When you are young, your girls are your best friends. You play with sand, then dolls then makeup. You study, work, and plan together. It all seems easy. But as we grow older, life gets in the way. Romantic relationships, work, family, kids, and other things make it seem like you have less than 24 hours in a day. Sometimes we think we don’t need our girls around us anymore. As the dynamics begin to change, you realize that people often bash female friends and female friendships. You often hear about petty drama, fighting over boys, “jealousy”, women not wanting other women to win and many othe ..read more

Sometime last week, I stumbled on a very fascinating thread, one that left Naija twitter in disarray. The story was basically that a certain guy had created a thread talking about how “ugly” his wife used to be despite being very smart and intelligent. He used very strong words, then compared who he met then, and who he could see now. Finally, he wrapped things up by implying that being with your ‘spec’, that is someone you find attractive, isn’t always possible. Like many others on Twitter, I found his comment quite puzzling, especially because he spoke with such finality and authority. I kn ..read more

There are some stories you hear, stories that sounds like a movie or one of those newspaper column gists until it happens to you or someone close by. So, during Christmas break, I caught up with a childhood friend I haven’t spoken to in a long while. Let’s call her Victoria. Victoria is thirty-five, she works in a multinational, runs a huge cake business and is also the mother of two toddlers. You can see why we haven’t spoken in a while! Anyway, she shipped her boys off to their grandparents for Christmas and we finally had time to catch up. Let me go straight to the point. Her father is agi ..read more

I usually have to tell people that I’m igbo, otherwise they might never guess. First, I’m not light skinned with full natural hair both on the head and other parts of the body. Nor do I have full hips and a big bosom. These things are often telling for those of us from the East. That’s the ideal physical frame of” Igboness”.  Interestingly, I also learned quickly that it’s very Nigerian too. I mean, we Black people in Nigeria have the tendency to extol the lighter skin, almost like we are not a continent of dark-skinned beauties. We are very subtly yet very blatantly colorist. And we are ..read more

Let me start straight up by saying that this is not one of those strongly opinionated articles that wish to tell you what to do. It’s not somebody-positivity, anti-bra, pro-feminist movement (though of course, these movements are great.) My point is – I’m really just curious to know where TLR readers stand on the Bra vs no. Bra debate. I remember when I was a teenager constantly surrounded by aunties. I would hear things like: push your bra strap in, don’t you know you are a lady? Or, why is the line of your bra showing through your blouse. Like many other young Nigerian girls, the female und ..read more

One of my favorite topics to discuss with my friends is money. Listen, there is nothing like a woman having her own money. It doesn’t matter if your family is wealthy, husband, mother, etc. are wealthy, a woman should always have her own money! We all know this, but I said I should reiterate for those at the back. If I try to list out reasons why we should have our money, then we’ll not leave here today. Last year was difficult for me financially so this year, I am trying out a couple of new methods! Invest wisely I started investing in mutual funds in 2018. It’s a low-risk investment and so ..read more

Last week I wrote about the kind of habits you need to make 2022 be more productive for you. You can read it here. But that post was only one leg of the topic. Remember that saying from when we were young? One bad egg will spoil the entire crate. Exactly o! Even if you have all the great habits in the world, there are certain toxic traits that will still corrupt all your good work. So, as much as we want to build habits, it’s also good for us to tear down the negative traits that have hindered us. Trust me, this is one aspect of self-development you don’t want to ignore. If you are wondering ..read more

There’s a common Igbo proverb I tend to recall fondly. It says, Agaracha must come back. The phrase, agaracha literally translates to, the one who moves around, the wanderer, the restless. The idea of this phrase is obvious, no matter how much ‘shakara’ a person does, eventually, they will get tired. Even the adventurers must find a place that they can return to. So, my did I think of this phrase? My sister! It’s Naija government o. You have probably heard the statement in which Naija government officials finally announced the lifting of the Twitter ban. It’s also possible you don’t know what ..read more

January usually feels like it is 90 days long. But I’ve never experienced a January so quick to be over as this one. We blinked and it’s nearly the 31st. Okay not quite, but you must admit, things appear to be moving quickly. Also, all the resolutions I made are already in the “murd”. I couldn’t even catch my breath. Lol. If you are like me and you have already begun to break your health, fitness, and productivity goals that you made barely two weeks ago, fear not. We are still on track. But we cannot continue to do the same things, expecting different results. You know that popular Instagram ..read more

The unfortunate incident of a lady who is believed to have been murdered and dismembered for supposedly ritual killing trended online. Like all experiences of gender-based violence that has taken place, there is always, for some reason, the victim-blaming questions. What was she wearing? Why did she? How could she? And in this case, the mockery and blame game that insists that the lady caused her death after all she wanted to bam bam and chill with the big boys.  When violence against the woman occurs, the woman is always at fault. There was something she did that warranted the viol ..read more