Some Siberian
Or could be Nigerian
Opposite climates.
My Forward Day by Day for Sunday
January 17th mentions Diocese of
Akoko Edo, Bendel, Nigeria. Other
dioceses of Ondo, Aguata, Niger and
Ahoada, Niger Delta are also mentioned.
Jim Horn, Episcopalian and Retired Veteran
Oh! Mother Africa!
From the East to the West, from the North to the South of
Africa is strife, killings, starvation and poverty
Brothers killing brothers
And innocent bloods are being shed every day
Arise! Mother Africa and save your child.
Give hope to the hopeless
And strength to the weak
Liberty to the oppressed
Peace to the restless and succor to the needy
From Free town in Sierra Leone
to Darfur region in the Republic of Congo.
From the Niger Delta region in Nigeria to Monrovia in Liberia
From Addis Ababa in Ethiopia to Sudan
From Luanda in Angola to Kinshasa in Zaire
From Cape Town South Africa to Nairobi Kenya
Let there be peace, love, unity and prosperity in the Land
Dear Mother Africa!
Show us the way and save Africa your beloved child in whom you are
Well pleased.
Author: Joseph Osita
From the swamp
Haunts me the tears of my blood
Stripped of all hope-the soil to shelter
And banished to swim in oil-poisoned sea
Do they know
Ghost of revenge haunts the weeping soul?
From the swamp
All sorrow-veiled mourners gather
To unfold reaper's choice of the day
As muscles are crushed by soldiers’ bullet fury
Poised by Hobson's choice
Young men breed strength for crime
For ghost of revenge is haunting the weeping soul
From the swamp
Haunts me the stammering musket of angry souls
Where owners beg stealers the share of oil
And the dead man’s amnesty is of twilight solution
For ghost of revenge will forever haunt the weeping soul
On the oil rich people of Niger Delta who are given peanuts by Nigeria government, despite oil companies’ excessive spillage in the region.
The people hauled their anger against the government but were apprehended by Nigerian Army.
For Michael J Faloticho's 'Sounds of a cry'
contest
03/08/2011
LOVE ON NET
Nigeria’s a jungle though
There’s a fairy
She’s my first love on net
Magamathy.,the sweetest
She must be a bud
Blooming across lush green leaves
I feel the throb of her petals
Rippling like breasts
Black though,shining
Must be a bead of diamond
Makes a priceless necklace
Around my Yahoo page
Her fingers make a sieve
To compose the best words
For a stranger friend
Truly she’s borderless love
She has wings
I need no Air bus
Must she fly to catch me on
As I log on
We row in Chad
Fish in mangroves
Sleep in savannah
Scout along the Adamawa
Bathe at Niger delta
Roam in Abuja
Chat n laugh in Hausa-English
Kiss green and peace
Once a centre of slave trade
Now hers a federal state
She cherishes freedom
Finds humanity ever on line
As I bid good bye
I fly saffron ,green ,white
She kisses hers with crimson lips
A heart in the tricolour, I discover
We fly in air ,live air—
An illimitable life;
Dear, air unseen
Means life seen.
I see their faces on billboards & posters
with democrat's smiles they flatter their figures
they do not paint their mastiff & slavers
The constellations of their idle ideals is missing in their pictures.
I sank back in my sofa, watching my television
pondering on the theme and thrust and tones
of these spies...their lies, vacious postulations
crass and cynical arrogance hidden in their bones.
My heart ran through the lore and lexicons
of these politicians who hide their gloom during campaigns
they win the rugged race through fraud fraught elections
....to become rulers of a people in chains and pains.
Their practice of internal colonialism is a a curse
that has roused the rebels in the oil-rich creek of Niger Delta.
Their major mission and vision is to fill their purse
with the spoils of war...between our welfare and Nigerian ninjas
Poor desolate Niger-Delta.
Patriach of pipeline explosions
and oil-spillages.
From tale to a tale
your days shorten,
and your dreams lay asleep
in the cold of shallow graves.
Though i think of you
as destiny`s child,
you neither come nor go away.
In all my grief,
you are the chief;
as one who gives
all passion away.
Heartened by perfumes of Arabia
Alhaji salaams,
on the scented grassland of Naira notes.
Ivory-toothed, his illiterate wives
fart noxiously,
to and fro the market,
in leather-cushioned Honda series;
where depair and desolation
sadden
all the greens of the Niger-Delta.
Life is but a walking shadow,
where the milk streams.
How folly of the Nigeria in all of us!
Of you and i that `siddon look',
How much breathe lived in each look?
How much time is come and gone?
your voice broke through
the hanging and dirty clouds
of verdict’83,
marching on your smoking boots
you led the parade of khaki vultures to scavenge
on the chest of our motherland
you tilted your beret
and rested your military
pot belly
in the peppersoup joints
of ibadanland
in the twilight of another dawn
your voice whistled the gap-toothed
march pass of maradona
you began to waddle
and saddle your green belt
with machiavellian joker cards
you murdered sleep
at the dawn of hope’93
you set drums and cymbals
singing a dirge on the grave
of our hope
what an open grave
you dug, waiting to receive
corpses as landmark
of your blind madness
your stoned faced goggle
threatened the moon
of our motherland
you mowed our fathers
you drove our brothers
aborted the pregnancies
of our mothers
brutalize our sisters’ virginity
with the nozzle
of your gun
your madness challenged God
you killed saro wiwa
enveloped ogoni
with blanket of agony
the Niger Delta, you irrigated
with blood of our sons
how can we remember you?
let your silent grave
speak about the agonizing
loneliness trailing your
path to the table of history.
The only source of a State's wealth
Lies in woeful scences
Of penury, Abduction,
Pollution and rebelion.
NIGER DELTA
The Atlantic Ocean is your neighbor,
With its marine creatures in them
Your vegetations are your pride.
But the God of creation kept back something
In your earth, yes the black GOLD.
These have attracted the good the bad in
The name Exploration
Is exploration for the good all your children,
Still pursued, or the exploitation for the benefit of few
Every day vessels are loading out but none is
Offloading foods and drugs for your children
Deltas are howling for justice and equity
But the explorers and exploiters demand peace
Will it be too much to get schools, roads, and water
In exchanged for the black GOLD As a sign of justice
Will hostage taking bring development NO Deltas
But dialogue will, never stop crying for your Dues
Tell them it your rights and not privilege
For JUSTICE brings peace and not peace justice
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