Instagram story viewer> @oyinstein> Posts

Oyin Olúdìpè

@oyinstein

2.5K

followers

598

following

Jagunlabí eléèmí mésàán - Bàbá Moróuntódùn
Recipient, 2016 Okigbo Prize for Poetry

POSTS STORIES REELS

A short interview on #books. (literature.9mobile.com.ng) #9mobileprizeforliterature #oyinoludipe by @oyinstein

From Cannes, France to New York, USA.

“See the Sacrifice”, an ongoing campaign I created with the amazing team at @thehookng to put the 4th most powerful military in Africa in the limelight of social media has been having a good outing.

Follow @seethesacrifice and thank a Nigerian soldier for their service at seethesacrifice.com

#seethesacrifice #copywriter #creativeleader #hookr #thehookng #newyorkadvertisingfestival by @oyinstein

To climb what the wild goat climbs. To see what the eagle sees.

#explorer #hiking #adoawayemountains by @oyinstein

The understated cost of being young, and responsible, and masculine.

Link in bio

#hairydiary #substack #oyinoludipe by @oyinstein

Notes on empathy in a love relationship.

Link in bio

#hairydiary #substack #oyinoludipe by @oyinstein

In praise of you @christianaaileru Happy Inventor’s Day ❤️

Link in bio

#motherasideator #happymothersday #substack by @oyinstein

If ice-cream be the food of love, lick on. ❤️
-Shakespeare, revised by @oyinstein

Proudest Bàbá

#BabaTodun #FathersDaygift by @oyinstein

Recently, I had the privilege of serving as keynote speaker at Babcock University International Culture Day.

It was a summons to reflection on diversity, tolerance, and the fragile architecture of human coexistence in the presence of international students, faculty, the Vice-Chancellor of Babcock University, and delegates from the embassies of Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Equatorial Guinea.

A few key takeaways from my speech:

💡 Security is the oxygen of culture.
Human beings are the carriers of culture; when they are endangered, the life of culture is endangered too.

💡 Excellence is the great leveller.
In deeply diverse societies, excellence can become a shared value around which many identities and communities can rally without slipping into destructive competition or regressive conflict.

💡 Inter-tribal violence is a sign of absent shared purpose.
Where communities are locked in recurring hostility, it may reveal that there is no common project, no unifying vision, being intentionally built, anchored, and invested in.

💡 Tolerance is not weakness.
It is the discipline of making room for difference while still protecting human dignity, mutual respect, and collective progress.

My thanks to @babcock.university for the invitation and for creating space for important conversations like this.

#fortheculture
#BabaMorountodun by @oyinstein

Dear Moróuntódùn,

Sometimes I suck the mucus from your nose. Not because I enjoy it, but because I can’t stand to see you uncomfortable.

It’s the kind of thing that would make most people stare, people who come from where you were born - a man doing what grandmothers used to do. But I do it anyway, because true love, I’m hoping every man and woman would realize, doesn’t care about who’s “supposed” to do what.

Your teacher calls me “Ma” in every note I send back on your daily report card. I correct her in my head, but I never bother replying about it, because I understand - fathers like yours confuse people.

We’re not the majority yet.

I work very long hours. I navigate very unforgiving schedules. Most nights, I come home drained, but I still check your card, read your teacher’s notes, ask about your day - not because it’s easy, but because I want you to grow up seeing that care is not gendered; presence is not a favour; and attention to detail is not exclusively feminine.

It’s 2025, and they call this being “a hands-on dad”, as if care is an achievement when a man does it, but what else am I supposed to be? A spectator in my own child’s life?

For you I have created systems and routines to keep me close when time tries to pull me away. Mornings for holding you. Weekends for books and songs. Evenings for catching up, no matter how drained I am.

I don’t always get it right though. When you cry, something in me gets tangled and triggered. I’ve never quite learned how to handle the sound of someone I love in distress, but I’m learning that being your dad is not about perfection. It’s about showing up again and again, even when I’m running on empty.

Moróuntódùn, may the world meet you with the same tenderness I’ve tried to learn for you. May you never mistake love for absence or abuse.

You are growing up in a world that often misunderstands what it means to be gentle and strong at once, but I hope you come to believe this - that your father tried and will always try to be both. For you.

You deserve nothing less than a world - and a father - that makes room for your fullness.

Happy International Day of the Girl Child. ❤️

#Morountodun by @oyinstein

For MTD @ 2 ❤️

Morountodun was the kind of girl who asked questions that made grown-ups laugh before they started thinking. Why did àkàrà always taste better when bought by the roadside? Why did lizards do press-up like tiny soldiers? And why, most importantly, did the moon seem to follow her all the way from her aunt’s shop to their house every night? One evening, with a nylon bag of pepper in one hand and àkàrà in the other, she stopped in the middle of the street, looked up, and said, “Moon, if you want to follow me, you should at least help me carry something.” Her big brother laughed so hard he almost dropped the bread.

That night, the whole compound was wrapped in darkness, except for the silver moon pouring itself over the roofs, the water drums, and Mama Tola’s clothesline. Morountodun sat outside on a low stool, fanning herself and staring up. The moon looked close. Closer than usual. Close enough to hear secrets. So she began to talk. She told it about the mathematics test she was afraid of and about how sometimes being small made her feel as if nobody listened properly. The compound was quiet. Even the usual generator noise from the next street had gone silent. It felt as though the whole night was listening.

The next morning, Morountodun woke to the sound of shouting. Not bad shouting. Excited shouting. A small goat had somehow wandered into the compound and was chewing Baba Seyi’s newspaper as if it had paid for it. Children ran after it. Mothers shouted instructions that nobody followed. One slipper flew in one direction, the goat in another. In the middle of the glorious confusion, the goat squeezed itself behind an old wooden bench where baby Moyo had dropped her tiny silver anklet three days earlier. Everybody had searched for it. Nobody had found it. But there it was, shining in the corner like a smile.

“Ah-ah!” Mama Moyo cried, clapping her hands. “This goat has done what all of you useless detectives could not do!” The whole compound burst into laughter, and Morountodun looked up at the pale morning moon still hanging faintly in the sky. She narrowed her eyes. “So you sent a goat,” she whispered.

(Story continues in comment section) by @oyinstein

On today’s episode of Raising a Renaissance Woman

#Morountodun
#johnrandlecentreforyorubacultureandhistory by @oyinstein