimate bond, you find it easy to share everything about your personality, the good, dark, and bad sides, with your partner.

2. Open communication:

We build healthy romantic relationships on mutual respect, trust, and open communication. When partners openly communicate with each other, it ushers in transparency, and this will strengthen the relationship. 

Trust leads to acceptance, non-judgmental behaviour, and understanding. It also reduces the potential and opportunities for miscommunication and misunderstanding.

3. Strengthens trust:

Transparency strengthens trust and reduces misconduct or suspicious attitude or behaviour in the relationship. Having a non-judgmental attitude towards your partner also strengthens confidence, builds intimacy and makes them feel secure. 

4. Spiritual intimacy:

Transparency in romantic relationships paves the way for spiritual intimacy with your partner. It creates an enabling environment for you to share everything with your partner willingly. It will include all those overwhelming or deep emotions you try to suppress and those disturbing memories or thoughts you are afraid to share with someone.

5. Kills fear of vulnerability:

It is instinctual to have one’s guard up, especially at the beginning of a relationship because of the fear of appearing vulnerable. But when you establish healthy boundaries and build trust, open communication, understanding, and respect will bring transparency. So, lowering your guard becomes possible, and the fear of vulnerability will vanish.

How to improve transparency in a romantic relationship?

Openness in relationships is necessary because the lack of transparency in a relationship can have unfavourable outcomes that may affect the sustainability of your relationship.

Building transparency in a relationship is one of the most effective ways to have a secure, supportive, healthy, and fulfilling romantic relationship.

To improve transparency in your relationship, start by building emotional intimacy with your partner. It involves sharing personal stories, discussing feelings and desires that will deepen your emotional connection.

Transparency doesn’t mean you should share everything with your partner without a filter. You don’t just blurt out anything and everything you feel or think in its raw form. Although transparency entails openness and accessible communication, how you frame the words and how you express them to your partner is important. Using discretion is essential for transparency to thrive in a relationship. 

Practical ways to cultivate transparency in a relationship:

Start by sharing feelings, ideas, and thoughts that are easy to share and try to be honest with your partner.

Work on establishing healthy boundaries with your partner from the start so that the standards for transparency become clear.

Cultivate emotional intimacy by sharing your feelings, both pleasant and unpleasant.

Remember to use discretion when you’re open and do not hide or withhold information from your partner.

Tares Oburumu(A Poet and Playwright)

Author’s Hangout with Zizi

Tares Oburumu is a poet, a cut above his contemporaries. As someone wrote of him, “Oburumu is a poet whose language stirs the senses.” Oburumu laces words into poems with passion and profound fluidity of imagination. You have to consume and digest his poetry slowly to appreciate the meaning behind his words or suffer poetic indigestion.

I have read some of his poetry chapbooks and I’m not surprised Oburumu’s manuscript, Origins of the Syma Species, won the 2022 Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets. 

In this interview, Tares Oburumu talks about his journey to becoming a poet and bares his heart out on his travail, hardship, turbulence, frustration and fascination with water, a recurring theme in most of his poems. And also, his ordeals as a single father to a wonderful daughter.

Tell us about yourself? 

I am Tares Oburumu. I am from Bomadi Local Government Area of Delta State, a few kilometers away from Warri. I studied philosophy at the University Of Benin. 

How and when did your writing journey begin? 

I can’t tell when exactly the journey started. All I can remember, quiet vividly, is the time I was in primary school. I can’t tell the class I was, maybe three, maybe four, when I had a fierce scolding from an uncle, never to get close to his dictionary; Oxford Advanced Learners which had several missing pages, dog-eared and dusty. He said I was too young for it and not too bright either at that young age to make anything of it. 

Before then, I was fascinated with the usage of words and I couldn’t help memorizing a few to be used in daily conversations with not just my peers. To memorize them, I had to own an exercise book for the purpose of writing them down. The form they took on the notebook excited my young sensibilities at the time, so I started writing; composing a few sentences of my own out of the words I had on the pages of the notebook. 

This became a habit and it continued to have me tethered to my father’s small cupboard size library where I exposed myself to novels among other books. I read a lot of them, I can’t remember now. It was during and towards the end of my secondary school that I  began to write poems just after reading the poem “ Building The Nation” by, I think, a Ugandan poet. Nothing held me more spellbound in such times for such longer hours than poetry. Then there was Christopher Okigbo, Wole Soyinka, Gabriel Okara, John Pepper Clark and T.S Eliot. I started my idea of putting poems into book form around 2014. 

Why did you choose to write poetry?

 Poetry chose me. Looking back in my formative years and how exposed I was into books, it is more convenient to say poetry chose me. I read a lot of books, not just Literature. Not only books on Philosophy, nor science books. I was drawn in prose in a way that was more taxing in the manner I learned from it than poetry. Oftentimes, I write down a novel, like transcription, word for word in a notebook. 

If I am writing poetry today more as I do write any other genre, I think it’s because I later found poetry to be more concise on the part of poetry and laziness on my own part due to personal traumatic experiences, that I found the prose genre too long and sedentary an art. Sitting long months to get a novel done, was too taxing for me amidst the trauma. Poetry gives a sort of balance, or it’s a balancing of trauma. A kind of antidote. 

Where and how do you get ideas for your poems? 

Everything I can see and imagine. It could be a boy running down the street, a cloud forming, a personal experience which I trust more than anything else. It could be a line or word from a book. It could be smoke in the air, questions people ask; it could be anything. 

Is there any author or book that influenced you in any way either growing up or as an adult? 

Christopher Okigbo cleared a road and I had no choice than to walk on it until I learnt that I could clear a forest, make a road of it and walk my own path. He was phenomenal to my formative years. 

Tell us about the challenges in getting your first book published? 

My first book is still not published. Around 2015 before or perhaps after the birth of my daughter, Sasha, the idea of publishing a collection of poems formed most haphazardly. The idea intertwined with an obvious intention or an inner statement of some sort; to raise money to feed my daughter. 

I believed, among other things, not knowing the rigors involved, that I can publish a book and make money from it. This intention or sole responsibility towards my daughter after I lost my job with the Delta State government and the subsequent experiences of being lugged into single parenthood, after Sasha was abandoned by her mother to make my trauma more of a tragedy than a psychological evaluation of my life as a nomad, I brought the ambition of publishing a book to light. It was a collection of about two hundred poems running to about three hundred pages. With it, I approached a number of publishing firms, and it was agonizing to know that I needed about 1m (a million Naira) to publish the book. 

At that time, I was looking for a paltry sum of #50, 000 to start a business that could feed my daughter and myself. Someone asked me to divide the book into three parts without a moment’s hope of getting it published. After the excruciating task of dividing the volume, nothing came out of it. I traveled long distances, met friends and people who had the luxury, but none of them could help me. It turned out to be an odyssey; a long walk to publishing a book. That book is still unpublished as I type. 

How do you market your work? 

What avenues have you found to work best for you and has it been rewarding? I live off such markets and avenues because I couldn’t publish a book. I think one can only have a knowledge about such if one has published a book and has the privilege the market and such avenues offer. 

Your recent poetry book, Chatham House is a brilliant feast of words. What inspired the writing?

 I wanted to crowd Nigerians around the question, why vote? I was born at a time elections were annulled in this country and I have witnessed quite a good number and having studied the history, the electoral history and the electoral behavior from the postcolonial Nigeria, I personally think a democracy practiced on any electoral system in this country will not work. A change is possible, but not through the votes. There’s a lot to the Nigerian problem that we do not see, or don’t want to see. The truth is there. It can’t be sullied no matter how much denial is thrown at it. It goes beyond us as a people. 

If you look closely at the events that brought us into being even in the colonial days, you will understand the British and the powers that are Northern, or what we can call the powers of the unknown. You will understand why we are poor and why the mental state of the rich and the intelligentsia are one and the same thing. 

I wrote Chatham House for a people that do not know why they are Nigerians and will continue to be Nigerians if they do not dream of facing the truth. And it’s as I predicted in the course of writing it that Nigerians do not read and they do not understand, not even the intelligentsia, believe me. 

How long does it take you to write a poem? 

Minutes. Seconds. Sometimes a year or two. It all depends on what I want to achieve, the readers and the state of my mind. 

Do you intend to write any other genre apart from poetry? 

Essays, plays and a few novels.

What is your work schedule like when you're writing? 

I take one line at a time, one day at a time. I don’t rush things. I only trust the process. 

Did your environment and upbringing influence your writing style?

 My childhood was traumatic. I had no childhood save a few moments of being here or there with a father that was doing well at that time. My mother was all I had. My grandmother was amazing. Fishing was what we survived on. Farming too. And these became for me, a modus operandi. My poetry is just about where I come from, the people that matter and the experiences I had growing up. It’s impossible to separate me and water, being the past, the present and the future of my art. I am fascinated by origin and when I write, I seem lost in it.

How many poetry books have you written? Any favourite and why? 

I have not written any serious book. I have written six chapbooks of poems and each came as a response to national questions and about how I grew up with my mother; a single parent, who raised me in a manner I have yet to come to terms with. How can a woman of no education bring me up in such an amazing way. I could have been a local uneducated fisherman, or farmer, but my mother made sure I don’t go to bed without reading a book. 

What are the challenges you face as a poet? 

One of the funniest things I don’t understand about myself is how I have been able to read and write without a laptop, even now. By this I mean, I don’t have, I lack the basic things every writer needs to succeed. I don’t, and have no laptop, as I type. Everything that a writer should have, I lack. I have nothing. How I have survived is a miracle to me. 

Besides reading and writing, how do you relax? 

I go out with a few friends, eating and drinking a little, go home to bed. 

In your writing journey what are the most important lessons, you’ve learned?

Writing is hard. Patience is what makes good writing. 

Give us an interesting fact about the writing of your poetry books? 

I don’t sleep at nights. I finished my chapbooks of poems in a week or less than that. All the chapbooks I have written. I don’t see this as an act of genius. I needed to write them and I needed food on my table. I had to finish them in such a space of time, so they don’t get in the way of my daily bread. 

What do you consider your best accomplishment? 

The Sillerman prize for African poets, no doubt. 

What was your reaction when you were announced the winner of The Sillerman Prize for African Poets? 

I have always dreamed of being a poet. A poet with little or no recognition. I always see myself in that light. I had no expectations. No ambition. I just write. And I relish the written word I put down even if it’s not published by some ambitious journals or magazines, or publishing firms. I just write. 

Also, I am not someone who loves sending out works to be published in online journals and magazines. I don’t have the energy and money to enter my works for literary contests. Even now,  so I just write. I would have pulled down the building the night the email came in that I have won the Sillerman prize. I screamed in a way that could have ruined a few eardrums if they were that close. 

How has winning the prize impact your writing career? 

It has made me believe and accepted the fact that I can be a poet. 

What would you say is your interesting writing quirk? 

I read a lot before writing. Prior to writing anything, I pick a lot of poems, essays, or books before writing a single poem. This way, I don’t rest when I start. I’m a workaholic. 

What’s your family reaction to your writing career? 

My family doesn’t even know that I have won a prize. And even if they know, they won’t understand how important it is. They live far away from Literature or the literary world that they can’t make anything of it. 

How has being a writer helped your personal growth and where do you see yourself in the coming years with your writing?

I expect nothing. I don’t like expectations either. I will continue to write and make plans as necessary, but wherever I find myself, so long as I am teaching and writing poetry or any kind of book, I will be satisfied with my life. Writing has placed me above my wildest dreams. It has shaped me, no doubt, into a man. 

What advice will give to aspiring writers, especially in your genre? 

Don’t give up. 

Tares Oburumu's Poem

Title

Guitarist & The Audience, In A 2022 Van, Driving Through The City Cut

Into Two; On One Side Is The Body Of A Girl Burnt For The Beliefs She Once Wore

As Jewelries, On The Other Is A Time Bomb Seen As A Flower Growing Under

The Tuft Of A Flag Stained With Defeat: The Cry Of Mothers Called

The Elegies Of Beethoven. 

For Beauty

The word MERCY, I am like you,

soft as the freshwaters of Syma.

I am filled with rose

petals; brittle blessing – broken into pieces of

forbearance, then grace.

To confect, to put yourself together,

you grow into a single beet flower; the scent

is assertive, the colors – each carries honey,

each is seductive. Where can we breed the bees?

Over & over again, I sail toward my apotheosis

elfin or garden, poring the shoreline,

which the waters measure with the length my heart

can carry.

I paddle my mind away from the sea

I have known for days, too blue not to be true.

I needed a plot of sunlight & solitude to sit down &

to think, to reckon the hours till the country becomes

usable again. Yes, home is just a thought you

trump up as roof over your head; an ache

trying hard to glorify you. I sail toward my poise.

I have never been unhappy, watching you

in the split, glassy on the TV.

You spill, as color, all over the national news.

What can the small talks, possibly say?

Today, I stand in the grapevine holding on

to the emeries, where we can rebuild what has been

destroyed by hearsay.

They say you are the door I have been opening,

to enter the revolution the house keeps closing.

The things you would die for, do they believe in you?

Does God believe in Alain Borer enough for him

to believe in God?

Of sedition, there’s more to dying than the affirmatives.

In the corner of an inflammable street,

the rituals of surrender tiptoe over the tripwires.

A scope of arms spreads, briefly, within limits & loss.

I could see burnt courages, dreams shot in the heart.

A toy-car, too, in a plastic dump.

The weight of a hummingbird’s wing is heavier

in the nest than when it floats down the wind,

ascending in protest.

I am thinking, now, about my hands buttercups

rested on my lover’s thighs the night before;

long symphonies sang over the need to reinvent

the bedroom,

then the guitar: the strings come as clear as

daylights when you touch your own soul.

The music becomes Lilian Eze's mirror.

See how we preen ourselves in her notes,

vulnerable, yet outfoxing the pockmarks

added to the orchestra by way of a historical cult.

Her hairs float in us. The van has already

become an instrument. We strum the roadmap.

The traffic is sick. It is difficult to say it’s separated

from the governorate. The drive is long, & longer

is the will to reach the revolution; isn’t that word the horizon,

the image of the second coming of our lord, Jesus?

Love the little Nigerian that being a bum deals you.

& sing it as your own, says the emigrant.

What do you know about a nomad, a desert crossing robin?

Here is the city he left behind, & a sister raped by fire.

Here’s the epitaph & everything the aquarellist

says she is: beautiful, beautiful.

Even as a girl living now under a heap of blasphemed

stones.

The tweets die, too. Almost a practice. But mostly,

I wondered: how does a hand flaunting a vote

save the dead? Or a flag shot in the head?

Here she lies, six feet below the internet. Facebook allergies.

Time or apple on the wrist of a Miss can do nothing

but to be beautiful. She was infinite as the universe

on the pages of Forge Literary Magazine.

In the hands of the young Williams Blake, ticking away

in his photograph, hung above my bookshelf.

A wound always in the shape of all I have ever read.

I am the kind of inventions that would have

made him rich; ache drowned in the prints; words

intensifying the almighty love, endless in the way

the sky sings of its expanse.

In the warmth of my own silences, I walk into the center

of my mind & stare at all the wannabe poems.

I ask, do you want to be born in these hard times?

Tares Oburumu

Winner of  2022 Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets.

Chike Okeze (Author)

Chike Okeze is a young, vibrant Nigerian writer and author who uses his gift of storytelling to craft books that resonate with readers, books that highlight the rich cultural heritage of his people. In this interview, Chike talks about his journey as a writer, and the challenges he has encountered so far in his quest to make a name for himself in the community of writers.

Q: Tell us about yourself

Chike: Thank you, Mrs Ngozi. It’s indeed an honour to be on this platform to talk about myself and my writing career.

My name is Chike Godwin Okeze, an author, a Pastor and an easygoing and imaginative person.

I was born and brought up in Lagos Nigeria but hail from Ibusa, in Oshimili North, Delta State. I am the second child in a family of six; five boys and a girl, all grown ups now.

I have a qualification in Business administration and management, from Lagos state Polytechnic and I am an Associate Member Charted Institute of Business Administration (ACIA). I belong to the Literary Authors Cooperative, Lagos, of which I am a founding member. 

Q: What inspired you to become a writer?

Chike: I have the gift of storytelling. As a child, I enjoyed folk tales. My mum was a good storyteller and never hesitated to tell my siblings and me bedtime stories. Let’s say I inherited the gift from her. Growing up I often find it easy to make up stories for my peers. 

As a child, I was artistic and good at creating art. In primary school, I made money from my classmates through comic illustrations. But my interest in creative writing began in secondary school when I was introduced to literature as one of my subjects. Poetry was my first love of the entire literary genre. I wrote several poetries, mainly satire, with themes that centred on politics, war, nature and love. 

My interest shifted from poetry to prose, in my later years in secondary school. Books such as Things Fall Apart, Bottled Leopard, The Concubine and so on, fired my imagination. I made up my mind to write, the first time, after I read, God Father, by Mario Puzo, an American author, of Italian descent. In 2001, I started writing a book, titled Death Toll and finished the project in 2005. Ever since I have not looked back on my writing career.

Q: What genre do you write and how did you choose it?

Chike: I write literary fiction, but not limited to that alone, I’m versatile in my creativity. I write stories that explore the African culture and realities of the human condition. The themes of my stories revolve around love, communal conflicts, marital conflicts, children's affairs, crimes, thrillers, and tragedies. These form the pool from which I develop my style of writing. I wouldn’t want to tie myself to one genre because of the way my mind works. I tend to flow in the path my imagination leads me.

Q: Have you ever experienced writer’s block and how did you deal with it?

Chike: writer’s block simply means when a writer is unable to write his thoughts down due to poor or lack of inspiration. In other words, the writer’s mind goes blank. It’s normal to experience a block as a writer, at least once in a while. I have indeed experienced it a couple of times in the past. I deal with this by taking a break and engaging in some form of relaxation. Writing is a product of ideas and is generated through inspiration and inspiration is drawn from the spiritual. So, don’t get worked up, when you experience a block, you’re not in the spirit at that time. It’s as simple as that. Again, you must ensure you have your work in progress outlined to serve as a guide so you don’t have to be cracking your brain on the next line of action in your writing project.

Q: How/where do you get information or ideas for your books?

Chike: I source information for my books from within my surroundings. As a writer I have to be aware of my environment and what goes on around me, because my environment is my primary source of writing information. I draw ideas from everyday people, daily events, current affairs, journals, other novels or creative works, the internet, social media, and nature, the lists are endless. As a writer, it’s left for you to narrow the subject you want to convey to your readers. I do a lot of research. For example, while writing Sacrifice of Peace, I have to study the communal lifestyle of a typical Igbo community of the pre-colonial era.

I will first have an idea of what I want to write about before I proceed to do a detailed plan of everything that would go into the story, from the characters, setting, period, and writing style to the plot before I start developing the story.

Q: Are there authors or books that influenced you either growing up or as an adult? 

Chike: Yes, I have authors who influenced me. I may not know them in person, but their works made lots of impact on the way I write. Authors like Chinua Achebe, Emeka Ike, Elechi Amadi, and Prof. Wole Soyinka, made significant impacts on the way I view creative writing. Sacrifice of Peace was written to make a statement, about the authors and books that shaped my literary belief.

Q: How many books have you written?

Chike: I have four published books. They are; Amope the Slave girl, Ule the Lazy farmer, Helen: A Retrospect | A Reversion and Sacrifice of Peace, which is my latest. And I have about ten unpublished titles. 

Q: What are the challenges you faced in writing and publishing your books?

Chike: The challenges are numerous, but the main ones are funding and distribution of books. Creative writing and publishing is indeed a narrow path to venture into in this part of the world. Getting a publishing house to accept your work as a starter is like swimming against the tides. Since it’s not easy to secure a deal with a publishing house, you have to do everything for yourself as a self-published author. Distributing your books is one herculean task self-published authors faced, and having to persuade the printing press to deliver your job on time after you’ve made payment. I am still faced with these challenges, and it’s affecting the performance of my books in the marketplace.

Q: How do you market your book? What avenues have you found to work best for your genre?

Chike: Sacrifice of Peace has been in the market for quite a while. In my strategy, I  printed a few hard copies, had a book launch and then reprint more copies for distribution to major bookshops across the country. I made that arrangement with my printer based in Ibadan. My number two strategy is to get it published on Amazon, an online bookshop, that’s the stage I am in now. Also, the design of my author’s website is ongoing, when it’s done, I’ll let you know. I have people handling the online stuff, and I hope it yields a positive result.

Also, there is a work in progress, to have Sacrifice of Peace used as a literature book in schools in one of the states in the country. I am waiting for approval from the education board.

Q: What do you consider your best accomplishment so far as a writer?

Chike: As a writer, I always have this sense of accomplishment whenever I complete a book project. I often feel relieved when I finish writing a story. Some years back, I completed a draft titled, Rape on Campus, and felt like giving myself a treat for achieving such a feat. But I had no cash on me, so I decided to take a stroll and run into a relative, I had not seen for a while, she took me out for a treat, and I ate and drank. Sometimes, nature knew your heart's desire and conspired to give that to you.  But I’m hoping that a time will come when my title will become a household name across countries of the world. That will be my greatest accomplishment.

Q: How do you coordinate your daily work with your writing time?

Chike: Before embarking on any writing project, I have all my ideas laid out, which makes it easier for me to have time for other activities. Mostly, I use my spare time to write, like during breaks, I always have my writing pad and plot outline handy with me. I write down information as inspiration flows. I also draft something while in transit. I utilize the night hour and weekends for my story development. These and more, are the ways I schedule my writing routines and at the same time engage in other activities.

Q: What are the challenges of being a writer in Nigeria? 

Chike: The challenges are numerous as I have stated before; one, is the issue of little or no funding for writers to research, write and publish their works. Two, publishing houses are not willing to promote the works of creative writing, like our foreign counterparts. There are issues of piracy and the inability of the government to confront this monster headlong. There’s also the issue of poor reading culture, a result of a poor educational system. Lack of support by government and private institutions in promoting book-related projects and programmes. 

Q: Are you a self-publishing author or do you have a publisher?

Chike: My first book, Amope the Slave Girl, was published by Macmillan Nigeria Publisher. I submitted the work and they accepted it for publishing, with payment of annual royalty as the contract stipulated. But the company is yet to match their words with action, for I have never received any royalties from them. After my experience with Macmillan, I decided to self-publish my books. I published a book titled, Ule the lazy farmer, a book I tailored for school-age pupils, on a friend’s advice. So, I have tasted what it takes to work under a publisher and to self-publish. 

Q: How do you promote your books and are they yielding interest?

Chike: what I have done with my books was to print a few copies and sell them on demand. Now I am looking in the direction of E-books. I have been making campaigns via my social media. I have engaged some social media influencers like you, to talk about my books. Sacrifice of Peace will be live on Amazon on 30th March 2023; I engaged the service of an American, to deploy her expertise at ensuring good sales for the book. 

Q: What kind of feedback do you get from your readers?

Chike: So far, the feedback is impressive, though the distribution of the book has not reached a wider populace of readers, due to limited copies. But the testimonies are positive. An account of two bank staff that bought the book got me smiling. The lady said her cousin couldn’t stop talking about the book and carried it about. The book is attracting lots of testimonies and positive responses from those who have read it.

Q: Your book, Sacrifice of Peace was reviewed in this blog, give us some information about the writing of the book. 

Chike: The idea of the title Sacrifice of Peace was conceived sometime in 2016 and much research went into birthing it. I wanted to prove that an Epic story of African culture can be written by a writer of my generation and to honour the likes of Chinua Achebe and Elechi Amadi who have done it in the past.

I also wrote Sacrifice of Peace to mirror the social ills of communal conflicts common among African communities and the need to embrace peace. 

One objective I had while writing the story was to preserve and promote the African culture and to make it a subject of conversation among young pupils in literature classes in our schools. 

I have to give my mother credit, for providing me with the folktales and songs used in the stories. I couldn’t have done it on my own without her input.

Q: Do you have any advice for aspiring writers, especially in your genre?

Chike: My advice to them is to have in mind that writing is a narrow path and it’s also like a marathon. But it rewards the diligent. They have to be diligent with their crafts; seek guidance from those ahead of them. It won’t be long before they begin to reap the fruit of their labours. I am not there yet, but I know I have passed a lot of stages to be where I am now, I can attest to the fact that it has not been easy.

Q: What else are you great at that few people know about?

Chike: Singing and creative arts, but I never took them seriously. As for arts, because I didn’t have an art teacher in my primary and secondary school, I lost interest in developing it further. But for music, my introverted nature kept me back from going public with my singing abilities.

Q: What is your favourite music/film?

Chike: I should say I don’t have a favourite music. It’s like a seasonal thing for me. But there are artists I love their songs, the likes of Bob Marley, John Legend, Faze and Majek Fashek.

Again, I am not the type that watches TV programmes often, but I love drama series.

Q: How do you relax and what are your hobbies aside from writing?

Chike: I am an indoor person, when I
am not seriously engaged or reading, I watch football. In the past, I played football, but I stopped due to physical constraints.

Sacrifice of Peace by Chike. G. Okeze (Reviewed by Ngozi Ebubedike)

Sacrifice of peace is set in a remote village in the eastern part of Nigeria. The book explores some myths and superstitions prevalent in our society, especially in some parts of Igbo land, where it is believed that a woman who experiences delay in getting married or giving birth is because she has a spiritual or marine husband. She would need to undergo some cleansing rites and sacrifice to free her from the gripe of a spirit husband. This brings to mind Elechi Amadi’s book, The Concubine.

When Arunma fails to give birth after many years of marriage, Ugonna, her husband and Ahurole, her mother urged her to undergo a sacrificial cleansing to break the covenant between her and her marine husband, to which she reluctantly agreed. After that, she gave birth to the much-awaited child, Amadi, but at the expense of her husband’s life.

Amadi, the protagonist of the story is known for his brave acts in his village of Umueze. After the death of his mother, he went to live with his maternal grandmother, Ahurole, at Umuagu village where he meet and falls in love with Udoka from Achala, a neighbouring village. Blinded by his love for Udoka, Amadi disregards the communal feud between the two communities and the inherent danger of being caught and killed by members of Achala community, to pursue the love of his life.

The book is replete with folklore as Ahurole, Amadi’s grandmother is a great storyteller. The scene of the children gathering around a bonfire to listen to the elderly woman is very nostalgic for people who grew up in the village and a reminiscence of tales by moonlight, the stories are told under the illuminating light of a full moon. The thrilling aspect of the folklore is the singing and the responding choruses by the children.

The author, Chike Okeze shows through his book, Sacrifice of Peace, that embracing peace is more beneficial to communities than war and animosities. And that love is stronger than hatred.

The chapters flow seamlessly in simple and understandable English spiced with Igbo words, idioms and proverbs. Chike Okeze showcases the cultural ambience of the Igbo tradition. 

The author deviated from the usual practice of using opening and closing quotes to mark direct speeches, however, it was not sustained as there are quotation marks in some of the direct speeches.

The book is a good read for both young and old. It gives an insight into some of our culture, traditional beliefs and rites. Also, the theme of love and romance were well crafted in the book.

A walk of boldness

He broke forth
Out of the crowd
pushed and prompted
By the yawning of his heart
He took a walk of boldness
Sparked by his desire
For a better Nigeria
He stood courageously
And stopped a moving
Convoy.

Spreading out his hands
In supplication, he looked
At the man with admiration.
“My family said the man
Before me is a good man
The hope for a better Nigeria
I’m not of age to vote for him
But what I have is my love
and my prayers.
God, bless him
And through him bless
My country and take away
Our pains and suffering.”
The boy prayed in his heart.

The man smiled.
A smile with a coded message.
“Young boy,
The support and enthusiasm
Of people like you 
The youths of this nation
Is why I’m in the race
To let you know that
A better Nigeria is POssible.
Together we will take back
Our country
Build it and make it great.”

© By Ngozi Ebubedike.