SERENDIPITY

I was in what many would call the lowest season of my life. I didn’t see it that way then — I saw a tough period testing my resolve. I knew how hard seasons could shape people into better versions of themselves, but knowing and experiencing are two very distinct things. So I would be lying if I said it wasn’t tough.

It was just barely two years after NYSC. I was brimming with hopes, dreams and aspirations; my ambition felt boundless. Eager to experiment with an idea my friend and I had conjured as undergrads — that “school and education were not the same” — I applied to teach at a polished primary school. The fact that I got the job with no prior experience or training said something about our country’s values around education, but that is a conversation for another time.

That school experience is one I hold dear. It healed pieces of my childhood I’d lost after an incident in 2011 when I hit the back of my head and had temporary amnesia. Beyond the healing, being around children gave me the courage to dream again. Their innocence and excited eyes are therapeutic; for a moment they made me forget the trials of being a responsible adult. It was in that season that the title of my book arrived: Serendipity.

One evening, after a stressful but rewarding day with the kids, I was headed home, wrapped in a rare inner quietness, when I audibly heard the word “Serendipity.” It was firm yet soft, loud yet whispering. The feeling was like discovering something important — the relief and joy of solving a complex problem. Oddly, I had never heard the word before. Maybe I’d caught it subconsciously somewhere, but I was convinced I hadn’t. My only regret is I was on a motorcycle and couldn’t take out a pen to capture that beautiful moment.

Serendipity is often defined as a fortunate discovery by accident.

But that definition is too shallow for what I experienced. Serendipity is not just chance. It is alignment disguised as coincidence. It is when life places something in your path—not when you are searching frantically, but when you are quiet enough to receive it.

It is discovery without pursuit. Truth meeting you where you didn’t think to look.

And sometimes… Serendipity is not what you find. It is what finds you.

Weeks later I set out to write a fictitious novel about African gods and their humanity. I expected myth and imagination, but as I searched for historical details to ground the story, I kept deviating from the original plan. I stumbled into deep secrets I never knew existed. The more I read, the more the tale reshaped itself, and I realized I was at the beginning of something entirely different: the journey of The African Serendipity.

I’d only ever co-authored before, so writing a full book was new, but that experience gave me just enough confidence to begin. Two chapters in, I saw how beautiful the idea was. I immediately knew something was different. There was a weight to what I was writing. A depth I hadn’t anticipated. Excited, I called a close friend to tell him I’d discovered a mine — hoping it was a gold mine and not a landmine. Just when I was about to send the draft, I realized I hadn’t thought of a title. The idea was so intriguing I’d not bothered with the intricacies of marketability. And for the first time, I paused. And then, like a quiet echo from that day on the motorcycle the word Serendipity came to mind again. That was it.

Some advised changing the title; they said The African Serendipity wasn’t marketable. So I tried alternatives and even did a survey with many other titles, but nothing captured the weight and the essence like that single word. After months of trying, I accepted it. I added a subtitle as a buffer to help marketability, but the heart of the work remained the same. The name chose itself. Sometimes, the most powerful things in life are not optimized for marketing… They are anchored in truth.

The African Serendipity is an experience I genuinely wish every African — by birth, association, descent, or by heart — could read. It’s that light at the end of the tunnel philosophers talk about. It’s not a read that leaves your mind the same. Once you know the things within, you can’t un-know them.

If you’re drawn to stories that begin in ordinary moments and lead to unsettling, beautiful discoveries, The African Serendipity might just find you when you least expect it.