Slide 1: @alfaruqstories comes by the house and points the camera at my face till I start laughing. First post-wedding, adult photoshoot done. When he sends it a few weeks later, I wonder why it feels so familiar.
Slide 2: No one remembers whose idea it was to take the picture. Or who even took it. But the neighbours grab one-year-old me, pull some clothes from the cupboard, and spend the whole day taking photos in a neighbourhood studio.
Anyway, if you ask me how I am feeling these days, I tend to say: "Exhausted all the time. Energised all the time." Happy to announce that I'm still here. No longer younger and promising, but hopefully still promising (God abeg).
"You start out being a big part of a small toolbox, then become a small part of a massive engine."
In this story, @fuadxiv explores how friendship, in more ways than one, built Paystack.
🎨 By @pencilking01
Link in bio.
#vistanium #paystack
A few months ago, we started archiving. We’ve dug through the thousands of dusty Nigerian Newspapers pages, digitised them, and made them accessible to you, at your fingertips.
And we’re just getting warmed up.
Start exploring with the link in our bio.
"I'll start posting on Instagram again," na with mouth since last year. But here we are.
Okay, what do we have? Brunch last Sunday.
"Jump photos used to be your thing,"
"Look, my knees are gone. If I jump, it might be over."
"But you know what? @damibankole.photo snap am."
And I jumped (or did I?), and Dami snap am. And I'm still working like their daddy. Because I'm all of them's daddy.
P.S: The hat is borrow-pose from @oluwakay80 , and the glasses are borrow-pose from @dami.bankole .
I spent a minute or two trying to figure out how to post this photo. First, I landed on Reels, then I swiped the options in the Stories. Then I landed on the little cross on the top right. And here we are. Not in the place in this photo, my favourite place, Mambilla. But here, on Instagram, dreaming.
📸 @oshomah
Pulled off the biggest heist of my life. Italian Job no do pass this one.
It's been a little over a week, but marriage has bestowed on me newfound wisdom. Na just to start YouTube channel dey dish relationship advice remain.
I have a serious problem. Everytime I order or someone sends me food, I want to take a photo for the gram and — you know — launch my food blogging career. For free food only. But I lack focus. Because when this fish showed up this evening, I was like "Yes Fu'ad, this is the moment you've been waiting for." Then I unwrapped the foil. And I saw the fish. Then I tasted it. And I — you know what? I'll tell you about the fish. First of all, it's this big — the size of my arm, and I'm a pretty big guy. The fish is grilled. Just the right amount of burn, like something a software would do. What type of fish? I can't even remember. I just remember that every time I went for fish, one pinch filled my mouth. I have a big mouth too, have you seen my mouth?
Then, there are veggies everywhere, chopped and adorning the fish. Bright red. Like actual jewelry. I dunno if it was decoration, but I ate all of it. Every single chop. I dunno who the cutlery was for, but I used my hand. I kept going, and my friend — don't trust friends — he dived in too. Next thing you know, we're at the bone and I remember, "oh shit. Oh shit, my Blogger career!" So, I took a photo of, you know, what was left of the fish. Done is better than perfect. If you really want to see the photo, go to @atmosphererooftop . Just don't ask me what happened to the head.
Now that I think about it, I should have ordered a mocktail too.
2. "People used to tell us that they were carrying Amala flour abroad because they didn't like Oyinbo food," he says.
"Hmm, yes yes," he's mimicking a voice of someone I don't know, but I recognise. "Hmm, yes yes, you know all these their burger burger. But Amala is good."
"But when you're working at the airport, You see people coming and going. And we were now wondering, how did this person carry Amala abroad and come back looking fat?"
He's leaning forward as if he can see them at arrivals on the road before us.
"Na so America sweet reach?"
I haha. He hahas back.
"Until Idiagbon opened our eyes."
It's a Wednesday in '85. An airline worker along with two other men, face a firing squad of 6. There are no saviours or thieves here, just guys who moved coco.
Airline guy is smiling his 26-year-old smile, and saying a prayer. He's only 6 years older than my driver was.
In 5 minutes, and under the full weight of Decree 20, there's no more life in all three men, and the six shooters return to whatever is they were doing before.
So, what did that change at the airport?
One day, over half a decade later, "I went to work with only ₦50", he says. A man walks up to him and asks him if he can help him cross his Amala. "I say Oga this no be Amala."
"I say this na coco. The boy laugh, come ask how much I want? I say ₦400k. 400 just to carry the thing put inside him bag as we dey load o."
"As I collected that money," he says, "I knew one leg was at home, and the other one in Kirikiri if them catch me."
That day, he didn't go home straight. He went to buy a car. ₦165k. Neat Tokunbo. When he got home, "my wife said shebi you say you no get money this morning, how you take buy car?"
"I told her," he says, "I told her na God o."
