🥤Samuel's mother threw a chair at him

👋 Good morning. If you didn't know- and that's fine, it's literally why you have us- Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey lands in Nigerian cinemas today, and the internet has not known peace since. I'm heading straight from work to see it, and you should too. Stay culture-forward. So what happened on the internet this week?

Let's get into it.

In this edition: This week in culture, Samuel’s mother threw a chair at him, money now buys kindness, a playlist, and more.

If you’re enjoying this, don’t forget to subscribe and join The Juice community. We’re building this together ♡.

Poll of the week

“The Odyssey” is Christopher Nolan's __th feature film?

🗞️ THIS WEEK IN CULTURE

🎵 MUSIC

Mavo has announced the forthcoming release of his album, Business, just after unveiling his record label, Kilogbede Records. He says in a tweet that the project will be “the best 35 minutes of 2026.” What a red letter day for Busy FC.

📚 LITERATURE

For the lovers of thrillers, Masobe Books has just acquired Fall From Grace by Leye Adenle (2016 Prix Marianne Black Literature Prize winner). Fall From Grace is the first novel in Leye Adenle’s investigative series. Start marking your calendars.

🏆 SPORTS

Argentina has now booked their place and is heading to the World Cup finals to face Spain after defeating England 2-1. What a turn of events for England, the football originators.

📽️ FILM

Zikoko returns to the screens with the second edition, Zikoko Life, a three-film anthology featuring Uzoamaka Power’s Siraam, Kaelo Iyizoba’s Before We Fall Asleep Again and Dika Ofoma’s A Happy Ending, starting from July 25. Many cheers to the anthology getting enough love in Nollywood.

🚨 TRENDING

Fifty-six days after the Oyo School Kidnapping, the abducted victims have been reunited with their families following a successful military rescue. This is one update we are especially glad about!

MAIN SQUEEZE

Samuel’s mother picked up a chair and threw it at him

Gentle warning: this story touches on parental abuse.

On Sunday, July 12, Nigerian artist and illustrator Cyn Ugwudike posted an illustration titled And She Saw Me Bleeding, a piece from her Does My Mother Love Me? collection on her Twitter (X) page. 

This stirred conversations around parental physical abuse and its effects. People from far and wide shared experiences on how parental abuse is mostly ignored and given a free pass. There were also discussions about how some people feel “they turned out fine” from it all. 

The Juice spoke with Samuel Adegbile, who shares his encounter with parental abuse as a child, how it affected him, and his relationship with his parental figure.

Can you tell us about your experience growing up? 

I am Samuel Adegbile (also known as Dejusa). Most parents don't know how to differentiate correction from abuse; all they know is how to exert. Growing up, I was the firstborn child. The expectations were quite high, and I was put in charge of my younger siblings. 

A good example was when I was about 13, and my siblings and some family friends were playing and shouting. My mother came in angry and chastised me for not warning them to reduce their noise.

Before I could blink, she picked up a chair nearby and threw it at me. The chair hit the side of my head, tore the flesh open, and blood gushed out. I had to run out, and the neighbours attended to me and rushed me to the hospital. 

I still have that scar to this day. She calmed down afterwards and regretted that section, but my mother crossed the line between correction and abuse that day. Other times, it was punishments, and when I shook or tried to relax, I could get beaten with wires or belts on my neck.

Looking back now, how has that experience affected you (both physically and emotionally)? Do you think you've healed?

I will say I’ve healed from it all. I decided for myself to forget about the trauma and numerous beatings. What lessened the beatings a bit was my academic excellence, but aside from that, nothing else. I was praised for having good grades, too. 

The scar I got reminds me from time to time. Emotionally? I got angry a lot in my teens and could see myself transferring aggression to others, and by the time I was 18/19, I decided not to let my anger control me. I got better.  I just worked on myself, making sure I don't repeat such to my youngest siblings and, eventually, children.

How has it affected your relationship with your parents today? Are you still close, or have you chosen to keep your distance?

I grew up with my mother. My father wasn't present, and I knew that definitely contributed to her anger. When I didn't do things as she wanted, she took it out on me. She also said things like, “If your father was here, you would listen”, a lot.  

We are not that close and not distant either. My siblings are closer to her. She travelled a while ago, and I hardly ever called her. Only my siblings did. It affected any possible form of closeness between us, and I rarely ever tell her things.

Have you ever spoken to your parents about what happened? If you have, how did they respond? If not, what's stopped you?

To be honest, I've never spoken to her about it before. I feel one day, I’ll sit her down to tell her my feelings, pain, and how the responsibilities were too much for a kid that age.

Too many expectations, also. It's so funny that just looking at her back then could evoke a lot of “why are you looking at me?”, “look away”. So many unnecessary dos and don'ts. 

What do you wish more Nigerian parents and even other children growing up in similar homes understood about physical punishment and abuse?

As I said earlier, Nigerian parents don't know how and when to draw the line. Once they figure it out, everything will work out better. It is okay to correct your kids, but don’t damage their skin and self-esteem. 

Parents need to communicate with their children and learn to understand them individually. They shouldn't depend on the rod, instead, they should also learn to reduce punishments as much as possible. You shouldn't punish a 10-year-old for hours. It's wrong.

🔪 THE PEEL

Money now buys kindness 

The Discourse

Have you ever found yourself in a part of Lagos you've never been to before, and Google Maps has totally given up on you, so you decide to ask the vulcaniser by the roadside for directions?

However, before he directs you on the right path, he stretches his hand out for a hundred naira or more. 

Or maybe you've stood at the edge of a flooded road waiting for someone to help you across, only to realise that the guy with the wheelbarrow comes with a price. Does this sound familiar?

Helping people has always been part of community living. But lately, it feels like everyone is looking for different ways to make ends meet. 

Peeling It Back

Let’s be factual. It is quite easy to see why the demand for money on every little thing is high. The economic situation is not exactly the best. Everyone is on the lookout for ways to make ends meet. Food prices are rising every day, the bills don't stop coming in, and also, where are the jobs? 

In this kind of environment with these issues, almost everything starts looking like an opportunity to earn a little cash here and there. But in the search for daily bread, we as Nigerians have started monetising things to the point where there are no more simple acts of humanity. 

Even the basic assistance that was easily rendered while growing up years ago is now offered as a service for pay. There's hardly any kindness anywhere, which is very worrying. 

Another Layer

Now that interactions are mostly transactional, there are several downsides to it. People become less willing to ask for help because they have to consider the cost.

They’d rather figure it out themselves, which defeats the purpose of shared communities. Our communities become weaker, and people who suffer the most are often those who genuinely have nothing to offer in return. 

While it could be argued that kindness won't fix inflation or the economy, and neither would it solve unemployment, it could come in handy as one of the factors that make difficult and trying times easier to survive.

Things don't have to be so bad that once someone is kind, everyone becomes suspicious of them. 

There is a Yoruba saying that goes: “Ọ̀tún wẹ òsì, òsì wẹ ọ̀tún, lọwọ́ fi ńmọ́” (The right hand washes the left, and the left washes the right, so the hands become clean). This simply means that as hands wash each other to become clean, so do people achieve more by supporting one another. 

The Core

Kindness won't solve inflation, and it won't fix unemployment either. But if the first thing we now ask before helping someone is "What's in it for me?", then we've lost something far more valuable than money.

Perhaps kindness is the most expensive thing inflation has taken from us and not just our ability to make ends meet. Maybe it is just our willingness to help each other freely.

Hopefully, a day will come when we will all need directions or assistance of any kind, and when that day comes, it’ll be nice if the first response isn't, “How much you go give me?”

🎵 PRESSED BY THE JUICE

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