PROGRESS OBERIKO BLOG

  Recently, a friend and I walked into this high-profile designer perfume shop inside a mall in London to check out some fragrances. As soon as we entered and greeted the Asian sales lady, she left the till where she initially was, and came out onto the shop floor, literally standing behind us and monitoring us. Although my friend and I are Black, my friend, male, is ‘generously-melanined’ this means that he is very dark-skinned, and he is over 6ft tall as well. This sales-lady kept lurking around us, but I didn’t realise this until later. In no time, an Asian guy–a supposed customer–also walked into the shop, and was checking out the perfumes, meanwhile the sales lady’s eyes were locked on my friend and me. Before we could realise what was happening, we saw the sales-lady rush out of the shop, as if to chase someone–it was the Asian guy who had just entered the shop. He had stolen an expensive perfume and ran away, and the lady unfortunately didn't notice this because her eyes wer...

Equality means that everyone should have equal amount of everything. But there is another word that I think is way bigger than equality, and that is equity . Equity doesn’t means that everybody should have equal amounts of everything but rather,    equity means that people should have the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome—and in certain situations this means that some people should have more, while some should have less, not because they are considered less humans or less capable, but because it is fair to do so.  Equity means having a balanced distribution of opportunities! And this has been the demands of women from various parts of the world. And equity, for me, means fairness! Because even in equality there can be unfairness, but in equity there’s fairness! And this is what guides my advocacy for women development in society. Equality means asking a millionaire to pay £1000 for tax, and asking a £2000 salary earner to pay the same amou...

  I was sitting in a bus and it was one of those rare occasions when the driver horned about twice, because of another car trying to overtake (I can literally count how many times I’ve heard cars honk in London), and this little kid whose mom was beside her was so shocked by the bus horning, and she exclaimed: “what was that for”?  😳  Then her mom began to explain to her why there was need for the horn.  I looked at the kid and smiled; I shook my head. In my mind, I was like: you need to visit my country—where horns are not only used to warn rough drivers, but also used to communicate: to say hello,  weldone o,  how far na,  your daddy dey house?  Fine girl, I like you! to call the attention of a salesperson at a shop,  to cuss,  ‪to ask “where my money na?”‬ to alert danger, And even used when a driver is scared,  😂   Car horns in Nigeria are so symbolic, and the interesting part is that we understand the language when we he...

The UK has a very contagious reading culture. The habit of reading is something I find very fascinating, being a book lover myself! In the UK, you’ll find people reading books on the bus, train, plane, in the park, on the streets, and even while walking on the road (which is unsafe btw) lol. They not only read books, but they also read and leave for others to read. You could be walking around a neighborhood and find books lying outside someone’s house with the caption “they’re free, help yourself”. Snapshots of book lovers reading on the train/bus - captured by Progress Oberiko "Free books, please help yourself" In charity shops, you’ll find tons of donated books sold at very cheap rates. It is such a lovely culture. And lately, as a bookworm, I’ve found myself retracing my steps back to my first love – books! I’ve recently started Investing in books again and falling in love with my reading passion all over again. Not only with hard copy books but also audiobooks.   Last yea...

  There’s been a trending video of a female Ogun state Senatorial Aspirant who in an interview was asked what “struck” her about her campaign. Chuckling, she responded to the interviewer: “Do you mean “struck” like lightening-thunder kind of struck…?” This supposed “flop” was recorded by a guy with his phone while watching this interview on his Tv, and in the background, he was laughing about it in a way that depicts the lady’s lack of intelligence.  I’ve seen many people posting and calling this lady “dumb” and unfit for the position she is aspiring for. And I can’t help to think that these people seem quite ignorant of the lady's humor.  It is very easy for people to call out her gormlessness, without even critically looking at her response. For me, I think her response was quite jocular, you can see she even laughed at her own joke, but as it seem, the interviewer didn’t quite catch her joke, same with the guy recording the clip.  I do think that her reply was an ...

There’s a leaked sex tape of a male Nigerian artist—Oxlade—trending online. And I’ve been seeing people cruising about it on so Social media—people calling him a “Spider-man” and praising him for his “skills”. No body is saying how disgusting his attitude is, no one is saying how disappointed they are in him; and how he has no “dignity”. I remember some time last year, when a leaked sex tape of the female Nigerian artist, Tiwa Savage, surfaced. I recall how she were called out and massively shamed for that (a sex tape that was probably used as a blackmail). But in Oxlade’s case, people are catching cruise and trivializing it. He will not lose any endorsement, as a matter of fact, his songs will probably trend more.  This tells you how society has normalized IRRESPONSIBILITY in men/boys, and this is really disheartening. Mind you, the point here is not for “irresponsibility” to be normalized in both genders, but rather, for the same level of self-worth and “dignity” be demanded of b...

  Days ago I watched the news where I heard this journalist giving a report about Afghanistan. Just before videos of the Afghans were shown, my attention was drawn to the news report because of how the journalist told the story; I was eager to see the videos. In her news broadcast, she reported that the people in Afghanistan were in “abject poverty”, “at the brink of famine", and that “there was almost no hope for them” amongst other harrowing languages that she used in describing the situation. One of the things she said that caught my attention was that Afghans were literally “selling their children just to be able to buy food”. This got me. And at this point, I felt very compassionate for the Afghans, “Oh poor Afghanistan” I said to myself. And above anything else, I wanted to see how desperate the situation was that they were literally selling their children to feed.  The next minute, a live video of Afghanistan was shown. The clip showed the snowing city, and women wrappe...

Another culture shock I had when I arrived in the Uk to study is addressing lecturers by their names without prefixes such as “Sir”, “Mr”, “Ma”, “Dr. Mrs”, “Chief”, etc, which for Africans or Nigerians in particular, denotes respect. It appalled me that no matter the level of qualification people in the UK have attained, eg. Ph.D., Professorship, etc, they were addressed simply by their first names.  I found this really odd and discomforting, following my background as a Nigerian where addressing someone older by their names is seen as rude and disrespectful. This was a clash that I struggled to adapt to for a long time. I remember resisting the urge to ask questions in class because I didn’t know how to start my question without a “sir”, a term that isn’t the norm here; and f or a long time, I still sent emails to my lecturers beginning with “Hello Sir”, “Hello Mrs. Anke...”, even though I wasn’t sure whether she’s a Mrs or not.  😂   I’ve also struggled with this a...