Matilda Sola

[Matilda Sola @Tilishoz]

@IntimacyRex @Thomas_Vera_ I,Robot

[Khanya_Siluma🇿🇦 @SilumaKhanya]

I love it when Black people say “here comes your friend” and when you look up it’s someone you hate

[smv @slimvnsn]

My father's best friend was a man called Uncle Bayo who disappeared from our lives without explanation. I was 12 the last time I saw him. He came to our flat in Gbagada, argued with my father in the bedroom for an hour, and walked out without saying goodbye to me. My father never spoke his name again. Neither did my mother. Uncle Bayo became a silence with a shape.

Twenty-six years passed. I was in Philadelphia for a conference. A networking dinner at a hotel downtown. Across the room, a man about my father's age caught my eye and held it too long. He approached me during dessert and said my surname like it was a question he already knew the answer to.

We sat in the hotel lobby until 2am. He told me the story my father never did. They had started a construction company together in the early 90s. It had failed because of a contract dispute with a senator. The senator had paid only half the money and refused the rest. The debt had crushed them. Uncle Bayo had blamed my father for trusting the senator. My father had blamed Uncle Bayo for not reading the fine print. The friendship had shattered. Two men who had been closer than brothers had become strangers over something neither of them could control.

Uncle Bayo had moved to America after the falling out. He had built a new life, a new business, a small contracting firm in West Philly. He had married a Ghanaian woman and had two daughters. He had never returned to Nigeria. He had never called my father. He had assumed the silence was mutual.

I asked why he approached me now. He said he recognised my face because I looked like my father at 30. He said he had been waiting for decades to see that face again, to explain something that was never about betrayal. He said the argument had been about shame, not money. Both men had felt they failed each other. Neither had known how to say it.

I called my father from the hotel room. It was 3am in Lagos. He answered on the second ring, voice thick with sleep and alarm. I told him who I was sitting with. The line went quiet. Then my father did something I had never heard him do. He cried. Not softly. The kind of crying that comes from a place words cannot reach.

Uncle Bayo flew to Lagos 3 months later. They met at the same flat in Gbagada. They sat in the same living room where the argument had happened. They didn't re-litigate the past. They just sat together, two old men with white hair and matching hypertension medication, and let the silence heal.

My father died last year. Uncle Bayo spoke at the funeral. He said the greatest thief in life is not money or failure. It is the belief that there is always more time.

Call them. The debt is not theirs. It is yours.

[Queeneth💕 @queenie_baybe]

Pray to never be in a situation where only you and God know the truth

[Matilda Sola @Tilishoz]

@UchechiOO @ebitt If you have a priest that can actually sing it well, I agree. Until I visited another parish, I never knew it could be sung badly but then, na the message not the melody be the Koko

[Matilda Sola @Tilishoz]

From time to time, I think of @doeyhin 2019 family chatgroup saga and I burst out in uncontrollable laughter!
Just came across the thread’s screenshots while cleaning my gallery, and it’s still as funny as it was 7years ago 😂😂😂

[Cyborg Warlord @Admiral_Cyborg]

On the 16th of December 25, I discovered a deadly evil being perpetuated by citizens against fellow citizens. In the course of this story, I'll make use of fictional names but real locations where they occured.

On that Tuesday morning, Olamide, a 25 year old boy came back to his apartment in Rumuigbo with his Toks Lexus RX 350, which he bought the previous week, and was celebrating with everyone. He had picked up the car from Apapa, Lagos, where he went with a mechanic whom he met on FB marketplace and drove down to see his people in Delta before proceeding to PH on that day. The car had been in his possession for over 7 days before he came to PH.

Let me give you a backstory on Olamide. He is an only son with 6 sisters and he is the 4th child. His father is in Quatar, working as a boat operator and his mother is a teacher in one of the government secondary schools in Delta state. Olamide is a waiter in one prominent place in Onne, hence the urge to get a car. His dad sent him the money for the car since the boy wasn't patient enough for one to be shipped to him.

While we were celebrating, we heard gunshots outside the gate and almost immediately the gate flew wide open. Operatives of EFCC and NPF filled the compound and everyone was in panic mode. I sharply went inside and called the NAF base and Army barracks, sent my location and went outside. I was on pass so I had no official capacity to act, hence my silence. They told everyone to lie down, started rough handling everyone. Some started going door to door, pounding and shouting that everyone must come out. I tried talking to the one I sensed was the most senior and he shunned me. I didn't argue or drag. They checked their tablet and kept pointing at the car, "oga na the car be this. Tracker no dey lie." While they were at it, 4 vans filled with soldiers arrived, and 6 of them came into the compound. Upon seeing them, I got up immediately and told everyone on the floor to stand.

We started asking questions, and they said the car belonged to a yahoo boy and it was seized by the EFCC. They claimed the car was missing from their lot and they have been tracking it for over 4 months, so I had Olamide describe the vendor's location and calls were made to Lagos, some soldiers and some members of the Lagos RRS stormed the place, picked up the seller and began interrogating him. That's where things went dark.

The car seller has an active agreement with a handful from the EFCC. If a young guy buys a car, they install trackers and sell it to him, wait for some days and bust the guy, retrieve the car and arrest him while tagging him a yahoo boy. The car is then returned to the car dealer and the dealer gives EFCC their own share from the car sales proceeds. The mechanic is in on it also.

After all these exposé, I realized that we have a very long way to go as a country.

To the young men, do your research before you walk into any dealership to buy a car. Ask questions, swallow pride. That 24-48 hours of information gathering will save you a long time in prison.

[Chioma Agwuegbo @ChiomaChuka]

An acquaintance is desperately in need of a job that will offer COS. Her husband lied to their school & snuck her 3 children back to Nigeria in her absence. Then he took them off as his dependants. She has 5 weeks to switch roles and change visas. Please PM me if you can help.

[Matilda Sola @Tilishoz]

@ChiomaChuka This is so wicked 😵🤦🏾‍♀️

[Lady B - IYALODE OF X @mobola_ade]

My name is Zainab. I’m 27 years old. An SS.

That is, I live with sickle cell disease.
My parents are both AS.

Oh, they They knew.
They were told.
They still married.

They said God approved it. They said love would be enough. They said faith would cover the consequences.

I am the consequence.

I was diagnosed before I was two. My childhood memories are not playgrounds or cartoons,they are; hospitals, needles, and adults whispering when they thought I couldn’t hear.

In primary school, I missed classes so often that teachers stopped asking why. Some classmates thought I was pretending. Some thought I was cursed. I learned early how to smile while feeling different.

By secondary school, the pain episodes became more frequent. I would wake up excited for school and end the day on a hospital bed. I watched my mates grow normally while my life moved in pauses, school, hospital, recovery, repeat.

At 15, I lost my younger brother to sickle cell.
We were both SS.

That day changed me forever.

My parents broke down in front of me — crying, apologizing, saying “We followed faith. We didn’t think…”
But the damage had already been done.

Sometimes I forgive them.
Sometimes I resent them deeply.
Both feelings live in me.

In university, I tried to be normal. I joined sickle cell advocacy groups, volunteered with awareness organizations, spoke at events, encouraged parents to test their genotype. People call me strong. They call me a warrior.

What they don’t see is me crying alone at night after another silent pain episode.
They don’t see the fear that comes with planning a future in a body that doesn’t always cooperate.

And Relationships?
That’s another wound.

I’ve been loved… briefly.
The moment conversations turn serious about marriage, children, commitment….they leave. Some are honest. Some ghost me. Some promise forever and disappear quietly.

One man once said he would do anything for me. He talked about taking me abroad, better care, a life without fear. I believed him. For the first time, my heart rested.

Then one day, he stopped calling.

That heartbreak triggered one of the worst crises I’ve had as an adult. Not because of physical stress but because hope collapsed.

Now I’m older. The pain episodes come differently. Less dramatic, but more exhausting. My body recovers slower. My fears are heavier. I ask myself questions my parents never asked each other.

I am strong, yes.
But I am tired.

If you are AS and the person you love is AS, please love your unborn children enough to stop and think. Faith is not a license to ignore knowledge. I am a proof to that

I didn’t ask to be a lesson.
But if my life can prevent another child from being born into avoidable pain, then my voice matters.

That’s why I’m writing this to you. Because people listens to you and this story needs to be heard. I hope that your audience share this till it reaches those who are about to walk by faith and not by sight, Sickle Cell is real!.

Adeyinka, keep rescuing lives, I love how you raise awareness and say the truth unapologetically, those who do not like you are probably those who wish they could be you. Have you met you?. Oh,I see you Queen Ade💪🏻

[Matilda Sola @Tilishoz]

@Freakyfrea54752 @MisolaofJesus Likeeeee! I cried as well as he rolled in disbelief, not minding how he looked like or that said clothes were new. I was scared for a minute as he clung to the machine so he doesn’t hurt himself with the sharp edges. Then, that heartfelt prayer from his Mom…chai! Heartfelt

[OurFaveOnlineDoc 🇬🇧 🇳🇬 @OurFavOnlineDoc]

Sometimes the biggest message is not in words- it is in compassion and care for those who can never pay it back.

This story really touched me.

[Elnathan John @elnathan_john]

So, I have new fiction out in @Hopkins_Review. It is titled, How To Raise Your Parents. Please read, share, let me know what you think about this story!

Link: https://t.co/6zInzduzEt

[A.VICTOR @Lifeof_AG01]

"You have pimples on your face.
"You're getting fatter."

Yes, I saw it in the mirror before leaving home. Now shut up, mind your business and leave me the fuck alone.

[Richard ✢ @BadmanRic]

Content like this >>>> 👏👏

[Matilda Sola @Tilishoz]

@MsJazzyfied One and only Isioma of Nollywood!!! So so happy for and proud of your Director IsiFunds 🥰

[Jade Osiberu @jadeosiberu]

Didn’t wake up feeling powerful lol but Hollywood reporter says I’m one of ‘The 40 Most Powerful Women in International Film’ 😊

https://t.co/HoJRF4t4o4