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?

The Song Review of Kayefi Osha’s Iya Mi O Si Nile Yi

Kayefi

Over the time, the evolution of Nigerian common syndrome, as reflected in the music industry of Nigeria, has given birth to absolutely weird output and incessant outpouring of music that is sometimes full of balderdash, lacking clues of common sense and bereft of intellectual coherency and moral justification.

This quite unfortunate metamorphosis and general downhill, which have seen sanity, morality, and the pivotal need for common national consciousness-- what the musical spirit of the foremost Nigerian maestros like of I.K Dairo, Sunny Ade, Majek Fashek, Ebenezer Obey Fabiyi, promotes -- completely abused and gradually dusted away from the loin of Nigeria’s musical scenes, are perhaps traceable to the lofty rate of moral degeneration and western virus that have dabbled into the industry through the colouration of the contemporary hip-hop music.

---

The fact is clear that hip-hop is the king; it carries the diadem and holds the heart of global music due to its lingering influences especially among the youths and the encapsulating tuning of musical beat. These influences, without any scintilla of doubt, have caused a serious setback for other genres of local music, which are now trying to blend with it to meet the present taste and demand of relevance.

This fact may be disputed, but the reality of it has led Fuji stars like Wasiu Alabi Pasuma, Sule Alao Malaika ‘collaborate’ with those in the hip-hop music, though they have their fans and often claim they are not intimidated by the strong competitive challenges posed by the incredible emergence of hip-hop music.

However, despite the lamentable situation of craziness which drives the engine-room of local hip-hop music, there seems to be a tiny nucleus of sanity, saving the industry from being completely lost into the wilderness of nonsense engagement and intellectual zero-liness, which the hip-hop symphony of ‘madness’ and orchestration of immoralities might have relegated Nigerian music into.

This nucleus is what gives voice to the likes of Asha whose music has soared beyond the close door border of aesthetic function and entertainment, to real-life message and moral instructions. Undisputedly, this is what I find interesting and exclusively unique in Kayefi’s musical doctrine and exposure.

Kayefi Osha Alapomeji, born Lawal Deborah Olufunmilayo is an emerging voice in the musical entertainment industry, who may have not got many fans and recognition nation-wide, but trying to make good music by going back to the root. The renaissance in her music is clear. I came to know her not too long when a friend of mine sent me her track, Iya mi o si nile yi, (my mother is not in this land).

After first listening, I couldn’t help but listen again and again with rapt attention, ruminating on how the singer whose mezzo-soprano is seemingly appealing, questions the philosophy of common need for survival in unknown land. I didn’t know what makes me love that track, perhaps because I was an undergraduate at the prestigious Obafemi Awolowo University, located ‘in a land that is not mine’ by that time. Or because I see my academic pursuance as a necessitating and incumbent factor of survival in that ‘distant land’, considering the fact that I was writing my final year project work- a significant benchmark of my academic qualification and scholarliness.

But one thing is certain: Kayefi has a perfect mastering of crescendo management in a way that shows her maturity and skillfulness of her craft. She is cool and she knows her words. I browsed about her but couldn’t get much information, except one of her stage performances at Laffmattazs.

Holding Kayefi through the track iya mi o si nile yi , it can be said that she is a trademark of every commoner who leaves his or her land to find a greener pasture somewhere else, in an attempt to return back home with success garnered, and re-learn love and harmony again with forsaken family members.

This shows Kayefi as someone who really understands the plight and problems faced during the course of survival, and the need to come back home, irrespective of what destiny holds in a journey. At the beginning, she seeks for litanies. Hear her:

Intro: hun hun hun Ile labo isinmi oko oo (home is the return of a journey)/ In a journey over the seas/ And I crossed the ocean/ Trying to rectify my daily bread/ In the land that is not mine/ Ebe ni mo be’ri mo o (I beg my head)/ Ma a sin mi lo (see me through)/ Jen kere oko ndele (let the garner the bounty of journey)/ Let all my efforts be crowned with success/ Bi’rin ajo yi (in this journey) Baba is waiting, mama is waiting/ Waiting my return. I need to be focused/ This is not the seconds,/ and I think I am losing my mind/ Iya mi o si nile yio ooo (my mother is not in this land)/ Baba mi o si nile yi ooo (my father is not in this land)/ Ise aje o, lo somo nu bi oko 2x (it’s a need for survival that throws a child like stone)/ Maa dele (I will get back home)

Unarguably, the road of survival is usually rough; a peregrination of survival is usually accustomed with pants and up-and-down, with unanticipated stumbling blocks posed on the way always. Kayefi, already aware of these challenges, expresses the optimism that is usually webbed with difficulty on the trajectory of survival. No wonder, she sings ahead:

Stranger I am, in this land far away from home/ With the cultures and doctrines different from me/ Still I try to cope/ Ebe ni mo be’ri mi o, ori mi sin mi lo (I beg my head, see me through)/ Je n kore oko dele (let me garner the bounty of journey)/ All of the works that I lay my hands on Take me to the top/ Baba is waiting, mama is waiting/ Waiting my return. . .

The optimism expressed by Kayefi can be described as the one that is deep, perhaps Kayefi, before coming to limelight has crossed many seas and valleys in a long-enduring course of survival. Preaching optimism in the face of challenges, she easily projects the message of determination as a key to success, while also maintaining that sometimes, a traveller becomes weary-sore-footed and crestfallen- but remembering home sheds the vista of hope. She sings again:

When I remember bi mo se file si (how I left home)/ Baba running sick, mama running sick * * * Ma dele, ma dele, ma dele ma dele wi o (I will get back home to tell)/ Maa royin fun baba mi oo (I will tell my daddy)/ Ohun oju mi ri lajo (what I saw in my journey)/ Odidere ki ma I ku sajo (an odidere bird doesn’t die in journey)

On personal appraisal Kayefi can be said to be a refection of culture within. The manifestations of tradition and culture, proverb and bi-lingual identity are reflected in her song. If you haven’t seen her, listening to her songs should have revealed that she is someone deeply rooted in (Yoruba) culture. She is a typical African woman who has tried to steer the middle cause between the drying rivulet of African heritage and oozing ocean of western influence.

No wonder, she bears the stage name Osha Kayefi, a name that is still a conundrum to me till today, though Kayefi is a Yoruba nominal marker for 'wonder'. This makes her so peculiar and distinct- someone who can hit big if she maintains the consistency in her musical style.

From the perspective of language and voice, Kayefi Alapomeji, as early mentioned has a subtle but perfect management of voice. One is really impressed by the way she code-switches two languages- English and Yoruba- in a way that reaches a reasonable level of perfection and a certain degree of professional standard. This makes her messages clearer and bolder.

Kayefi simply deserves it for this song, except that we want to lie. However, the way she puts emotion in the song is so extreme that one thinks survival is a common bane. Similarly, she sounds old and crude towards the end of the song, maybe she wants to be who she is- a modern singer with African ideas.

Memory Of A Day Misery

  “Every misery that happens is blessing to the believers ‘’.

       This is the axiom of my grandmother whenever despair strikes someone close to her. When we were young, we would sit beside her while she told us many in-depth moralizing stories of the virtuous from the Holy Scripture.  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 for 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-coated wisdom and maintained absolute silence and decorum under the heartwarming tutelage of moonlight. These legacies laid by her are what I have built my faith and trust in God upon. And since I  have grown up to see the world as a dungeon for the pious and an abode of luxury for  the cohorts of fiend, I always  assume everything that happens to me as part of my destiny which has come to stay in the diary of my memory.

It was on Wednesday 29^th of January 2013 while preparing for semester break after going through the overwhelming stresses and lethargies of laborious reading for second semester examination of the academic calendar. I had packed my traveling luggage together with my books in one place while expecting a friend of mine whom we both agreed to take leave together and bid farewell to our citadel of mad men for a while. I went to my  department to check the  newly pasted result of one of  my courses  offered the previous semester and  used  that opportunity to cash some amounts from my bank account before setting my feet on the road back to my hometown. I came back to my hostel and found the other guy waiting for my arrival. We both took our leave to board a bus leading to school gate where I would get a direct transport going to Ibadan but I needed to hastily come back to my room for a neo-classical novel Robison Crusoe by Daniel Defoe from a senior colleague in the department and a collection of poetry, Maiden Lines by Ebi Yebo which I gave to someone before the commencement of the examination. I rushed down to the motor park to catch up with my partner whom I left my luggage with. The motor park was jam-packed by other students who were also going back to their various homes and I was fortunate to board the first bus while looking out through the open space of the door as the bus headed out of the campus to the school gate where the ‘Agbero boys’ of Ibadan and Lagos buses were waiting for students going to their various destinations.

No sooner had we alighted from the bus than two drivers came to us like hungry lion waiting for the arrival of an antelope. We considered the old bard man in a white dirty long sleeve shirt with trousers already ragged and dirty because his bus was a little bit beautiful and far from dust compared to that of the other man whose his was otherwise. He looked us with bitter grudges but we did not care who ox is gored. I quickly took the chance of the front seat beside the driver because that was only where could give me the look of everything going at the front while Tunde, my friend took his at the back.  I decided not to involve in the gossips raised by one slim but gorgeous looking woman with a young lad of two and half years on her laps but took my Robinson Crusoe while the motor moved with ease and fresh air lured some the passengers to deep sleep until we got to mid of the road where there was a fault in the engine and the bus stopped abruptly. The driver having noticed where the problem was enjoyed me and the one man who grey has filled his head to get down while other dozing passengers regained their consciousness after a short period of slumber. And within ten minutes the problem was battled down and we embarked on our journey again though I often looked back at my colleague who was busy reading another collection of poetry by Wole Soyinka.  As we covered about three more kilometers, I could not but succumb to sleep and all what required to do was to position the book I was reading somewhere at the front together with the bottled water I bought before leaving the motor park.

On getting to Iwo road in Ibadan, every passenger alighted at the same time in a motor park and found their way out of the place while I also took on my journey to where I would board another taxi going to where I could get a direct conveyance to my dear hometown which I had missed for some months back. But not too long I took a short trek over the Iwo Bridge I discovered that I had forgot the book I was reading while in the first bus. With eagerness I ran like a madman chasing nothing with my heart already taken by despair because I did not know if I would catch up with the bus. I needed to cross the road where motors and big vehicles were voyaging but didn’t care especially for the approaching of one Okada whose rider, a very obese and chunky tall man whose front tooth were gone while other were almost reduced to crumbles by marijuana and excess kola, was very eager to find his way out of the vehicle-compressed road while I found myself at other side of the road.  I quickly went to one man who I thought should be friendly but the tale was otherwise when I  asked him if one white eighteen passengers bus that just stopped there had gone or not but responded me  back with a broad petrifying cracked  voice common among those ‘union’ boys:

    ‘Eh eh, what is your problem?’  He said

        ‘Sir I just alighted from a bus just of recent but I forgot my book’. I replied him with a panic-engulfed and quivering voice. He looked at me for some seconds and said:

       ‘O’Boy forget, your book has gone. Some buses just took their way back to Ife now. But you may look around if you are fortunate. Anyway it is just a book not your manhood sha?

     ‘The book is very important to me. I am a student going home for break and I got the book from someone I promised to return it back to when we resume’. I replied him 

       ‘What is my concern, do I look like someone from university? Abeg commot!’ He said with cacophonous voice.

I was down when he said this and pleaded if he can lead me the way to the boss of the motor park. Having looked me for a while with sympathy, he directed me to a tall stunt man within the range of sixties who I quickly went to with absolute enthusiasm and hope that the driver might have dropped the book in case the owner came for it.  I greeted him with humility and he received me with a luring smile. I told him my problem and he asked if I boarded the bus from the motor park. I responded I didn’t know for we normally board bus at the front of school gate. ‘My son, I can’t do anything on this to be sincere.  Had it been you boarded the bus from our motor park in Ile-ife, we can help you keep it till your return by contacting those in charge. I am sorry.’ 

 He said with sympathy which I could see from his eye. I thanked him and left the place with my heart encumbered by sadness not knowing that was the beginning of my misery.

 I left the place with heavy heart and was also tired because the big luggage that I carried was an inevitable burden. Not less than two minutes I left the man that someone in a ragged short sleeve and torn jean waved that I should hold my feet. I thought he was a beggar because his mien typified that. He appeared empathic like someone just released from the prison looking for assistance. I went back to see if I could find something for him, hence the area is the paradise and abode for the beggars. I could remember my first day at the zone together with a brother of mine. 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.  As we walked down a little bit, two old women already deformed had started praying and chanting an eulogy aimed at begging us for alms but I was cash-crunched so I needed to snub them after casting sympathy on these innocent women whom the economic hardship and petrifying dearth have 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 do make use of begging opportunity to perpetrate their evil.

As I got to that man, he fixed his big reddish eyeballs on me and asked in commanding tone to give him my wallet which I did without any hesitation.

        ‘Hey give me your wallet and your phone?’ He asked. 

At first instance I wanted to scruple and think what was going on. He gave me the rancorous and acrimonious slap of my life and I hurriedly gave him my old Nokia phone which he rejected after returning my wallet back to me empty. As if he had known I had another phone at the beneath of my trousers’ pocket, he requested I bring the second phone I had with me which I instantly delivered to him without second consideration. He looked my white chain wrist watch, and then ordered me to vanish from his front after giving back the first phone I showed him.

     ‘What else? Go! Or you want me to squeeze your head? He said.

     ‘Ah. Em’ I wanted to have a say.

     ‘And what?’ he said with a voice so chilling while he gave me another slap and used the middle finger of his right hand to show me the way I was heading to before he called me back. I looked at this man again who was following my strides like a vampire about to spring as I was going comatosely and perplexedly with my eyes looking strange on the street of rowdy and boisterous movement of man and vehicles. All what I knew was that I was going to somewhere left with fifty naira, a change remained with me since my first board from Ife.

I boarded a taxi going to Ojo but suddenly I regained my cogency and cognizance to discover that I was being subjected to the spells of men underworld who had weighted me down and rendered me hopeless in the city I did not have any relative or friend with eyes alike. I regretted that I gave attention to the man who by charm got all I had but who was there to share the pain? I was in the bus thinking of what to do and the only solution was if only I could locate a bank to withdraw money and precede my journey but I did not have a dime in my account because I cashed out all what I had before my first board from Ife to Ibadan. I held my faith in God very well-founded and went directly to a mosque nearby. At first I thought I should beg from the congregation of the mosque, but later decided to hold with my belief hence God understood all what happened to me. As I was having my prayer, a friend, a student in a nearby university called me on the other phone that he saw my post on Facebook that I would go home same day.

I told him where I was and he quickly located me after some minutes. I told him every story as it happened till where I was at the moment.

     ‘Guy you have to take heart and accept what happened as a blessing.’ He said pathetically as we were heading towards another motor park.

    ‘Thanks, my soul brother. But I am confused and still didn’t believe I am a victim of this.’ I responded with broken voice as my eyes were laden with tears.

 We arrived at the park and talked about other things while I looked someone beside me leaning on the bus to discover he was my friend going back home.

  ‘Suleiman!’ I exclaimed.

 ‘Abiola!’ he called my name with outmost surprise because it had been a long time we set eye on each other.

 ‘How are you?’ he asked as we embraced each other. 

 ‘Guy we are pulling it.’ I replied.

His whelming smiles cast the mark of despair from my face. We tried to talk a little while Malik was busy paying my transport fee to the driver who was drabbled by perspiration.  I showed my gratitude to him as he was about going back to campus while Suleiman and I had our seat at the front. He discovered that I looked dispirited and queried what happened which I did not waste time to narrate the brutal accident that struck me.

  ‘Really?’ he asked in astonishment.

    ‘Yes!’ I replied

     ‘I do hear such things happen but I haven’t met anyone as a victim. You are the first person.’ He said with brotherly empathy as he gave me five hundred naira left with him.

  ‘You can have this. I will find another means when we get home’. He said. 

As the bus speeded we enjoyed the brace of the nature and talked on other things till I got to where I alighted and bade him goodbye with handshake.

When I got home, my mother who I had told the incident while in Ibadan consoled me of my misery and advised not to think of it too much.  For three days I was buried inside by the sickness of this misfortune. That is normal by nature, but after three days of mourning and grief, I thanked God for the wise saying of my grandmother still finds a save abode in my heart. I wonder what could have been my fate if I was not pitied by heaven. Who can say if my supplication made my friend remember me at the moment I was in despair or my good intension while giving attention to the man who brought the misery to me? I believe no one knows the work of providence.  The misery is a memory that has come to live with me but I learned my lessons.   

Letter to Brethren (For Those I Know By Heart)

I
Dear brethren!

As wind enthuses the muse of promise

I wish you know how time passes here

Leaving me in frozen epoch of despair

Since creation has rejuvenated my faded vision

And set the paradise of my survival on the tome of words

I have then suffered like waif and stray

Through the decade of rehearsed pledges

I have perused through the cantos of promises

To discover my name stencilled with watery ink

On the downy page of hope

I have glimpsed through the firmament at nocturnal hour

To see my crescent veiled by cloudy haze of time

But whenever courage and spirit are depressed

And the hope of escape out of this squalor fluctuates

Like drive of ship engulfed by perplexed blizzard

I envisage the dream of serene sky and verdant field of promise land

Set for me in the prophecy of undiscovered vision

And I commit myself to paper again

II

Brothers,

Whenever I am out of your caressing sight

And left with pains of my wisdom  

I always long to tread a land

Never before imprinted by feet of men  

But the way seems snowy and my feet are scrawny

Sometimes the winter appears severe

But spring promises well

And I see myself a determined mind

Though I know I am in the arid desert of solitude

Where no one shares pain and dejection  

III

Do remember

That no prophecy comes in duet

As true vision never comes twice in dream

My life has been passed in luxury

But I prefer pain to every enticement that providence

May place on my path because of this dream

If morrow comes and this dream dies

Like that of wanderer on bloody street of Kano

Don’t whimper!                                                                                         

For not all stars have the glory of night

But if this dream survives the anguish of toiling century

Don’t let it die!

I rest my pen here, brother

For much words if said from dawn till dusk

Never satiate the craving of hungry basket

Here I pocket my pen looking towards your rejoinder

This is the voice of your apostle of pen

Your sincere brother of the same rising sun

Rabtob

Review Of Tosin Gbogi's the tongues of a shattered s-k-y

 Prior to the growth and development of African literature is the resurgence of politi-ture which voices  out for the downtrodden hoi-polloi  against the tyrannicality and blood-thirstiness of African politrickcians and political goliaths. With  this political dimension of African literature, chiefly poetry in concern, writers have proactively assumed the social responsibility  of weaponizing African society through the jarring power of their poetic diction in order to bring to limelight myriad anguished memories of yesterday, and the present over-rehearsed empty promises and vainglorious display of intellectual nothingness of our politicians  who live in untold opulence but leave the dying and jackbooted masses in the pool of piercing poverty, with canticles of optimism – ‘better- day -to -come ‘ left  on their enervated lips to warble.

Similarly , the illuminating language , coupled with sublimity embedded in the poetry of Ayaniyi, Osundare, Franz CAigImokhuede , Remi Raji, Odia Ofeimum, Tanure Ojaide and among others expose the abysmal situation we find ourselves in the hands of the so called politicians , who have nothing for the citizens except displaying of rotten promises and siphoning of all-belonged public funds into their foreign accounts.  No wonder, the antagonist-ism  continues to manifest in the poetry of young African writers who have no choice but to throng the literary path laid by their fathers ,  mentors,  and indefatigable Nigerian poets like Femi Fatoba, who use humorous cum satirical language to describe the socio-political scenario of their dear nay-tion. This will be so when Niyi Osundare once said ‘African writers do have choice but to be political.’

Correspondingly, we have to pay vivid consideration into the significant universal ideas explored in this new dimension of African poetry. We have to consider this verisimilitude ideology or what I can call the polemics in the poems of the afore-mentioned poets. With the the recent literary stylistic evaluation of the revolutionary impulse in the modern day poetry, we discovered the thematic direction of this poetry to have being the one centering on societal indecency and bad governance, similarly aiming at exposing the social malice in the African society. This radical ideology, coupled with highly-flown linguistic panache and poetic jargons describe the themes of Niyi Osundare’s collections as that of antagonism against the African government.

This same ideology- a sense of political social responsibility, which I can describe as poetic lineage and inheritance is all what I see in the poetic spirit of Tosin Gbogi’s the tongues of a shattered s-k-y. All words coined and fixed at appropriate places by the power of rhythmicality and emotiveness are testimonies to the poet's ability to use poetic license perfectly without superfluity. It also describes the poet as an harbinger of hope and a waver of societal consciousness , who writes out of the grief-stricken experiences, coupled with unbearable pains and torment with the aim of exposing the socio-political decadence in the so called  ‘aireign nay-tio’, and how some political dogs and sycophants lurk at the corner of these political cankerworms and juggernauts for little crumbs of national chin-chin falling off the chin of masters' tables .

In the tongues of a shattered s-k-y, a collection of poetry by a politically-inclined poet, who just pattered out of political barbarism, we have the collection divide into four parts with the theme woven on politicality and intellectuality so as to reach the mind of common man easily. Hence, Remi Raji, the ex-President of Association of Nigerian Authors describes this four emotional segments as ‘twilight poetry’, while Hygines Ekwuazi, an award-winning writer describes them as “ones, emerging from sad aches of truth put into music. . .”

This first part, When Sun Reaches Orgasm, Even The Iron-Coated Tortoise Will Sweat, is what I can describe as the carrier of the central message of the whole collection. Having opened with the the pledge next time followed by animal called man, the part centers on of rehearsed promises made by Nigerian civilians and men-in-Khaki (DEMO-KHAKI). We must also consider the sense of responsibility of being the ‘Animal’ assumed by the poet. The fact that the poet transforms the national pledge to corroborate the hidden agenda of Nigerian politicians has to be pondered on, while Gbogi needs to be kudosed here for his power of creativity and laconicity to create words like ‘nay-tion and aireign’ (nation and I reign respectively) out of the socio tension and the political scenario of Nigeria into rhythms. He says:

I pledge to aireign my nay-tion

To be criminal and cun(t)ny

To rule this nation with fire and force

Do-or-die.

The same thing goes in 'animal called man' where he describes the draconian decree and reign of military government of 1976 as

A reign of locust

Operation feed hungry nation

Also in animal talks and think of what you can do for airegn nation, Gbogi brings into presence the issue of corruption being the order of the day in all every sectors – power, education, transportation , and how escalating the decadence grows due to naives and quack self-acclaimed experts paddling the boat of dying economy, while citizens arm-fold themselves in rhythmical silence. In “a wise man”, Gbogi describes his nation as where:

Hopes daily sleep in the morgue

And white and black ambulances

Do not cry sorrowful dirges

Terrored by the pianoed sounds of siren. ..

In the second part of the book, we hearken voice of hope and a wave of consciousness in the jackbooted hoi polloi. Silence, Even Pushed To The Wall, Will Whisper,” the second segment of this poem paints the picture of where the poet comes from. Although a corroboration to the first part, it looks into the decadences, lapses and detriment in all sectors of this nay-tion. The poet, having shifted the responsibility of first-person singular from him as he does in the first part, tries to portray the alarming state of corruption at every sector of his nation. He writes:

The night agog with faded tales

The night is agog with adamant songs

.              .                     .

The truth of hidden fire

Rise to challenge god in the shattered s-k-y

 

In indecent death and ghettogether the antagonistic tune still tempos high in the shattered s-k-y, as the ghettoness and rogue of Lagos and Ibadan are being described as ones congested and jam-packed by people in a race of survival of the fittest. He describes his society as that of one “forged of firewood flame / and the street filled with groan and begging urchins./ where street is filled with the rhetorical guns and the eloquence of riot’s act.'

The third part, I May Forget Yesterday, If Today Fails To Bring Me The Memories Of It portrays those unforsaken moments when flute of vacuum filled the shattered sky. In I am an ambulance of minstrel and  undertaker’ the poet, having assumed the position of a minstrel whose mezzo-soprano is laden with dirge and horror tales, describes  how hope becomes cow that is  slaughtered, massacred  and butchered on the  slab called Nigeria, without any standard constitution to look into it .

I refer those rancid imageries like morgue, pharaoh, crime, ambulance and grave as being symbolic representation of dungeon called Nigeria where the poet finds himself. However, we have to consider the tone as that which is not not too harsh compared to others, but full of horrors, pain, and torment.

The fourth part, Tyranny, Only Keeps The Page Of History Busy. It Conquers Nothing presents hope hanging somewhere for this aireign nay-tion. A mere looking at this chapter keeps songs of hope warbled, vision of better tomorrow is seen, and the crescent of new hope is gazed. The part also calls for love ‘re-learn-ing’ because democracy of  is not  for hoodlums.  Gbogi hopes that the rain of vengeance will fall on those political cankerworms meandering aimlessly within the corroder of power when saying :

I see the rains of vengeance

Falling

On the roofs

Taking a critical outlook of the generality of the revolutionary collection of poetry, Tosin Gbogi, without doubt, can be described as a poet whose voice echoes eternally. His verses are indeed the needle that sews the torn garment of hope. the tongues of s shattered s-k-y is a freedom -fighting book that tries to address the societal imbalance. The poet, having seen himself as someone from middle class, he believes masses can only be taken out of this nation’s peculiar mess through fourth estate and power of writing.

However, despite all these sublimely woven lines, I see this poem as being one-sided, because the universal ideas of this collection voyage around indecency in governance alone. Is the government alone the carrier of the blame? What of the masses that always claim to remain innocent after they’ve sold their vote for these political tyrants for dime and penny? Or those that sold their children’s future for crumbs of national chin-chin? I believe it should not go like this. On final note, I believe the poem, having had its universal ideas centered on tyrannical government makes it more mind-numbing because this is what we have been spoon-fed with over the last two decades by other angry poets. 

              

                                                                              

 @2013