"Your Dreams Are Valid"- Tunde Onakoya Visits Where He Lived And Walked With , Barefoot 20 Years Ago Tunde Onakoya is a Nigerian chess player and coach, who attempted the Guinness World Records for the longest marathon chess game. He's the founder and covener of Chess in Slums Africa. Just recently, he shared photos on his x platform as he visited ikorodu where he grew up 20 years ago. Sharing x, he wrote: "To the dreamers who left home… I recently returned to the place in Ikorodu where I lived the first 20 years of my life. For the longest time, I hesitated to go back, unsure if I was ready to confront the flood of nostalgia and the weight of the memories I had suppressed. But after two years of filming a documentary about my journey, it was finally time to revisit the starting point of it all. As we drove down the same streets I once raced through barefoot as a child, it felt like everything had shrunk to a miniature scale. The rustic roofs, the muddy streams, the dump sites, the old friends, the first girl I ever loved, the barber’s shop where I saw a chess board for the very first time, the church where I learned to play the piano—remained unchanged, as if time had stood still and became a museum of who I’d been. Standing by the river where we once bathed as kids, I remembered the night I left. It was a cold evening in 2015: unable to renew the rent, my Dad had to return to the village to work in a bakery, my Mum took a job as a cleaner. I had no place to call home anymore. With my bags clutched tightly and tears welling in my eyes, I left behind the only life I had ever known. Terrified of the uncertainty ahead but with the will to fight for my place in the world. I carried a piece of home with me with unwavering faith in my ideas. It’s been 10 long years. Now, I have returned—not the same, but better—ready to leave a piece of my heart with the children here who, like me, are still dreaming . Credit: Tunde Onakoya| X