MY RHYMES

Your fate is bait,

To rate your faith,

And save you from what you hate,

On the date you always contemplate,

For you to graduate with a positive grade,

You have to abate the mate that grate,

Don’t let it be too late,

For you have to pass through the gate,

To a place where you’ll never depreciate.




My father is rather like a ladder,

Who shoulders me because he bothers,

My mother will never wither,

She is the leather that gathers,

For my body not to shiver,

In the unfriendly weather,

Even when situation becomes harder,

She is always there like a bladder,

Which never departs the urethra,

That’s why I love my father,

And yet I love my mother more.





You have no excuse to fail,

Because you are not born a tail,

And let your instinct to be bail,

From the element that makes you derail,

You can even try to sail,

Out of the seas of trouble that jails,

So that you can finally be hail.

I looked at him from afar,

And he seems to be barred,

From my believe to soar,

And become a star,

In the realm of the scholars,

Who am I aiming to grab,

But the knowledge of Allah,

And that of the world I am.

THE MAN

Hoity-toity he walks,

Having no sense of obloquy,

Demanding deference in bulk,

Though he’s full of parsimony,

Masses loathe him fervently,

Transcending supernatural intervention,

He never shows any compunction,

Ignoble and haughty is his volition,

But on the day of his retribution,

A voluptuous femme fatale approach him,

Promises to re-awaken his debauchery,

Lies she is a burgher,

And fabricate a spurious appellation,

He reciprocated with an amorous glance,

And dole out a flippy cash,

Her opinion was unequivocal,

They both headed for a hotel,

Room 5 was the arena,

For the battle to ignite their concupiscence,

She draws down her lingerie,

He undresses his undies,

He advanced towards her,

Fondling her excitedly,

The ecstasy can’t be stopped,

It was going to be unbridled show,

“Make love to me”, she purred,

She combed through his thick hair,

Expecting him to enter her,

He wanted it slow and steady,

Their heart were beating fast,

And heat of lust is recycled,

He then change his stance,

And go on with his action,

After their eyes were cleared,

And they were done with each other,

He said he enjoyed himself,

And she said she was looking forward to it,

Unsure about what she meant,

He asked confoundingly with askance,

And after apologizing she muttered…

I AM HIV POSITIVE!!!

He fainted and never to rise again.

ENUGU...the coal city.

Its noon here in the coal city, the luxurious eastern part of Nigeria and am enjoying every bit of it as the days move on. Though every moment is poised between lethargy and enthusiasm, I still want to linger on as if life was perfect. It is rather difficult sometimes to be capricious but I needed it this time. The environment is so different from where I come from; a state full of hustle and bustle. Even the wind lost its mild nature as man and machines roar here and there. Hardly had the dawn herald than the populace find their way to the street in search of their means of survival. But here in Enugu, everywhere seems so capacious that serenity pays you a visit. The song of the birds is what brings you back to life in the morn and economic activities begin three hours before noon.

After leaving the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) orientation camp in Awgu, I decided to visit some friends and acquaintances in the capital of the state and there I found distinctive characteristics. The city was enclosed with mountains and hills and I cannot but open my mouth in amazement as I enjoy the wonderful view. The epileptic weather condition delivers calmness and harshness in the city. When it is raining, it is a heavy downpour. When it is sunny, its scorch and the wind are always cool like the ambient temperature in an efficacious refrigerator. I become a callow youth and was ready to experience new things. The dialect is hard at first but I was willing to learn so as to flow with the community.

In the morning, the first communication that spreads out is “Otutuoma!” meaning “Good morning”. When I was first greeted in this manner, my instinct suggested that it was a compliment and then I was taught to say “Daalu!” which means “Thank you”. One of those things that appeal to my appetite is their dishes. The day I devoured “Okpa”, I experimented it with hope of enjoyment and I never regretted taking it. Then it was “Abatcha”, a leafy nutritious meal that is loved by all. Nna ehn, the people of this city loathe seasoning their rice with salt which is contrary to the way we do in the western part of the country. It is believed generally that health wise, it is not good to have too much salt in the food, especially for hypertensive people. What even draws my love more to this place is their ethnical and religious tolerance.

Being a state popularly dense with Christians, you’ll probably think they will be hostile to other religious beliefs, due to the security threat going on in the country by some religious fanatics’ sect. But to my astonishment, I found a remote community at the extreme of the state where there are indigenous Muslims living peacefully with other theological group and they are practising their worship with ease. What national development can be better than that?

A community replete with no dissonance and obdurate youth will sooner or later engender an abode of peace and tranquillity and hence development. Enugu…the coal city! I love this state. “Aye no na coal city”.

Relaxation... the bedrock of success

A popular Yoruba cliché says “a hardworking and dedicated child requires a period of leisure and relaxation”. This is what led me to my renewed quest to the movie house. It will be my second time to this place; my first was through the support of my sister, who just felt like brushing my social realm because I never had one. It was interesting and I wanted to go again. I just finished offering my seasonal sacrificial fasting, which lasted for 4 weeks. So, this is an avenue for me to relax myself after hearkening to my Creator’s call. Many people always troop in here every day to relax and meet with friends. It has become an avenue for guys to prove to their ladies that they are responsible. Parents also bring their children to play games, watch cartoons, and buy interesting kiddie kits.

The reality about life is that you can’t subject yourself to every day psyche hoarding. You need to give the brain a break. But the best you can do is to utilize the leisure positively, while others prefer to use their spare time to read or sleep, some prefer to socialize and mingle with people, exchange contact with new people and network. It is this same period that some use to harness the negative factor in them. Indulging in acts like excessive dancing, drinking and smooching of all kind is another means of relaxation for themselves. Like I always do, my discussion is always towards the youth. There are many responsibilities of the youth in the society. A country with deformed or misinformed youths is a fruitless country and the country or society is vulnerable to war and chaos. This is because when there is underdevelopment as a result of the deformed youth, there is blasphemy and then war. But if the youth are determined and positively oriented, the outcome will forever be improving the world. So, to harness and ignite these untapped resources, he must work and also relax. Fantastic ideas even sprout out during the time of leisure because you are naturally relaxing your muscles and the work function of the heartbeat is to the minimal, thereby creating room for initiative and outstanding thoughts.

Health workers have even made us understand that man needs rest of nearly eight hours a day. It’s not about sleeping but it’s about relaxing. Relaxation is one of the bedrock of the fountain of success.

YOU WILL SURVIVE.

This part of my life is the period of thinking and achievement. I can’t explain how I felt when I watched the film “The Pursuit of Happiness” and understand that this life is a memoir of expressions; the time to laugh; the time to cry; the time to reflect. Many times you think that the situation you find yourself is so terrible that you cannot but release gallons of tears through your eyes either because you were not able to take your three-square meal or because you just had a rough day at workplace or you just lost loved ones or  the government just demanded for an outrageous tax from your financial reservoir. But out of these seas of emotional situation, you still have to move on because you’ll be surprised that some are in a more sophisticated situation than you. If I say that you are far better than a sick person, you’ll rather respond in affirmation without any surprise. But if I tell you that there are some people who are hale and hearty, have their meals as expected but are just frustrated out of life that they prefer to commit suicide, you’ll wonder why!

Imagine an economy devoid of grace and grant for the populace, let alone the masses. No matter how much you try, the status quo have been set in such a way that you’ll keep on running the race. While they call it excellence, I call it survival. Excellence is forever pursued by all from the period you start crawling till the period you start slowly dying. A child will always want to impress his parent by trying to crawl, even though he is not ready just because he wants to excel; a student will want to pass his exams whatever it takes just to achieve excellence; a man will want to be promoted and praised in all he does simply to excel; even an old man will want to be fit at his senile age all in the name of excellence, after all he deserves to live longer! We all subject ourselves to an arbitrary race to survive, to scale through the hurdles and be recognised. A person once told me that if you follow success, excellence will chase you, hands down. But a situation where the system is not giving you any chance to excel, making the medium seem so sleazy that you can’t find your way through; you can be frustrated that you begin to venerate failure. But I need to tell you that you can make it no matter what. All you need do is to get yourself prepared, expect the unexpected and move on with life and pray for better days ahead.

Portray positive thinking, do what you have to do when you have to do them, think big, equip yourself for the upcoming opportunities, smile, absorb and release magnificent energy, accept criticism and try to work on them, impact in your environment, eschew stress and don’t put too much pressure on yourself over what had happened to you. But in all, be sure that ALL IS WELL.

KNOWLEDGE VERSUS MUSIC

The decreasing trend at which youth seek for knowledge by reading is alarming. Children now revere music than mathematics. The irony of the matter is that music and fashion holds the dagger that we can use to eliminate poverty and illiteracy. The world is at its abyss of destruction. Our bright future that once heralds like a shinning sun is now overshadowed by dark indestructible clouds of failure.
Music is given deference and knowledge is repudiated. It now seems like everybody, but a few, now shows a repugnance to the presence of knowledge. No wonder the rate of failure in this country is increasing exponentially. The most productive period of man’s life which is the adolescence or youth period is now jeopardized by the media viz music, television, Internet, radio, magazines, newspaper e.t.c. and is posing a serious threat to the beautiful future which we dream of.
The brain is the complex organ which processes the thought of inquisitiveness and curiosity in man. But this brain, where the knowledge of the success of the future lies, is so vulnerable that it can easily accept any data or information input into it. Research studies have even shown that most music have a negative effect on memory retention as it replaces drastically the knowledge of books that have been learnt. The kind of music that is created nowadays is unscrupulous and full of debauchery. The setting is so filled with sensual, half-nude women posing themselves to taint the mind of the youth.
I cannot but agree and averred a state of emergency in the music and television industry. Many parents also contribute to this problem as they are not showing cognizance of the fact that the children are becoming ignoramus every blessed day.
The UNESCO recommended 26% as the budget of the education sector but Nigeria have always managed to allocate 8% of the whole budget to education while she promises the entertainment sector a whooping sum of 200 million USD. Where lies the hope of the future?

The Sick Education

Education they say is not only the best legacy but is the civic right of every child that get to this mother Earth by chance or by choice. But the manner in which this sector of the Nigeria’s economy is directed shows that it is either the canker worm of corruption has eaten deep into the political psyche of our leaders or that people, especially the government, needs to be re-orientated about the necessity of education.

It worsens everyday and it seems as if the solution can only be a mere say or it is virtual. Every now and then, many non-governmental organizations propose and organize different forum to discuss the state of education in the world. Yet, the minister and other stakeholders in the education sector give a deafening ear to the foreseen disaster illiteracy will cause. Instead of finding headway, the government sap the wealth of the nation and reduce the budget of the sector to 8% as compared to the 27% budget dictated by the United Nation. To complicate the case, they begin to give the private school owners the license to bill an outrageous fee on the masses. A situation where a parent is to pay up to #50,000 for a nursery school student is simply an act of hegemony and nefarity.

Lagos, for instance, which has a population of more than 7.9 million, out of which more than 70% are youth, is a living experience of the consequences of illiteracy. The economic hub of the country is so busy, that the youths especially the children even join in the hustle and bustle. They are the marketers of clothes, soft drinks and pure water when they are supposed to be in the four-walls of the school. The government try to enact laws debunking this act of social and child slavery but what do you expect the parent who cannot even afford to pay his house rent bill to do when the government pays a menial salary to them? Even a one-child parent can’t afford the best education for his child. The university is also in this mess. Imagine a case where the government impose a bogus increase in the school fees by 150%! Many students will rather resort to hawking and doing all sort of “dirty jobs” to survive than schooling.

How beautiful will it be if we have a future where illiteracy and poverty is a mirage? It is an act of illiteracy that makes people in the Northern part of the country called ‘Boko-Haram’to continuously hem and mutilate people for no justified reason. If the government can just for once go back to the drawing board and restructure the education system, Nigeria will be a better place. A literate and educated society will bore an egalitarian society and it is this kind of society that can be moistened for peace and development for all.   

SAVE THE YOUTH, END THE ACT OF RAPE

   

Even though it was not happening for the first time, the story stroke my heart this time and I imagine the task ahead of us in creating the future we want, the future devoid of darkness of  illiteracy, crisis, rape, blasphemy and war. She has been a good friend over the time and she foresees and nurtures a bright future, dreaming of igniting the potentials of the youth, both the lost and the confused. But this dream was cut short when she was powerless; a paedophile took advantage of her innocence when she was 4 years old. As if that wasn’t enough, she lost her virginity to a deceptive man who claimed to love her in the early period of her undergraduate years. Yet she confided in me to keep the bad event a secret, as she sadly told me some of them when it happens. Her dream darkens more as the years roll by as she kept on falling in the same temptation every time; she never really cares anymore. It’s an irreparable loss. But I still believe in her dreams until this last one happens.

She just arrived from her home for the weekend and she was living in a hostel with her brother. He had a course mate in the next room that have been helpful whenever cash flees from the brother. He seems to be a good guy and the girl respects him for that. But on this fateful day, his cloth of humility had been torn; he was drunk! Unfortunately, there was no one in the hostel and he raped her. I could not but weep in my heart as she told me this saddening story. It was as if I was struck in the heart because I was sure this is another bad event that will seal her chance of living a normal life ever.

There are a lot of untold stories like this that happens to women all over the world. While some are caused by the victim’s naïvetés, some are a terrible incident that becomes an irremovable stain. In Nigeria, the increasing rate of rape cases is alarming and there is no law to checkmate the perpetrators of this crime. They easily escape the whims of the law as if they are infallible.  History has made us understand that it is not only men that have set a landmark for the progress and success deserved in this world, women have been and are still much in the contending rallies for success. The African culture asserts that “For every successful man, there is always a woman” which implies that without the pure, articulate and focused woman, there is a 90% assurance that the world has no future. What a brink future that will be!!!

The nature of our brain is such that it stores information as data in the biochemical neuron cells and in as much as you are alive, the flashbacks of the daily routines and events in your life comes often and tells how efficient you can be in problem-solving. A troubled mind cannot get things done no matter how much effort you make. It begins to haunt you till you feel debased and confused. Though some bounces back after this trauma, but the chance is so slim. While some says that the event is due to the improper presentation of women in the society; the unethical way of dressing and exposure of some sensitive parts in their body, which arouses the human instinct of a man that cannot control himself; some believe that it is a decadence that must be curtailed and put to an end within the shortest possible time.

I hold on to this two philosophies and thus I really hope a future replete with pure and untroubled mind heralds, a future where the integrity and dignity of a woman is uphold with utmost sincerity and scrutiny. A future where a woman will not say “Virginity is not dignity, but it is a loss of opportunity”. I dream of the brightest future where we all live in peace and harmony.  

DEATH OF THE FUTURE LEADER

A popular clichés says that the children of today are the leaders of tomorrow. But then, what would the future be like if the leaders of tomorrow all die off today?The cliché above is not new to many but it had never really occurred to some of us how the non-challant attitude of parents can jeopardize this future until recently. I am in my third year in the university studying Biochemistry and during the course of a lecture, a lecturer said we all had to be very careful so as not to end up as a murderous parents. I couldn’t but wonder what he meant, so I patiently listened to him as he sighted an example of a pregnant woman who decided to spend the night in an environment where there were a lot of mosquitoes and her husband, due to his lack of knowledge, allowed her. Soon, she ends up with malaria and she had to take some medications after consulting a pharmacist. She later gets well but the unborn baby has been infected with jaundice. The baby dies after birth.

This kind of event is a recurrent one in our environment, especially in Africa. It happens not only to pregnant women but also to mothers of young infants. Every day, about 29,000 children die between the ages of 0 and 21 years mainly from preventable diseases like diarrhoea, measles, malaria, malnutrition and pneumonia. It saddens me to find that most of these deaths occur in Africa. WHO says that under-5 mortality rate is a leading indicator of the level of child health and overall development in any country. Though, circumstances like poverty and disease outbreak can lead to the sudden and unwonted death of children, the rate should be alleviated to the minimal so as not to lose the agents of change and success of the future.

My vision for the future is to keep today’s children alive and healthy because they are indeed the future. Diseases are not inevitable and children with these diseases don’t have to die. I know everyone is going to die someday but we don’t have to cause our own deaths. Every child has a right to life and no reckless parent should allow life to be taken away from any child. Children are the joy of life. An amazing thing about them is that no one knows what they would grow up to be till they get a chance to live their lives. The little child that died of jaundice from my lecturer’s story might have been the one who would cure cancer or produce the drugs for the cure of AIDS but we will never know because he is dead and his death could have been prevented.

All the children dying in Africa can be saved if their parents pay a little more attention to their health and their well-being. Parents of young infants should be admonished on the benefits of breastfeeding and of using insecticide treated bed nets. Parents should also be enlightened on the danger of living in filthy environments and the benefits of keeping their homes clean and also keeping a keen and conscious monitoring of what their kids eat and drink.

All of these I believe will help us protect our children and hence our future. We don’t have to be biochemists to keep our children alive, we just have to be.

SHUN NEGATIVE SEXUALITY

Many a times, I wonder why we believe that war and death in our environs are the major factors that sabotage peace, tranquillity and happiness of the youth, especially the children, in the world we reside in. But from my personal experience, I have observed that the incessant exposure of the youth to all forms of promiscuity is a lingering and serious issue of our era. It is a well-known fact by all and sundry that the future can only be defined by the success and intelligence of the youth in a particular community. But if the mind of the youths is filled with licentious act in all forms, I wonder how the future will be. A considerably large chance is that it will be blurring like the problem the German youths had in the mid 80’s due to excessive drinking of alcohol, which resulted in their defeat to the Soviet Union.

The storage capacity of the brain is so massive that it enshrouds ideas and initiative to make the world better. It also gives room for any other thought which is based on man’s experience. Man have been created in such a way that when he gets to the period of youthful exuberance, many internal energy is generated; the zeal to succeed; the zeal to invent; the zeal to love and the zeal to be loved. This is the natural instinct of man. He nurtures this from birth through youthfulness to senility. But the climax of intelligence is when he is young. The tendency to be curious and to inquire sets in. But in the midst of this, technology comes in. The advent of technology heralds virtues and vices for the youth. Unfortunately, he tends to hold on to the vices thus causing distraction.

A part of the side effect of the above decision is the indulgence in sexual act, in reality or virtually. Youths are now threatened by the kind of fashion we censure nowadays. The mode of dressing is so displeasing to the heart but tempting to the body that almost 70% of the world’s youth have sunk into the world of fantasy thereby substituting the intuition to think, read and solve the world’s challenges with sexuality in its negativity. In my environment for instance, it is no more a news to hear that a 13 year-old girl got pregnant for a 15 year-old boy. This is a dark future for our generation and it must be alleviated to the minimal. The terrible thing about this sexuality problem is that once you connect a certain strong desire to it and you get somehow hooked on it, you will find it easy to return to it-even though you showed remorse after perpetrating the act. The avenue of knowledge has now become the arena for porn viz TV, radio, internet, music and to mention but a few. No song is sang in our era except that it is cocooned with half-nude ladies exposing their endowment, all in the name of marketing.

I dream of a future where the world will be free from all agents of promiscuity, where the minds of the youth will be focused to know that we, the youth are the saviour of the future. We can’t afford to lose focus; we can’t afford to die being a loser. We don’t want to be a liability to the world but an indispensable asset. Mother Earth will even be proud of us. Yes, we can!!!