May Day Nigeria

Here we are again,

lost in the thin air.

Pieces of us – scattered across the FCT.

Another bomb blast.

They saw my head in Sokoto,

street kids balling around with it.

 In Aso Rock, seats my headless body,

King among clowns.

It's not workers day,

it's Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! Nigeria.

Yet, we can't tell the difference.

Season of Letters: What the books say about Nigeria

Dear Nigerians,

In this season of lettered thoughts,

let us draw inspiration from the men of letters.

Could it be, they forewarn of days such as these?

We started on this ‘Long Walk To Freedom’ as a nation,

until we find ourselves on ‘The Famished Road’.

From that point, we have been ‘No Longer At Ease’.

Then came the season of ‘So Long a Letter’.

Much like a script from ‘An African Night Entertainment’.

Missiles were launched in the guise of missives.

But sincerely, do we need ‘The Interpreters’

when we can see ‘Things 

Fall

                                                        

                                                                     Apart’?

Nigerians,

 ‘We Must Set Forth At Dawn’

 to rid our country of  yet another  ‘Accidental Public Servant’.

So it won’t be said of Nigeria someday soon...

‘There Was a Country’.

Once upon a time

There was a time when I cared so much about how the water gets into the coconut. Then, I would hold one of those cone-shaped fruits in my hand and shake to see if there would be a leakage - an opening, but found none. I lost my quest with childhood. 

With age, I realised that life is too short to bother about questions that won't yeild their meaning easily; individuals that make a simple and exciting phenomenon as life a complex and an arduous task. Time has a way of demystifying mysteries. 

Even the farmer knows that not all seeds will sprout. Yet, he waits patiently after seasoned labour, for that first sprout, that little shoot of his seeded travail.

Let the storm rage. Let the mountain quake. Let hurricane tomorrow well-up a sea of doubt, pessimism and debris, cushioned from yesterday's unfruitful venture. Yet, I'll stand, resolute in my resolve that life is what you make of it.

Miss you.

Sleep'Writing'

I love to write.
But I have been seated here for hours, facing this 'seeded' Ogun* board whose bright screen stares lustfully at me. I can only wish I could evoke the dreaded Sango* from his ancient slumber to spit words in place of fire and fill this blank screen with words. In my weakness, I could still sense I'd awaken an ancient struggle between deities, much older than my first word.

Before my eyes, they came alive. spitting fire, raining thunder. Flashes of lightning flares from my screen as metal meets fire. The battle of the gods has begun. I crawled to a corner and watched as history repeat itself. Naked gods, caught in a war of supremacy, sending balls of fire flying carelessly.

One of such balls dropped lightly on my board. It licked by screams in its fury before lashing out on my keys. Frightened on seeing my board go up in flames, I conjured Olokun* who rising from her throne in the sea, made the sky heavy and poured her burden on the warring dieties. Earth rejoiced as water deified the warring gods and humanity was born.

I woke up.
In front of me lies my laptop, drenched in water. I must have been dreaming.




Ogun* mythical god of iron. Sango* yoruba lightning god. Olokun* yoruba goddess of the sea

Used.

Here, I wait, holding back my hands from touching Kourtney because she would not be touched. I'd touched her yesterday like never before, fingering her every parts, thumbing away on her board till my fingers went numb.

Today, she sits in a corner on my bed, and would not be touched. I wouldn't hurt her if I could but yesterday, I'd used her like never before. My strokes were harder but with such fluidity like one playing a classical piece on the keyboard - her keyboard.

I felt the firmness of her curves as it responded to my touch. I chose my words carefully, stringing letters with my fingers, reaching notes never before imagined. In the throes of orgasm -with words spilling in rhythmic procession, she clutched my thumbs as the other 8 fingers stroke her bare back and muttered several random words but one stood out. " We've never done it together like this before". And I replied, "She made me do it. Elinor made me do it".

Kourtney went silent. I saw the red light blinking incessantly,
indicating a flat battery. I felt for Kourtney, my BB.

Through the eyes of a child

Time raced on.
Speckles of guilt danced lightly on his young face as his heartbeat synced with the pacy movement of time, creating a rhythm that nagged forever. His fattened thighs shivered under the weight of the cross he had chosen to bear and for the first time in a long while, his religious walls seemed to be crumbling.


He shut his eyes, immersing himself in the shadows of his religious fanaticism and shutting off the radar of emotions and reasoning that were beginning to cloud his thoughts. His mind raced back to the mountainous Shabwah province where he had met with divinity and like ‘Moses’ returned with a sacred mission – anti-western in every essence. There, he sucked from the breast of fanatics who fanned the ember of hatred, branded in religious hegemony and made men mobile explosives. There, he lost his humanity.


He felt warm.
His virgin mind plunged into sexual ecstasy, awakening the hardened phallus from his twenty-one year slumber. It roared and stretched its rusty muscles like a wrestler threatening an opponent, wishing to plunge just once into the deep waters of 'Vaginia' but … he was enroute Detroit.


He felt a tap on his shoulder.
Those large innocent eyes opened to meet the friendly gaze of an air-hostess, handing him a glass of juice. He lowered his gazed quickly like a child, cautioned by his parent not to look on fair maidens. He shook his head in disapproval at the startled hostess who moved on to the next seat.


Relieved, he reclined.
A feeling of self-righteousness glowed on his face as his mind wandered to the array of virgins that await him on the other side. In the same instance, death knell beeped, stirring the horror that is to come. Remorse flushed through his face and thick balls of sweat formed a ring on his forehead. No doubt, the time is near and his time is short.


Tears trickled.
He saw his mother’s face and the tears trickled more. He had not spoken to her in four months and as he walked through life’s final path; he wished he had called if only to hear her voice. More tears trickled.


He felt a nudge and turned to see a little girl holding out a white handkerchief. Puzzled, he looked at the girl’s mother who smiled in approval. With trembling hands, he accepted the gift with a smile.


His heart quaked.
For a minute, his humanity clashed with his religious values. For the first time in several years, he saw his true reflection in the mirror. He saw the monster religion had made of him. In the eyes of that little girl, he had seen what true religion should be. Angry, he reached for the detonator. Turned to the little girl sitting quietly on her mother’s lap and said with a smile,

“Thank you”.


He walked up to one of the air hostesses and whispered into her ears.

“I’ve got a bomb strapped in -between my balls that would go off in 15 minutes. I must get it off now. I don’t want anyone to die!”

He pulled down his trousers to reveal an explosive device sewn to his underwear. She raised alarm.


As they bundled him away, he waved at the little girl who smiled and waved in return. No doubt, he had seen the world through the eyes of a child and life for him would never be the same again.

Whispers from the Niger Delta

As the bullet tore into his flesh, Efemena gave a loud cry, “my children! my children!”. He slumped to the ground where his fellow village elders’ lifeless body lay. As he stare at death’s gruesome face, his thought wandered to his soon-to-be orphan children who had lost their mother to cholera, two years ago. He couldn’t stop the tears from pouring.

Another bullet pierced his sides.

His face contorted in pain as thick balls of blood drip from his lips, impeding his speech. His assailant – one of the uniformed men, trampled on the corpse of the slain elders and stood over him with a pointed gun. Efemena could only whisper through a splutter of blood, “God save my children” as his brain exploded.

Onanefe’s scream cut through the lone night like a bullet, puncturing the once serene ambience and frightening the feasting mosquitoes away from their nocturnal preoccupation. A greedy blood-drunk Anopheles whose tiny legs could no longer sustain the bulging thirty-three litres blood tank meant for an abdomen was squashed to death as Edafe wrapped her frail arms around her trembling brother, reminding him that it was only a nightmare. But Onanefe never got over it!

From the chink in the town hall, he had watched those uniformed men massacre his father alongside several village elders under the guise of national dialogue. That morning, they came beaming with smile, with their guns dangling from the side. As they converged at the town Hall, the village elders wore faces brightened with hope. They chatter away like excited kids until the guns put them to sleep. They muzzled them to death with rains of bullets, leaving the villagers fatherless. No doubt, the uniformed men were national assassins!

For years, Onanefe was haunted by that gory sight. Not even the intense African sun could heal the wound caused by such treachery. The seed of hostility evoked by that act of betrayal and nurtured through those nightmarish nights, awakened some sort of dissent – a quest for justice.

In the creeks, small groups of angry youths, without a home to hide when dusk settles have started gathering - learning to trigger the gun!