Growing up I used to think to Agbada was a special Yoruba traditional attire meant for certain occasions and worn by a particular class of men in the society, you know the “Elite”, the “big men” present. At occasions in those days, you see men arriving the venue, flinging the garment over their shoulders and walking majestically. It was almost always certain that these men would be "spraying" lots of freshly printed naira notes in that occasion. Yes, that was the impression that an agbada wearing man gave off.

The grand boubou/bubu is one of the names for a flowing wide sleeved robe worn by men in much of West Africa, and to a lesser extent in North Africa, related to the dashiki suit. The name boubou derives from the Wolof word mbubb. It is known by various names, depending on the ethnic group wearing them: agbada (Yoruba, Dagomba), babban riga (Hausa), mbubb (Wolof), k'sa or gandora (Tuareg), darra'a Maghrebi Arabic, grand boubou (in various Francophone West African countries) and the English term of gown.

The use of the grand boubou as clothing became widespread throughout the West African region with the migration of semi-nomadic groups such as the Fulani, and traders such as the Dyula and Hausa. Comparing the grand boubou to the various styles of Arabic Thawb suggests the grand boubou follows an archaic template to the contemporary male clothing of the Middle East and North Africa.

The grand boubou or Agbada as a full formal attire consists of 3 pieces of clothing: a pair of tie-up trousers that narrow towards the ankles (known as a sokoto pronounced "shokoto" in Yoruba) and a long-sleeved shirt (known as a dashiki in Yoruba) and a wide, open-stitched sleeveless gown worn over these. They are generally of the same colour, and historically were made from silk, but increased understanding of Islamic restrictions on clothing meant the grand boubou is now mostly made from cotton and synthetic cloths made to resemble silk.

Looking at the present, the grand boubou or agbada is no longer just for the big daddies, we now see young men (and even women) rocking the agbada with a fusion of merdern fashion; where the old school agbada is worn over long sleeved buba (tunic), these days, they are worn over short sleeved buba. Where the old school agbada is long, extremely broad and wing-like, these days they come in shorter lengths and widths and are definitely not as heavy as the old school type.

These days however, the younger folks have taken the fashion of agbada to a whole new level and we have to admit it’s more than awesome so much so that agbada is now worn to dinners and many other formal events. Who could have thought agbadas would become this fashionable?

The thing about Agbadas is that they help you achieve that big man look in an instant whilst not making you look older than you actually are. Another good thing is the choice of materials Agbadas could be made out of.

You could sew your Agbada with Aso-oke, lace material and of course guinea brocade – which is the best to sew your Agbada with. However, do not try to use Ankara for your Agbada – its only best for short hand Dansiki.

Rocking the agbada outfit without accessories is like a NO NO for me, because they improve your entire outlook. You can add wristwatch, cuff links, rings and even nice necklaces or chains as you wish.

“A good Agbada is a waste of large yards of material without the right accessories; it’s like eating Nsala Soup without pounded yam. - Noble Igwe”

Out of boredom and trying to engage myself in something positive as usual which I have been doing lately, I went to one familiar spot to cool off, one amazing thing about sitting at that spot is hearing what different say and accessing them, anyway let’s not sound so serious, sitting at that spot too I get to see a lot of girls, Yes I mean lots of them that I even lose count all the time, I get to see girls of different shapes and sizes, but is that really the main thing, well I really don’t know but I think it’s part of it, you know distracting the mind for while feels like you forget all your worries momentarily.

One of these days, I got to encounter a family, from their discussion I think they were waiting one of their family members who was supposed to be defending her M.Sc. After quite a brief observation I found out that the woman had a son and a daughter, their Uncle or Whatever was babysitting them and they also had a bigger Uncle who was also around. So while the kids were playing the Uncle asked the boy do you this place the boy said yes, and the uncle was like you will come here to study Medicine or Engineering.  That didn’t strike me anyway till after one day, it just struck my mind that the typical African parents programs the thoughts of Law, Medicine or Engineering from the time we are very little most times without giving a thought about what we may want. At times we the children just delve into that without even knowing our abilities just in the bid of pleasing our parents, come to think of it do we really have a choice. Cos the typical African parent would rather not pay your fees that let you study that which is not regarded as a “Professional” course.

Looking back to my secondary school days at Federal Government College, Ikot Ekpene, from the time we enter senior secondary we are segregated according to what each of us wants to be in future after series of questions and forms we fill at the Guidance Counsellors office, we are then segregated into the Arts, Pure Sciences, Technical/Engineering and Commercial class. If there was an opportunity to go round the 3 streams which are regarded as science classes 90% if not all of us want to be medical doctors, funny 4 years has gone by now very few of us were able to get into medical school, those of us who didn’t get into medical school in Nigeria due to some certain reasons switched to related courses like Microbiology, Biochemistry, Physiology, Anatomy, Biological Sciences, some of us went to the physical sciences and engineering after having lost hope of being doctors while most of us went to chase our dreams outside the shores of our Nation Nigeria.

Fast forward into the main university setting for those who chose alternate pathways you find out that 90% of them want to be medical doctors, using Biochemistry Class of 15 from my school if I got to interview all of them, you get to find out that at one point in life it was medical school or nothing, maybe after writing JAMB once or twice, most people up to four times and couldn’t get into medical school chose the closest cousin which somehow looking at seems to be a very distant cousin, cos I wonder why biochemists wouldn’t be awarded our own medical degree, something instead of the conventional MBBS or MB BCh, we have MB Bs. BCM cos our goddamn curriculum spans the medical school curriculum except for the clinical aspect yet we are marginalized, a graduate of biochemistry who wants to study medicine would undergo and 5years of training learning all the shits I learnt as a biochemist again, we can’t even take a masters degree in Chemical Pathology without a Postgraduate Diploma but someone who took the same course in undergrad would comfortably be admitted for a higher degree in biochemistry.

If a survey was carried out on the students of higher institutions to know the reason why fail, am quite sure the response “I don’t like what am studying would rank highest” which leads to lack of interest on the part of the students, cos the mindset of the student would let me just do this thing, if I can maintain being and average student fine. But at the end of the day it takes more than they realize to be an average student, then failure sets in, which transcends to psychological wreck if not remedied cos most parents would start making comments like “you can’t even do anything”, “you are good for nothing” “look at you, you can’t even pass physics and you want to do electrical electronics engineering or any bloody engineering course out there”, “you can’t even pass biochemistry or microbiology but you want to do medicine’ but they fail to realize when they sub-consciously programmed all them Engineering and Medicine in our heads which even makes us shittier cos once you feel and accept the fact that you are worthless and can’t even excel in those areas, but most times those things are not even our dreams, some of us wants to be zebras, birds carefree not worrying about anything.