Taking Notes from Joseph

“The part of Joseph’s story nobody talks about is the enemies he must have made the day he was elevated to second only to Pharaoh. Prisoner to prime minister just like that? It’s almost like an intern becoming deputy CEO overnight.

“Pharaoh had military generals and probably a chief of staff. How do you think they would have felt about the sudden promotion of a former prisoner over them? The Bible didn’t capture it, but imagine the resistance he may have faced.”

This was my brother speaking to me.

“You know I’ve never heard that story told from this angle before,” I responded, nodding. “Where did you hear or read about it?”

“Nowhere. It just came to me as we were speaking. So as I encourage you, I’m also edifying myself,” he said.

“Oh, and there’s Potiphar and his wife. The Bible never recorded her being repentant of her actions or admitting that she lied against Joseph. Imagine what they must have thought when they heard he had become prime minister. What if people began asking questions about his past?” I added.

“Exactly! And only Joseph and Potiphar’s wife knew what really happened. Imagine people trying to use that accusation to discredit him.”

“And Joseph may even have struggled with managing a nation,” I continued. “Yes, he managed Potiphar’s house and had responsibilities in prison, but managing an entire country? That’s a different ball game. The Bible didn’t capture those struggles, if there were any.”

Then my brother raised another question.

“Why do you think the Israelites were eventually made slaves? The Bible tells us that another Pharaoh arose who did not know Joseph and became afraid of the Israelites. But imagine if some of the resentment towards Joseph had been passed down through generations. That’s to tell you that some battles can be transgenerational.”

This conversation between my brother, a medical doctor, and me came up during a tête-à-tête. I had been battling a severe cough and he had come to give me a new set of medication because the ones initially prescribed were not doing much for me.

The lens through which he viewed the very popular Bible story opened up new layers and the uncomfortable possibility that elevation comes with challenges we rarely hear about.

We know Joseph’s story. The betrayal by his brothers, Potiphar’s house, the false accusation, prison, the interpretation of Pharaoh’s dreams and finally, the palace.

But what happened after Pharaoh placed his ring on Joseph’s finger?

The Bible doesn’t tell us that Joseph faced opposition from Pharaoh’s officials, but I wonder how easily everyone accepted the sudden elevation of a foreigner and former prisoner to a position of such enormous authority.

The cost of your elevation may be someone else’s disappointment. Your promotion may represent the loss of another person’s ambition, influence or opportunity. And the battle may become even fiercer when those watching believe you do not deserve what you have received.

How dare you, a prisoner, become comfortable in the palace?

What makes you think you deserve a place at the table with men who may have known royalty all their lives?

Why should anyone take instructions from you when your background is questionable and your qualifications may be nothing close to what Egypt offers?

And to make matters worse, an ex-convict? One who was accused of attempting to rape his master’s wife?

You must be joking if you expect a red carpet.

Of course, these are imagined conversations. Perhaps Joseph never encountered any of this. But knowing human nature, I don’t think the questions are entirely far-fetched.

And while we are imagining the reactions of those around him, I wonder about Joseph himself.

Did he ever feel overwhelmed? Did he struggle with decisions? Did he have to earn the confidence of people who had spent years in positions of authority before he arrived?

We know how his story turned out, but I wonder what the days between his appointment and the eventual success looked like.

It’s interesting how we celebrate elevation without giving much thought to what happens afterwards. We pray for growth, for opportunities, for the kind of breakthrough that leaves people wondering how it happened. But the responsibilities that accompany those opportunities, the relationships that change and the adjustments we have to make rarely feature in those prayers.

And perhaps that is where the need for wisdom becomes even greater.

As our conversation continued, I found myself thinking about the people we surround ourselves with, especially when navigating unfamiliar circumstances.

I told my brother that with time and experience, I was beginning to realise that friendships evolve. People who understood us perfectly in one season may not necessarily understand the realities of another. Not because they are bad people or have become less valuable, but because life changes.

Sometimes, you need people who have experienced enough to understand context, who can be objective without being judgmental, and who can tell you the truth without having an interest in the outcome.

Later, I shared the conversation with a friend and we found ourselves discussing this same need. To have people with whom you can speak freely, who can disagree with you without condemning you, and who won’t simply tell you what you want to hear.

And I wondered whether Joseph had people like that.

We know he had Pharaoh’s confidence and the authority to make decisions that affected an entire nation. But who could he speak to when he was uncertain? Who could tell him he was wrong? Who could challenge his thinking without being afraid of his position?

I wish I could have just one conversation with Joseph.

Not about the dreams or how he got into the palace. We know those parts of his story.

I want to know what happened afterwards.

Perhaps he would tell me that none of the difficulties I imagined ever happened. Or perhaps he would have stories that would make me wonder how he managed it all.

I don’t know.

But I suspect that if we could hear more about the days Joseph spent in the palace, and not just the extraordinary day he entered it, there would be quite a few lessons to learn about leadership, relationships and the responsibilities that come with growth.

And to think that all of this came from a conversation with my brother, who had only come to treat my stubborn cough.

Privacy, Hiding, and the Spaces In Between

At what point does being private become hiding?

I have been thinking about this question lately, particularly as I consider returning to a space I deliberately stepped away from some time ago.

Social media.

There was no dramatic exit, no announcement, no particular incident that made me decide I had had enough. I simply stopped showing up. And the longer I stayed away, the less inclined I was to return.

I enjoyed the quiet. I still do.

There is something deeply satisfying about living through experiences without feeling the need to document them for an audience. To celebrate milestones without announcing them. To do meaningful work, enjoy the satisfaction that comes with it, and move on to the next thing.

For a long time, I thought nothing of this. Until recently.

I began reflecting on some of the opportunities I have had and the things I have been privileged to be part of over the years.

Not long ago, I worked on a book that was eventually launched at an event attended by some very distinguished personalities. It was an interesting experience, one I thoroughly enjoyed. I cannot share much about the project because of a confidentiality agreement, and that is perfectly understandable.

But there have been other experiences without such restrictions.

I worked on a documentary exploring the sexual and reproductive health of women who use drugs. I was involved in its production and even lent my voice to the narration. It was an important piece of work, telling stories that are often overlooked and bringing attention to realities that deserve far more consideration than they receive.

The documentary premiered.

And I barely said a word about it.

Not because I wasn’t proud of the work. I was. Not because I thought it unimportant. Quite the opposite.

I simply didn’t feel the need to share.

And that is where my questions began.

Why didn’t I share? And perhaps more importantly, why should I have?

I have always believed that an experience does not become more meaningful because other people know about it. An achievement does not become less significant because it wasn’t announced. Some of life’s most beautiful moments happen away from cameras, applause and public acknowledgement.

I still believe that.

But I am beginning to wonder whether there is a difference between being comfortable with privacy and becoming so accustomed to invisibility that one no longer considers the possibility of being seen.

Could something that began as a conscious choice gradually become a habit?

And could that habit, however comfortable, eventually become a limitation?

I don’t know.

I think about how easily we encourage people to put themselves out there. To build visibility, tell their stories, showcase their work and create opportunities by allowing others to see what they do.

There is merit in that advice. I know this, particularly because I work in communications. I understand the value of storytelling, visibility and the opportunities that can come from both.

The irony is not lost on me.

I spend a considerable part of my professional life helping people and organisations tell their stories, communicate their value and make their work visible. Yet, when it comes to my own experiences, I am often content to leave them undocumented.

Perhaps that is contentment.

Perhaps it is habit.

Or perhaps it is a little of both.

There is also the question of what we lose when we choose not to share. Not necessarily in terms of attention or recognition, but in the conversations we never start, the people we might have encouraged, the connections we might have made and the opportunities that may never present themselves because nobody knew what we had to offer.

Still, I am reluctant to accept the idea that everything meaningful must be made visible to be valuable.

Surely, there must be room for people who simply want to live without constantly narrating their lives.

And perhaps there is an even more uncomfortable question beneath all of this.

Is hiding always a bad thing?

We often speak of hiding as though it must come from fear, insecurity or a lack of confidence. But what if sometimes it comes from a genuine desire to protect what is personal? What if being unseen is not an indication that someone is afraid to be seen?

Then again, how does one tell the difference?

How do you know when you are protecting your peace and when you are simply avoiding the discomfort of putting yourself out there?

I haven’t quite figured that out.

What I do know is that I miss writing. I miss putting my thoughts into words, exploring questions without necessarily arriving at answers, and having conversations that begin with nothing more than curiosity.

Perhaps that is what this return is really about.

Not an attempt to become more visible for visibility’s sake. Not a sudden desire to document every experience or turn my life into content.

Just a willingness to share a little more of the thoughts, experiences and conversations I might otherwise have kept to myself.

So, I am considering TikTok. Of all places.

And I find that rather amusing.

Maybe I will enjoy it. Maybe I will discover that I still prefer the quiet. Maybe I will find a comfortable place somewhere between the two.

For now, I am not particularly interested in deciding.

I am simply curious.

And perhaps curiosity is as good a reason as any to begin.

After all, being private and being present need not be mutually exclusive.

The Love That Broke You

She leans across the table as if she owns the light. From her bag she takes a tube of lip gloss and paints his mouth with a slow, deliberate tenderness. Then she proceeds to kiss him. He lets her, playing shy at first, then answering when she continues, he responds greedily. She wipes the shine from his lips with one finger and laughs like it is a private triumph.

“She’s a bold one”, you thought.

You sip your Arab tea and watch the small ritual through a net of memory. They look like a pair from a film: reckless, gleaming, unbothered by the room. Warmth rises in you for the brief, treacherous second that memory allows, and you reminisce the old sweetness of early years with Femi. Then it curdles into something you cannot swallow.

Femi’s love was always a parade. A public religion. Like this girl, he would steal kisses and even much more wherever, whenever.

He loved as if the world were an audience and his gestures were performances meant to silence gossip and feed his image. He gave loudly too, gifts that came wrapped in louder intentions, trips arranged like proofs, declarations that made you the admired woman at every table.

If you weren’t you, you might have envied the woman on his arm. Femi, the answer to many a girl’s prayers, was yours, to have, to hold, to build a life with.

So when he asked to marry you, you laughed hard and long.

“Are you crazy?” you asked. “Will I marry you?”

“Of course, who would you leave me for?”

He laughed out loud too and slid the ring onto your finger as if his fingers had tucked you into a story where everything would be bright.

You knew he was not faithful. You had no proof but you knew, because his reputation preceded him. Everyone thought you were the magic, the one who tamed him, but you knew it was not true. You knew the man had not changed. You were the prize - one he was so focused on bagging and keeping, but you knew it was only a matter of time before his nature betrayed him.

You married him anyway because love, in its stubborn generosity, makes fools of people. Your love for him was unconditional, really. Even if all Femi had was a shirt and a rented room to sleep in, you would have married him. It didn’t make sense, but you knew. Fortunately, you never got the opportunity to prove that because Femi’s shirts spoke loudly of his luxurious taste and his homes came with addresses in different continents.

Twelve years pass, giving you four children: Boluwatife, the son who opened your womb and never let you forget it; bubbly Feranmi, your baby boy who is always cheerful with his loud laughter; Kayinsola, the son who mirrored your own face, like a male version of you; and Arike, your baby girl and the miracle you prayed for.

Twelve years later, you sit here nursing your cup of Arab tea, watching the young couple who remind you of your intense romance with Femi all those years ago. But the only thought on your mind is how best to kill Femi with no trace to you.

You considered what women in stories did when men betrayed them. Did they try poison and slow justice? Did they get hired hands? Involved themselves in clandestine transactions? You mused about the options but each felt obscene in its own way, and you recoiled because any of these would require your hands to be anything but clean. Yet the hunger for recompense grew teeth. The only thing that seemed to make sense was to ensure that his comfortable future would not be had at your expense and at the expense of the women he had torn into his life.

This had become your only concern for weeks.

Five days ago, at a business lunch, you met Jude, a 34-year-old who had just started a recycling business. He had come hoping to pitch to you, having heard you were the key to funding. You didn’t care about his business but as he spoke, you heard what you wanted - a man who could act without asking questions. You promised him five hundred million naira, not for his pitch but for a job you didn’t name. He understood, his nod was sharp, his eyes holding a flicker of his own ghosts. “I’ve fixed wrongs before, treated fuck ups” he said, voice low. You didn’t ask what he meant. Wanting something can be the beginning of many sins.

You thought nothing more of Jude, not consciously anyway, until days later, at the 40th marriage anniversary of Mr. and Mrs. Udechukwu. Femi whispered how he looked forward to having your celebration. “What if you are not here then?” you asked, and he unsuspectingly joked about how he had no intentions of relocating outside Nigeria. Vacations would always be in any part of the world he desired, but Nigeria would always be his home.

You sighed as you watched your handsome idiot of a husband. You held yourself back but the hate tasted bitter in your gut.

That night, as you tucked Arike into bed, her small hand curled around yours, you faltered. You imagined her growing up without a father, Boluwatife’s fierce questions turning to grief, Feranmi’s laughter dimming. Kayinsola’s hero suddenly gone. Could you do this? Could you take their father, flawed as he was, and leave them to carry the weight? The thought clawed at you, but then you remembered Morayo’s face, the clinic notes, the life Femi built on your trust. The hate roared back, louder than guilt.

The hate had consumed you. You wanted revenge and the only compensation would be Femi’s blood; his life was the only ransom that could compensate for what he did to you.

The thing is that the rot in your marriage did not announce itself with a single scandal. The hate for Femi first started when you found out two months after your wedding that he had reconnected with an ex-girlfriend of his.

Morayo, the exotic beauty he dated and broke up with a year before he met you. Morayo is biracial; her fair skin glowed and her face was the kind you never forget - the kind of woman you look at and agree it probably would not be fair for one man to have her. They hooked up again two months after your wedding, and Femi even invited her to your home while you were away for your master’s abroad.

It was not just Morayo though, there were others too, names that came and went like rumors, faces that blurred together.

You bore all that, but what broke you was learning that he didn’t just get back with Morayo but impregnated her, paid her bride price secretly, and relocated her to Madrid, Spain.

It was Urenna who first asked what you planned to do with your co-wife. You were taken aback at first as you had no idea. She apologized and said she thought you knew because it was no longer news. You pieced the rest together through humiliating fragments: a blog post about a wedding you didn’t attend, whispers at a cousin’s party, a photo of Morayo’s glowing smile on a friend’s phone. You didn’t confront Femi. Confrontation would mean admitting the illusion you’d built was glass. He had, however, broken something in you that could never be fixed.

Six months ago, Olotuche, your cousin, an obstetrician in Spain, sent a message about discussing something urgent with you. You were worried but didn’t know what to expect.

She asked to call when you were not in the house for your conversation. And when you spoke later, she told you she consulted with Morayo at the hospital. She was her patient. She was pregnant with a second child and was on ARVs as she was living with HIV. She came on one of her antenatal visits with her husband who turned out to be Femi - your husband.

Olotuche said she was taken aback but had to keep her cool as they were her patients. Femi stayed back after their consultation to ask her not to tell you, as this was a secret. He too was living with HIV but didn’t know how to tell you. Olotuche asked if he knew he was putting your life and kids at risk, but he said he didn’t know how to handle it. She had advised him to open up to you.

You went for a test the next day. The result was clinical in its cruelty. You tested positive for HIV, and it had advanced. The words the nurses used wrapped around you, but each sterile instruction could not mend the hollow betrayal had made.

You began treatment immediately and adhered religiously, but Femi never said a word. So imagine the rage that welled when he had the audacity to muse about your 40th anniversary at the Udechukwus’ celebration.

What anniversary? The one where he’d have killed you and moved on with Morayo?

You wonder why Femi would do this to you. The man you loved had broken you, and that love became a small animal that fed on rage. You began to learn that hate is not a sudden roar—it is not always loud but sometimes slow and methodical. You learned the architecture of his days, which restaurants he favored, the names he used, the way he moved in rooms, and you began to imagine ways to make him answer, publicly, for the life he had divided between people and places.

You sit now and nurse the Arab tea, waiting for Jude; you had let him know the conditions for accessing the funds. He would kill Femi.

First though, you planned a public humiliation for his perfect image. You sent documents like seed - his messages to and from Morayo, clinic notes from her antenatal visits, the faint trail of flights that traced a life you had paid for in trust. You sent them to a journalist. The story landed like a stone in water. It rippled.

The first headline felt like lightning: Lagos Tycoon’s Secret Second Wife Exposed.

Friends who had toasted your marriage looked foolish. Those who looked up to Femi now looked away. He called you that morning, speaking fast as though he had urgent things to say. He began with apologies that sounded like rehearsed speech. He begged to come home. His voice sounded so small and thin it was almost unrecognizable. You could have forgiven him there; perhaps in another life you would have. But you had the names and the dates; you had been the one who kept the children awake at night, and you could not let him slide back into being beloved for the ease of his mouth.

Once public exposure arrived, it did not feel like finality. The world has a way of moving on. Scandal is a bright stain that often fades when new bright stains arrive. You wanted more than ruin of reputation. You wanted him to lose the steady, untroubled life he’d built on other people’s bodies. You wanted a consequence that could not be smoothed away with charm. You gave Jude the nod and let an inevitable thing become more inevitable.

Then the waiting began. Hate taught you patience. You moved through your days with your usual routine - school runs, homework, meal preps. You set your face in the mornings like a modest shield. At night you stayed awake with thoughts, rehearsing the scene when truth arrived.

Yesterday, you saw Morayo’s face again, not in person, but in a photo Urenna forwarded, a screenshot from a gossip blog. Morayo, radiant in Madrid, her second child in her arms, Femi beside her. The caption speculated about your silence. You stared at her face, wondering if she knew the cost of her life was your life. Did she know he’d broken you? Did she care? The photo was a knife, twisting the hate tighter. You forwarded it to the journalist, another seed.

The message came on an ordinary night as you explained to Kayinsola the difference between alumni and alma mater. The boy never seemed to stop with questions you had no idea about when you were his age. Done, the message read. You had never wanted to know the how; you only needed the fact.

Hours later, sirens blared outside your home. Police swarmed, their voices official, their hands full of forms. A body, somewhere. Jude was a rumor now, a name in someone else’s file. The world turned its forensic eye on what had been invisible.

You stand now in your bedroom, the house quiet except for the hum of Lagos outside. You pack a single suitcase with your children’s photos, Arike’s favorite blanket, your treatment pills. The weight of what you’ve done sits in your bones, not heavy but steady, like a truth you’ve finally named.

The faint scent of lip gloss rises unbidden, mocking, lingering, as you reach for the doorknob. The city glitters beyond your window, indifferent, as you step toward whatever comes next.