Olabisi
Rabiu
I turn fear into letters, politics into chess, and survival into something you can laugh at without breaking. Satire, lament, and a demand for better — written from the diaspora, with one eye always on home.
FEARS
Olabisi Rabiu
A writer who code-switches between Yoruba, Pidgin and Queen’s English as the pain dictates — lecturer one minute, Oshodi bus park the next.
Olabisi Rabiu writes from the place where English sometimes packs its load and leaves you alone with raw emotion, street wisdom, and Yoruba proverbs that refuse to translate properly. She is a Nigerian writer living in the diaspora, working not from a cool, air-conditioned library, but from tension, pressure, and a love for home that refuses to quit.
Her voice moves the way survival moves — satire one breath, lament the next, always circling the same question: what does it cost to leave, and what does it cost to stay? Trapped Between Two Fears is her letter from the diaspora to Nigeria’s leaders — equal parts comedy, confession, and demand.
“If you want perfect English, go to London. If you want the truth, sit down and read.”
↑ Placeholder bio & portrait — send the real details (and a photo) and they drop straight in.
It removes its shoes at the door, grabs the nearest chair, and starts talking.
Trapped Between Two Fears is not a formal document. Not the kind they hide in office cabinets like classified matter. A house conversation — the family meeting nobody planned, but everybody must attend.
We love you, but we are tired. Tired of promises without movement. Tired of survival being mistaken for living. Tired of watching people choose between fear at home and fear abroad.
Outside, immigration systems remind us we are outsiders. Inside, our own country treats us like strangers. So people leave — some chasing opportunity, some escaping hopelessness, some simply trying to breathe.
This is not just a cry. It is a warning. A confession. A demand for better.
Two fears. One people. No safe square.
The book’s name is its argument: a generation caught between the danger of staying and the loneliness of leaving.
The fear of staying.
“Organized suffering with a PowerPoint presentation.”
- Hunger that arrives without warning
- Insecurity & kidnapping
- Leaders who explain instead of build
- Fuel prices doing Olympic trials
- Light that goes on, off, on, off
- Hope dey? — the quietest question
The fear of leaving.
“The feeling of becoming a stranger everywhere waits.”
- Immigration systems that name you outsider
- Xenophobia & quiet racism
- Deportation anxiety
- Loneliness that does not sleep
- Exile dressed up as opportunity
- The struggle nobody back home sees
Do you know how to play chess?
Not to pose with a board during campaign — to actually play. Because chess is small life inside big board. You don’t move because you have power. You move because it makes sense.
“If your king falls, grammar cannot save you, security detail cannot block it, and protocol will not write statement for you.”
“One small pawn, that you ignored like minor citizen, can travel quietly and become queen.”
Sit down and read.
“If you want perfect English, go to London. If you want the truth, sit down and read.” A few chapters from the letter — read them right here, then get the whole book free below.
Read the whole letter — on the house.
Olabisi is giving the full, updated Trapped Between Two Fears — free — to the first 1,000 readers who drop their email. A few tastes of what’s inside:
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Thank you — the giveaway is full. The paperback and signed editions are below.
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The letter is free for the first 1,000 readers above. If you’d rather own a paperback — or support the author — these editions are coming. Release: 2026. Share the store links and I’ll wire up the buttons.
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