Of Justice, Jungle Justice and Our Collective Definition

a cartoonized atmosphere of jungle justice

There is something sinister about the way we think and about our collective definition and understanding of the word ‘justice’ as a country. When you, a patriot with some modicum of common sense take a critical look into the scope by which different interpretations are being read into justice, you conclude that your country is sick, or perhaps mad, and nothing else.

In Nigeria, from the pedestrian purview, justice is synonymous with words like lynching, ‘jungle justice’, a mob attack, while from the elitist viewpoint it’s an avenue for subduing the commoners into a damnable quietude of class submission. Quite miserable enough, from the legal point of view, justice is a partially corrupt judge donning the wig of bias. 

Or what definition can you give to a country that grants widely-known Machiavellian political looters and betrayers of public trust a presidential or national pardon, but can dock and jail hunger-ridden and hapless commoners with hard labour for a pardonable slight defiance? What is the difference between a law that sends a poor man to a 10-year imprisonment upon a simple theft of #1000, triggered by frustrated living, and that of some ignorantly emotional entities among us who lynch someone to an early grave because of a tin of rice? 

Let'us Talk the Man Called Brymo

Brymo

You as a poet or a literary/art enthusiast, when they mention Brymo in your presence, the image that strikes your mind is that of a poet like Alexander Pope or Jonathan Swift. These two great figures of the 16th century, the Restoration Period in the hierarchical periodization of literature, are known for two things: timelessly relevant thematic preoccupation and brave artistic ingenuity.

Looking into the contemporary phase of Nigerian music scene, with an insightful look into Brymo's music artistry and spirit, especially his gradual rise to stardom as an artiste of Maikori's Chocolate City; his wonderful collabo with Ice Prince in Oleku and the rest, you wonder why does Brymo not choose to be a literary figure -perhaps a poet- rather than being a mere artiste?

In the course of this reflection you will be like if Brymo would be a singer -after all, music is a distinct and unique part of art -why does he choose to sing in the period when epochal influence on pop, hip-hop is total bunkum and immorality? Why does he launch his career by the time the general acceptability of any genre of music is arguably defined by how long you can constitute street mediocrity on microphones?

Morning Star (for Ayòdélé Eagles Ìbíyemí)

 

Ayodele Eagles

I

Feisty bird of flapping feathers

king in the congress of aves:

you are Eagle! Your brawny hips,

your sturdy claws have toured

you round the lunar year

of another blessed age again

so you can soar above the galaxy

above the rain and its rain-bow;

so your voice can re-sound deep down

like echo travelling with fright of freedom.

II

From Ìkirè I stand on the moon

of your birth telling the tale of

your heroic arrival. They say you are crimson

-an ember clad in colour of scarlet

some say black -a coal coated in colour of darkness

but I say no:

your garment is that of green, colour

singing the anthem of liberty and hope

who then says our land has not got a warrior

as intrepid as lion, fighting the course to victory?

Post-Coup Turkey Crisis: Time For Nigeria To Grab The Bull By The Horn

Nigerian Youth Corps Members

One of the greatest lessons history has ever taught us is that two of the factors that define the progress of any society are its youths, its viable educational structure, coupled with its ability to harnesses the two together for certain developmental targets. Looking around from the nook to the cranny of the country, as a patriotic Nigerian, it’s often painful when you see your country being lackadaisical towards what will thrive its developmental prospects. The consequence of this ‘i-don’t-care’ attitude may be said to be what describes where and what we are –a nation languishing in the illusion of past glory and clearly bereft of agenda of modern development.

Agreed or not, the fact is incontrovertible that when a nation, either by design (of ignorance) or default, configures its education and its youths at the lesser end in the national scale of preferences, such nation is digging its grave gradually. And for Nigeria, from the vision-bereft dimension it manages its teeming legion of youths and its meager management of education system, it can be concluded that, unknowingly it’s hitching towards the brink of what seems to be a perennial ill-luck. This is what we don't pray for. But if care is not taken many Nigeria’s best brains will leave en mass, searching for flora and fauna and in pursuit of their personal survival and academic goals oversea, where they can easily explore their world better. Worst for Nigeria they will go ahead to forget home -a colossal loss for a nation of great brains.

Youths and education, as being often preached are the bedrock of national development. And for any nation that has set the dreams of greater objectives for itself it must start building its Jerusalem by exploring the plethora of unlocked opportunities in its youths. This by providing a conducive ground of academic excellence for them and ensure their future is totally secured. This is what America did and still doing; this is what most of the European giants do. Singapore, close to two decades was in the same murky pool of ill-luck- a third world nation like Nigeria in dire need of positive fundamental changes in their both economic and political streamline. Today Singapore remains one of the respected Asian Tigers.

Nigeria @56: Facing Our Jerusalem Again From The Old National Anthem

Nigeria's flag

 One of the significant landmarks of self-fulfillment is to be independent and free from external influence. And of course for Nigeria as a nation, the need for freedom was an incumbent crusade of urgency, at that first minute the idea to be a sovereign state was conceived.  For many years prior to 1960 Nigeria was a hapless victim of colonial extortion and British exploitative agenda. It was indeed a peregrination of draconian rule ridden by all forms of worst colonial imposition. And for this reason Nigeria will continue to remember late Sir Anthony Enahoro for seeing the vision from the illusion of dark days, and those who with their blood the flag of the nation was raised. 

   
Yesterday clocked Nigeria is 56 –a gradual metamorphosis from toddler stage to giant-hood. Yes, we all woke up to see the flag of our nation set on another significant threshold of sovereignty. Despite all odds: myriad of challenges ranging from our religious cum ethnic differences, political cum intellectual diversities we’ve managed to survive, crossing dangerous roads, even in the face of often foretold revelations that we shall disintegrate. We have managed to maintain the brotherhood bound, singing our common anthem of freedom and patriotism from the bottom-line of River Niger to the pinnacle of Zuma Rock. 

Ode to Atiba Queen (For ‘Sunkami Maryam Salaam )

• Olasunkami Maryam

*

Bird of dazzling feathers;

Isn’t through your cleavage the river of

Life flows like Nile and Mississippi

Blessed mistress of beauty,

Powerful indigo distinct among dyes

Isn’t the taste of your succulent lips

The dawn of rebirth miracle

I have seen it all, mistress

All the secrets set atop

The castle of your goddess eyes

Who then says you’re not phenomenal;

That your name not wonder spanning

Through the breath of all ages?

**

From Ebedi hill I traversed thousand miles

Searching for the songs of your tribe

I wandered through the melody lane

Looking for colorful tones of tribute

Befitting the pride of your lineage’s legacy

Wide into the wild world

Until I got to Atiba land 

Where the deep voice of gourd, and

Strident voice of gong wake the monarch

Into the blissful smile of dawn.

With your name glued to my lips

I carried the drum around telling your tales

To the curious ears of the bystanders.  

    

***

AYINKE

You the sun standing on the minaret

Feasting on the kowtow of gallant mortals

One gold-made bracelet above

Thousand necklaces in the fist of blacksmith

Nightingale in the gathering of birds

Beautiful queen of Kalahari, star

Soaring in the galaxy of stars.

You’re the glory of full moon

Sowed beyond the mischievous touch of evil men

Moon I say, bright as thousands

Of sheen star in the blue sky.

The eyelids of your eye- arrays of magic

Your gallant strides- assembly of amorous letters,

Soft skin craving for touch,

Calling for the worship of men.

****

Ignorant men do not blow the horn

Of elephant for kings. It’s griots, men

Of armpit made of folklores and history

And if I stand on this threshold as your knight

Reading the lines spread through your winsome face

Do not see me as itinerant bard singing songs of cowries

I hold the pledge of my song for people

Of noble source. People like you,

Fulcrum setting world on moving path.

       

A CRITICAL REVIEW OF GEGE BASERAN’S ARMATTAN OF VENOM

cover page

Over the recent times contemporary Nigerian literary texts have shifted attention from being completely narrowed down to general stereotypical discourses in terms of thematic focus, and by doing so creating a nucleus of political consciousness and assuming the social political responsibility- a strong revolutionary engine room- that challenges the predominant economic cum political factor behind the tyrannical display of power and total abuse of economy by the diminutive but influential and potent people of power – the class of bourgeois.

This drastically political dimension and movement in literature which is Marxist in nature (a radical perception of human society) could be said to be a pivotal projection of angst and antagonism, since literature mirrors the society, with a view to subjecting the philosophy of power management to criticism, thus advocating for crucial and balance fundamental change in the societal polity and its economic structures within the existing classes.

As Ngugi Wa Thiog’o would put it: ‘a writer is a member of the society. He belongs to a certain class and he is inevitably a participant in the class struggle of his times.’ Contemporary African writers have inevitably come to an age of active revolutionary involvement and total political activism due to the quite lamentable, migraine-giving and completely untenable condition they find themselves in the hand of the political capitalist cabals and human materialists. 

They cannot arm–fold themselves in silence in the face of terror. Consequently, their works have become reactionary with thematic signpost of revolutionary appeal against the burgeoning acute leadership failure and draconian display of vainglory. The burdening memories of agony and social malice, coupled with unparalleled resistance against the bane placed on the bosom of the poverty-ridden, hunger-stricken and hapless populace by the ruling class breathe life to the expedient demand and open agitation for authentic African imagery and invocations that spin through the political and economic hierarchy.

Justifying A Dialectical Affinity Between Music And Heroism: A Review Of Faze’s Originality Track

Chibuzor Orji (Faze)

In 2008, precisely four years after the foreseeable and what turned out to be the final collapse of Plantashun Boy, a group consisting 2face Idibia, BlackFace Naija and Faze himself, Chibuzor Oji, known by his stage name Faze released his sensational and nationally endorsed album titled Originality. And due to the gradual and incredible improvement reflected in his previous albums, coupled with the expressed optimism on more progressive shift towards perfection in the next one, probably did Faze have the premonition that the album Originality, would make him one of the Nigeria’s best-selling artistes, and thus put his name into the cannon of musical legendries by the time he might have tailed behind epochal relevance. 
 

But releasing the album with all his passion and ruggedness, which later turned out to be ‘the most anticipated album of the year’ seemed to be the wisest decision ever taken for his musical carrier. This unarguably is due to the fact that the album, through its most hit and eponymous track Originality puts Faze on the trajectory of casual remembrance by the time he has irrecoverably lost his then powerfully flamboyant, though lingering musical spirit in the contemporary Nigerian musical spotlight.

Does It Matter (for a corps member killed in Rivers)

And does it matter
if our death headlines
the page of newspapers
covers the screen of TV sets
and waves of radio at night
in a land where skulls of dead men
are the broken staircase
that lead to the throne of thorns

Does it matter
if we all die one day
like dogs hit by vehicles at dusk
for the glory of callous gun men
and the victory of their gods

Does it matter. . .

Oritsefemi's Quintessential Celebration Of African Marriage Through Igbeyawo Track: A Review

photo credit: Oritsefemi wikipedia page

In 2006 when Oritsefemi Majemite Ekele (born January 5, 1985) , also known by his stage-name Oritsefemi broke away from Junglist Boys- a group of himself and Chibudo known as Chi-Junglist- to pursue his solo carrier as a reggae-afro-beat artiste, little did we know that the man whose musical journey started from Cherubim and Seraphim Church in a very congested place called Ajegunle in Lagos would still be garnering implausible relevance and soaring stardom by now when many of his peers have been swallowed up by early oblivion. This exceptional feat can be said to have been accomplished due to his unabated perseverance in pursuit of his musical dreams and strong support from the Nigerian ‘ghetto-boys’- his greatest fans.

Amidst many moments of trial and tribulations as a then budding street singer in a feisty fight for survival, also helped by his sonorous voice and perfect understanding of the street language, Musical Taliban (his self-given pseudonym), now a master of his craft has written himself in the heart of many Nigerians not only as one of the existing hip-hop artistes whose musical dexterity has a noticeable modicum of common sense, tangible social concern and moral preaching, but also one of the possible heirs of Fela  Anikulapo legendary musical spirit, afro-beat. 

Memories of Misery (II)

I left the place with heavy heart and was also tired because the big luggage I carried was a burden. No sooner had I made a slight move than someone in a ragged short sleeve and torn jean at a close distance waved that I should wait. I thought he was a beggar or one of the agbero boys who might want to give a clue on my lost book. He appeared empathic, thin and hunger-ridden like someone just released from the prison looking for assistance. I went back to see if I could find something for him, after all the area is the fortress for the beggars. I could remember my first day at the area together with my brother. On getting to the bridge down to the next road some Arabian young lads came to me, holding my cloth and begging to give them money. I, a good Samaritan could not hesitate to give them one hundred naira left with me on that previous day. I pitied those innocent young urchins- their future and safety from the gnashing teeth of sexual abuse by the motor park boys.

As we walked down a little bit, two old women –one of them deformed- had started praying and begging us for alms but I was cash-crunched. So I needed to snub them after casting sympathy on these poverty-ridden women whom the economic hardship and petrifying dearth had turned to mendicants across the street.  A brother whom we were going did not care as if he knew them but however warned me to be careful because men of the gangland did make use of begging opportunity to perpetrate their evil.

Memories of Misery (Part I)

My grandmother was a staunch and strong believer who never believed anything could happen without the permit of God. When we were young, we would sit beside her while she told us many in-depth moralizing stories of the virtuous from the Scripture and famous fables.  As she would say, “this world is a journey for every soul to voyage. In anything you do, make sure you maintain perfect relationship with your Lord. He has your return.” We would listen with absolute earnestness while our hands were folded at the axis of our chest like someone engulfed by night wintriness, and our eye balls widely fixed on her lips as we sipped from her stream of religious and morality-coated wisdom.

We would maintain absolute silence and decorum under the heart-warming tutelage of moonlight. These legacies laid by her are what I built my faith and trust in God upon. And since I had grown up to see the world as a dungeon for the pious and an abode of luxury for  the cohorts of fiend, I always  assumed everything that happened to me as part of my destiny which had come to stay in the diary of my memory.

Before We Say Goodbye: A Memory Note For Travellers At The Juncture Of Departure

logo of Panache Class, OAU

Sometimes, when itinerant journeyers reach the crossroad of departure and nostalgia tours them through the lane of memories they have perhaps proudly shared with people they never knew before, but brought together by train of life, they feel the unusual urge of re-claiming those indelible moments on the field where they were lost. But the expedient need to depart is a must, since men are like water. We meet like rivers at a confluence with remnants of touches that remain when we are gone on separate paths. Who are we- innocent slaves of time; travellers at the end station- not to accept what already written in the book of destiny, as we drop the baton of this race and take another phase in the chapter of life?

  

I feel so honoured to address you great men of good characters I may not have the second chance of meeting in the future whether as individuals or group, as we reach our station of departure to chase another destiny and mount the ladder of another stage of life. I feel so humbled, not only because I am an active member of this wonderful Class which I’ll always be and proud to warble its anthem with pure conscience of kindred spirit and high sense of belonging, but also due to the fact that I belong to the best ever class, PANACHE ‘14- the class of fecund minds and people of high repute; the class of readers, leaders that raised my voice and shaped my philosophical perspective of the world; the class of history!

When A Poet Falls In Love: A Review Of Kayode Taiwo Olla’s Softlie

Book: Softlie

Author: Kayode Taiwo Olla

Reviewer: Rahaman Abiola Toheeb

Year Published: 2014

front & back page of Softlie

Prior to this time has been a little shift of interest in the dimension of Nigerian poetry owned to the new wave of consciousness and unquenchable flame of epochal quest for new phase of poetry, chiefly love poetry in lieu of politically cantered ones. In relation to this awareness, contemporary writers have taken on the mantle and assumed this task, thereafter creating a space for love poetry in their collection, despite the fact that they are still aware of the political confusion, shipwreck and imbalance, economic dire and melt-down, moral decadence, tyrannical display of power-drunkenness by political post-bearers, and most importantly, the gladiatorial rancour and horn-knot among the over-zealous elder statesmen, especially in almost parts of Africa.

Without any scintilla of doubt, this conscious responsibility has breathed life to the voices of young owlets like Kayode Taiwo Olla who are mindful of the fact that  the common men like them need  not to always find their solace only at the armpit of angry and revolutionary poetry projected due to the acute leadership failure in Africa- what young poets like Tosin Gbogi Akeem Lasisi, and others of this ideology have come to preach against having been indoctrinated  into the poetic revolutionary spirit led by Niyi Osundare, Odia Ofeimum, and Franz Aig-Imoukhuede and other poets whose voices echoed to kick-out the post-colonial dilemma and contemporary banes. But rather they embark on new dimension of poetry thematized on other aspects of life and necessitating factors for human succour and survival.

Home Coming and Other Poems

Cry of Blood

I cry of mercy in the face of blood

Like begging urchins

And nothing but blood

And sour memories of lost relatives

My face is the signpost

Of b-ro-ken homes and carcasses

Of hopes still decaying

Shunned atop the brink of dusty roads

I am the tears and (glory) torn

The remnant of a land

In the hand of terror

I am a homeless pedestrian-

Wretched almajiris in Nigeria

Frail orphans in Sudan and Somalia, finding solace

Beneath the loft of motorway bridges

I am the dream of Africa

Perished on the Mediterranean Sea

On the course of survival.

Last Friday In School

It was on Friday afternoon and the sun was scorching. Emran was in haste to catch up with others crowding down to the religious ground to observe their obligatory Juma'at service. He had already put on his Arab-money dress with his black shade glasses already on his face. He knew he was late already, that was indisputable. And the only way not to miss the sermon of the service to be delivered by the oratory, tall, handsome and fairly bearded, but quite simple Imam was to get his calculation right by fast-tracking his walking.

Seven feet covered away from his room he could hear someone calling. Unknown lanky man dressed in a light-blue and well-starched long sleeve shirt from the adjacent side was running towards his direction, calling. ''hey, bro, bro," the guy called. Emran looked back because he could feel the proximity of the wave of the calling scampering down his curious auricles.

"you call me?" he asked with curiousness. "yes." He moved closer to him and they both exchanged warm pleasantries. "Are you Emran?

Finding The Lost Rib

“Life is a fortress of joy when you have someone to give a glimmer of hope at the end of the tunnel.”

The sky looked so cloudy as always in every night of rainy season, dense with darkness and laden with fear. I knew rain was going to fall, so I quickly finished reading the books I borrowed from the library in preparation for my last paper slated for the following week. I looked weary and my eyes already in need of sleep. Since morning I had been at Professor Jude library reading. My body besought nothing but to rest. I needed to sleep, but she had promised to call me. I didn't have any choice than to wait for her call.

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.