The Nation Newspaper

Category: Niyi Osundare

  • SNAPSONG 224

    SNAPSONG 224

    All hail NEPA

    Nigeria‘s God of Darkness (II)

    NEPALAND.  Blackout Country.   Outage Hell.

    Candles.   Lanterns.   Flashlights,

    Ancient oil-lamps and their yellow peril:

    The cock of our early lights has not begun to crow

    Generator country and its deafening madnesses 

    Where the noise-bomb shakes marble mansions

    To their golden bases; an ounce of light

    Ten tons of detonating terror

    Generators: diesel-driven, petrol-powered,

    To every person their own silence-slayer

    In a country where noise is the national anthem

    In which tribe and tongue consistently differ

    Everyone has their share of our national darkness

     From the porter who sweats beneath the nation’s yoke

    To the rich and ruthless whose private greed

    Compounds the public need

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    Ruler after ruler, from multi-medaled Generals

     To tall-capped undertakers of our democratic hoax

    Have passed brave budgets to end the national shame

    Budgets which never rise beyond their bottomless pockets 

    NEPALAND   NEPALAND   LEPERLAND

    Grand Distributor of our national darkness

    Our rulers grope and grab in patriotic frenzy

    The people stumble and slip on their lightless trails.

    •Formerly published on July 14, 2024; compelled into re-use here by the persistence of the same Nigerian incubus

    •NEPA: National Electric Power Authority; now re-named Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN).

  • SNAPSONG 223

    SNAPSONG 223

    All hail NEPA Nigeria’s God of Darkness

    The bond between Nigeria and  Darkness 

         Only the drastic word can break.

    One minute of flimsy flashes

         Then, a thousand hours of lightless groping

    Wingless fans mock our misery

         From powerless ceilings

    The aircon coughed into silence

         Many unhappy seasons ago

    Failing factories feed our hunger

         Our laptops run on the heat

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    From our feverish groins.

         With the rays of the kindly moon

    We pen the nation’s epics

         While libraries and laboratories suffocate

    In the lampless anguish of our benighted Academies.

         So wonderfully endowed, we count our blessings

    Halfway through the surgical task

         A medieval darkness engulfs the theatre

    The surgeon’s scalpel veers beyond the veins

         Close by, reeking mortuaries with their restless doors

    At our ultramodern airports

         Darkness taxes faster

    Than the speed of light: blind landing gambles

         Announce the welcome to our Blackout Country

    •Formerly published on July 7, 2024; compelled into re-use here by the persistence of the same Nigerian problem.

    NEPA: National Electric Power Authority; now re-named Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN)

  • BEYOND WORDS

    BEYOND WORDS

     (On seeing Ossip Zadkine’s  “Mei 1940 – Verwoeste Stad”*)

    Flute.  Drumtaps in the distance

    This tortured scream

    mouth opened to oblivion

    Like the crater by a blind bomb

    Hands outstretched towards an in-

     Different sky

    Muted supplications

     Beyond words

    A body holed

    Cleanly through

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    By cold fire

    Scream without sound

    Bosom without heart;

    Trees in this wilderness have lost

     All mind of the foliage that was

    Squat amputations are off-

     Springs now

    Of once adventurous branches

    Beyond words

    Once albatross, now phoenix

    Winged by a thousand windmills

     Memory

    Parable

    Beyond words

     June 1991

    A sculpture in Rotterdam, Netherlands, im memory of the savage devastations of the Second World War

  • SNAPSONG    275  

    SNAPSONG    275  

    From Grass to Grace

    Rice and Shine

    Now let me arise

         With my precious bag of rice

    So long in coming

         Our heads were already turning

    We thought it was gone

         With our budget czar on the run

    Our empty stomachs growled

         In a tone that was tense and loud

    But this anxious time around

         Fate ran the tale aground

    The soothsayers were wrong

         Our luck was bold and strong

     So here they are

         Delectably rare

    Heaving golden grains

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         And their forgotten pains

     Hauled in from near and far

         On each bag a smiling star

    With gentle hints of the waiting kitchen

         And the feathery flavor of the wary chicken 

    Cooked, fried, and gently jollofed

         Ready every way to be liked and loved

    With dazzling dishes in their appointed place

         We find our way to the Orchard of Grace

  • SNAPSONG 274

    SNAPSONG 274

    Not for me the centurion

    who hundreds worship

    and a hundred thousand obey

    whose word is sword

    to which uncountable necks surrender,

    godlet of unmanning dread*

    A loud, unruly Emperor

    Is trending in the storm

    His crown is made of mud

    His scepter a fiery whip 

    His army boots and pounds

    Our earth in its softest spots

    His submarines disembowel the oceans

    Dying dolphins collide with wailing whales

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    Strike and slaughter,

     Boast and bomb

    Raiding distant lands for their precious treasures

    Transport their kings as cargo in crippling chains

    Might is right

    When the wrong are strong

    When Justice changes its name

    To just-as-it-is

    When penpoint bows to gunpoint

    And those who know so little

    Now ply the globe as leaders of thought

    While the Emperor reads the book, upside down

     It is a long, long time now  

    Since cruelty found a place in

    Our Bill of Rights. But if night

    Precipitates its darkest hour

    Can Dawn be far behind?     

    From “Grass in the Meadow”, Village Voices, p. 62, 1984

  • COLOUR OF BURNING BOOK (1)

    COLOUR OF BURNING BOOK (1)

    From Book-banners to Book-burners for Jack Mapanje

    II

    Tell me:

    What is the colour of burning books

    Is it the chalky anthem of the egret’s December glide

    Is it the indelible indigo of agbe’s plumes

    Is it the eloquent fire on ayekooto’s tail

    Is it the rainbow’s arc on the sky’s bewildered face?

    Who struck the match

    Who fanned the flame

    Into ill-literate adolescence?

    Tell me:

    What colour, the flame of a burning book?

              III

    There is a stubborn echo

    In the legend of the letter

    Whose butterfly turns eagle

    In the palms of crushing kings

    Whose earthworm is cobra

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    Beneath the tramping heel

    Beyond edicts, beyond statutes,

    Beyond the fiery imprimatur of uniformed nescience

    The letter lives

    Beyond the Emperor’s metallic behest

    On the cobblestone

    Of slippery nights,

    On both sides

    Of the Bridge of Fearless Wisdom

    Notes

    Published here with a slight amendment of the original version

    Reference to Ifa divination among the Yoruba: the diviner seeks the grains of truth by tracing hidden visions on a tray of sands

    Agbe is a bird with deep-blue plumage

     Ayekooto: the world-abhors-the-truth (a Yoruba name for the parrot).

    (Concluded)

  • COLOUR OF BURNING BOOK (1)

    COLOUR OF BURNING BOOK (1)

    From Book-banners to Book- burners)

    for Jack Mapanje

    … a good Booke is the pretious life-blood of a master spirit, imbalm’d and treasur’d up on purpose to a life beyond life

     John Milton: Areopagitica, 1644

    These, still, are seasons of rapid edicts

    Let running tongues mind the bend

    On Memory’s road

    The censor’s voice drops,

    oath-laden,

    like a wrathful axe:

    silence rules the twilight

    of bleeding words;

    an orphaned lyric limps along,

    curse-coated,

    larynxed by muted whispers

    The glossy glide of new books,

    future-bound

    with orchards of vigilant leaves

    polyglot bridge of severed musings

    oracle of a million fables

    counting Wisdom’s kernels in

    white and luminous black**

    The despot’s scourge,

    magic scrawls on his iron wall,

    the bearded prophet of every vowel

    ringing bells which claim the calm

    of stolen dawns

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    The Queen’s goiter

    the Emperor’s swagger,

    alphabets which reek, every letter,

    with the stench of gilded chambers,

    the wind which bares the rumps

    of hen-pecked braggarts …..

    It hides what they seek

    it seeks what they hide;

    they who cover raging smokes

    with the basket of murderous lies

    The moon laughs in its sky

    knowing so well the journal

    of passing frenzies

    These, still, are seasons of rapid edicts

    Let running tongues mind the bend

    On Memory’s road

    To Continue next week

  • FOR ADEGOKE OLUBUNMO

    FOR ADEGOKE OLUBUNMO

    (Still asking “What does it all add up to?”*)

    Early wayfarer

    Whose feet knew the language

    Of the roadside grass

    Scion of the Upland Stock

    Who never feared the fire

    Of the climbing sun

    Born to count daylight dreams

    In digits of fleeting moments

    Unfazed by the curious calculus

    Of  numbers and fluttering figures

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    Wonder led to Knowledge,

    Knowledge to Wisdom,

    As you divined your way

    Through Ifa’s mathe-magical  divinations

    With polyvalent prowess

    And uncommon profundity 

    You surprised our questing universe

    With rainbow stars

    And  countless  gifts

    What is Life if not

    An endless chain of

    Plusses and ceaseless minuses?

    Deep, doughty, diligent

    Patient, fair, unfailingly humane

    Born to think, born to count

    Forty long years since

    Here we are, still asking

    “What does it all add up to”?

    A riff on the title of Professor Olubunmo’s  1984  Valedictory Lecture at the University of Ibadan.

  • TO MY FRIEND DON WHO HOPES TO BEA DACHSUND IN HIS NEXT LIFE

    TO MY FRIEND DON WHO HOPES TO BEA DACHSUND IN HIS NEXT LIFE

    (for Don Burness)

    There’s probably no friend

    more loyal than a dog

    It knows no envy

    harbours no hate

    Rigs no vote

    Robs no bank

    Runs no armoury

    Throws no bomb

    Builds no prison

    Precipitates no pogrom

    Yet

    Robbers use it

    To guard their loot

    Police deploy it

    In race riots

    It is valued meat

    In some places

    In others it is easy prey

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    For hungry gods…

    So

    My good friend

    If you plan to come back

    As a dog

    Make sure first of  all

    It will be in

    A truly kinder and gentler world

    The late poet, teacher, Africanist, and scholar without frontiers

  • SNAPSONG 273

    SNAPSONG 273

    Random Snaps

    Let us start this week’s song

         By counting the lurid colours

    Of Okigbo’s “painted harmonies”

        And the riveting magic of their endless music

     Dance through the streets

         To Ojaide’s drum

    Tall like the leaping tonalities

         Of his Children of Iroko

     Countless reeds in the tide

         Of Bekederemo’s relentless Delta

    The prescience of the paddle which fore-

         Told the proverb of the pen

     One canoe-length from Okara’s Nun 

         Whose ravaged water crawls towards the sea

    Its fish oil-fried, belly-up, aloud with imprecations

         At cannibal oil riggers and their looting acts

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     Bundles of dissident sticks,

         Ofeimun’s “new brooms”

    Went to work in the marketplace

         A clean covenant in their patriotic ardour

     When Ogundipe prompted us to

         Sew the old days  

    She rallied every thread in the ancestral spool

         And the loom which ensured our robe

    * In order of appearance in this poem, references to Christopher Okigbo, Tanure Ojaide, JP Clark-Bekederemo, Gabriel Okara, Odia Ofeimun, Molara Ogundipe-Leslie.