Joanna Bome Kure

The Genesis

I started blogging on the 12th of April, 2013. I was seventeen years old and preparing to study International Relations at the University of Brasilia, Brazil, when the idea to start a blog came about. I did not know what to call my blog, except by the words that described what I was, inexperienced. The URL I generated for myself embodied my exasperation with my inexperience: uggggh.wordpress.com.

In my first post, I wrote down reasons why I started the blog, but in subsequent posts, my writing became firmer and my interests more definitive. By the time I stopped blogging, I had written on: art, culture, faith, governance, history, identity and life.

An Exodus or a Hiatus

I stopped blogging on the 20th of August, 2015. I was nineteen years old and an undergraduate studying law at the University of Jos. When I started blogging, I made it clear that one of the reasons I was doing it was for attention. I did get some attention, just not as expected. I imagined myself being an authority like the Twitter Intellectuals dishing their two cents on issues, but that did not happen. It took about sixty-six blog posts after my first to realise that few people liked to read in this short-attention-span generation. In the age of micro-blogging, less was more, including less knowledge. I was out of trend.

Be that as it may, saying that I stopped blogging because I didn’t get the desired attention would be a half-truth. On equal footing was my gnawing inexperience; the university showed me the extent of it. To have continued writing was to have forced myself to be what I was not – knowledgeable. I needed to humble myself and learn. For eight years, my father, one of my consistent readers, asked me to return to writing. My response was that I did not know what to write about, and that was true. The longer I stayed learning, the more what I intended to be a hiatus became an exodus.

Revelation: unchanged

I am starting to blog again on the 1st of June, 2023. I’m twenty-seven years old, a lawyer, an avid reader, and a writer. Like the green seventeen-year-old who began blogging ten years ago, I’m still inexperienced, but I want to make a difference. I’ve acquired enough knowledge to know that my thoughts are not as invalid as I erstwhile presumed when I stopped, especially in our troubled world. Sharing my thoughts can make a world of difference.

I’m still interested in making sense of the craziness. Since I abstained from sharing my thoughts, our global village has transformed. Some of the changes include the shrinking or expansion of power blocs and countries; the growing pre-eminence of the internet as the village-square and the narratives and actions it inspires; the evolving nature of conflict, including the advancement of newer forms like cyber warfare; the testing of the limits of human rights, especially concerning speech (the world now speaks of free-speech and hate-speech concurrently); democracy is on trial, even though the Americanisation of the world is operational; the balance of power is visibly tilting towards the East, with Beijing as the likely holder of the balance, and the shroud of a global pandemic hangs upon the world. Amidst these, the soft power of Nigeria has increased significantly, despite the question of our unity looming over our heads.

Revelation: changed

Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR, became president the year I stopped blogging. He came into power under a sweeping gospel of ‘Change’. This gospel was true. I have changed. I’m not the inexperienced blogger of ten years ago. Although I abstained from expressing my thoughts publicly, I continued doing so privately, in writing. The result has made me better able to weigh and distil my opinion. Consequently, my expression in writing is now markedly different than before. Yet, I have chosen not to edit my earlier work but preserve its original form to appreciate my evolution.

My interests have expanded to include law and justice, but the most significant change is the lens through which I judge the world. I see the world through Christian eyes: neither wearing rose-tinted glasses nor prone to despair. My faith is the thread that weaves all my interests together.

A Second Coming

Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, became president the year I started blogging again. He came into power under the prophecy of ‘Renewed Hope’. The verdict is still open, and this is a journey I’m returning to with shaky steps, but I hope that the gift of my writing will blossom and enrich the world.

PS. My desire for attention has taken newer forms. I can neither affirm nor deny that I’m trying to get a guy to notice me.