Guest Post: A Loss That Dares Not Speak Its Name

Guest Post by Hannah Ojo

“my name is Khan. . . and I am not a terrorist.”

How many times do we need to carry placards, run jingles on radio, use the public address system and pay for ads on TV just to reclaim our innocence? These could be moments when we want the world to know our identity and innocence so that we won’t fall into the unguarded hands of prejudice. These were times when we have to tell the world we are not all 419ners, we are not corrupt, and we are not internet scammers and we don’t do drugs. Think of the bad PR.

Tune your TV to CNN, BBC and Aljazera, what do you see? A pitiable portrayal of Nigeria as a cesspit of hell. A place where young people with energy and talents bathe in refuse dumb for survival. A place where children of school age do not attend school but rather beg for alms. On education, they say we are not there yet: our degrees are not respected so that when you leave the shore of the country to pursue studies, you need to start all over again. You are black, not tanned. Apart from racial prejudice, you are Nigerian, you are bad!

Sad Note: The Voice Of Urchin (I)

Peace beloved brother,

I write this sad note with pain that comes from the sigh of a broken heart, and I believe by the time you will be reading it, you will understand the pain of a boy born into a gutter of groan called Nigeria, my dearest nation, where dreams die before the dreamers- a cesspool of sheen talents!

I once wrote a note like this when we were together, but I still see the need to re-claim the memory of it again on the downy page where it was lost- perhaps my last note of sadness if I have victories over my anguish in days coming. I have been a victim of time that flies like hunted deer since you left home brother. You have indeed forsaken me here like cows condemned to death at abattoir.

Before this time, I had wanted to die of depression but you said no. You said trial is not the end of time. I wanted to die of solitude but you said tribulation is not the end of the tunnel. You said that life may be full of up and down, yet it is not long like nozzle of a den gun.

Now that I have waited so long for sun to rise again from my eyes, but it stands aloof like embittered enemy about to strike, I've suffered like waif and stray through the decades of rehearsed pledges. I have perused through the cantos of promises to discover my name stenciled with watery ink on the page of hope.

Like an urchin with many scars of dusted streets from Kano to Lagos, life is no more meaningful to me, except that I have fear for one thing. I don't fear gun of mad dogs in black hide called police, nor the fear of sleeping but never waking up the following day. I neither fear death anymore nor the misery in the silence of evening, what I dread most is the questioning of the grave which I have been forced to wait for all days by the entangled situation of my puzzled country. I have heard and had enough of sad stories and rejection. I have noticed the moment I take six feet forward I find myself back- where I left brother. And my happiest moments are usually in the midst of my worries and woes. I am indeed like a mere image on the page of book in a country of no clues.

I'm dying; weary of hope that never comes in time. I am going through turbulent time- the way you left me last time came home. I may not know what tomorrow holds, but I don't want to be useless like impotent penis today.

I don't want to die of fish that fails to swim through the deep side of dam. I need to tell you that I have determined to leave the sect of people looking up to crumble of bread falling off master's table, and roaming the street for their solace. Much words do not fill a loose basket my brother, teach me how to fish, or else I die with these lofty dreams ahead of me.

May God bless you as I see the sun rise from your words. Help me greet 'Damola and Bolade, Kunle and Bolaji, Rasaq and Khalid. These are my brothers we all hope everything good will come sooner.

I am still yours in pain, plight and penury in a nation of want,
M. Jalal.

Three Poems for the Road.

1. We Talk Of War

We talk of war

like evening tale of tortoise

and fable of foolish elephant

lured to the throne of ruin

with songs of pretence

We all talk of war, we wish it coming

but who has ever been to war

without scary reports of blood;

of guns and dreams of men dying

under the shadow of bloodshed?

Wars, not like cold pap, sweet on palate

taken to calm the yearning of hunger at morning

war is not like august yam, fresh and sweet

nor putting honey in mouth,

A person struck by thunder shall never wait

where they talk of thunder-god

with song of discord and detest

Let there be harmony, and farewell to fight.