The Nation Newspaper

Category: Niyi Osundare

  • NIGERIAN SUBSIDY AND THE REAL SUBSIDISERS (1)

    NIGERIAN SUBSIDY AND THE REAL SUBSIDISERS (1)

    Snapsongs 149

     

    Here, in plain, unsubsidized language

    Are the basic facts

    About the fabled Nigerian “subsidy”

    Whose endless lies have been rattling our ears

     

    We the Nigerian people subsidize

    The rampant CORRUPTION of our rulers

    We the Nigerian people subsidize

    Their fatal incompetence and prodigal greed

     

    We the Nigerian people subsidize

    Those government budgets and their recurrent plunder

    Those capital expenditures which total up

    To the execution of our commonweal

     

    We the Nigerian people subsidize

    The Honorables who pad the budget

    With frightening figures for constituency projects

    Which never veer beyond their bank accounts

     

    We the Nigerian people subsidize

    Those countless security votes

    Which have only made our lives in-secure

    And the countless fortunes of Their Ex-cellencies

     

    We the Nigerian people subsidize

    That two million-dollar bra of our Oil Minister

    That billion-naira budget for State House snacks

    The mounting misery which consumes our ranks

     

    (Cont. next Sunday)

  • DISTANCE (1)

    DISTANCE (1)

    A fruit
    So high in the tree
    Only the bird
    Can eat it

    A melody
    So high on the mountaintop
    It only honours
    The ears of the birds

    I stand
    Tiptoe
    On the roof of Desire’s temple
    But my hands never reach the sky

    There is a lingering line
    To the lyric of longing

    An indescribable sweetness
    To the melody (yet) unheard

    DISTANCE (2)

    You aeroplane
    High in the sky
    Glistening in the sun
    Your body smooth and sleek

    Gliding through the clouds
    At a speed forever stunning

    I have a little sparrow
    On the sky’s other side
    Waiting several seasons
    For my soul and restless heart

    Bring her/him to me
    I will clean your twitching nose
    And comb your shining feathers

  • AYÒ ÒRÒ

    Better a shot in the arm

    Than a shot in the head

    I know a man whose tongue

    Is many miles faster than his feet

     

    Life without irony

    Is life without iron

    Who does not hear the sin

    In the Symphony of the Spheres?

     

    The landlord’s greed ate the tenant’s wages

    The tenant ate his wife in his long absence

    The Jury blamed both parties

    For their uncontrollable appetite

     

    In this giddy era of Facebook fad

    The Influencer trades place

    With the Influenza. Two trendy pandemics

    So lethal in their viral virtuosity

     

    Between the crowds who vote

    And the Kings who veto

    Lies the exquisite secret

    Of our incomparable democracy

     

    No Empire ever falls

    Without a silent, insidious decline

    The Emperor sometimes mistakes a rampaging mob

    For a flag-waving, adoring crowd

  • THE DELTA SINGS BETWEEN THE TIDES

    THE DELTA SINGS BETWEEN THE TIDES

    The river no longer
    Sleeps in its bed

    Its pillow is now
    A cradle of broken skulls

    Legendary JP
    Cannot count the casualties

    In the frightened waters,
    Though season after season

    He has watched the moon toss and turn
    Like the proverbial reed in the tide

    The Nun, ravaged by ruthless rigs,
    Now crawls tiredly towards the sea

    Even as her remnant virtue
    Lingers languidly in Okara’s majestic verse

    When last did you hear the moans
    Of Omoja whose beneficence nourished

    Ojaide’s songs when his years were young
    And the rains were rich and real?

    Crying creeks, violated valleys
    Toxic cocktail of cannibal cartels

    Quenchless, like Ifowodo’s Oil Lamp
    Blinding, like Ikiriko’s Oily Tears

    We all thought it was oil
    But Bassey saw the blood behind the boom . . . .

    Dark days
    Nights fraught with flares

    Omens without Amens
    Strange like a seven-headed plague

    *From Green: Sighs of Our Ailing Planet, the author’s new book of poems.

    Direct references to J.P. Clark’s A Reed in the Tide; Gabriel Okara’s ‘River Nun – III’; Tanure Ojaide’s ‘In the Omoja River’; Ogaga Ifowodo’s The Oil Lamp; Ibiwari Ikiriko’s Oily Tears; Nnimmo Bassey’s We Thought It Was Oil But It Was Blood.

  • DESMOND TUTU

    DESMOND TUTU

    The stars lament his passing

    From Soweto’s seething streets to Bora Bora

    Kings, Queens, and Presidents flood the sky

    With tributes and purple garlands

     

    There goes a man

    In whose middling physical frame

    Throbbed a giant heart. Prophet who divined

    One complex rainbow in a land

     

    Ripped a-p-a-r-t by colour creed

    He saw the Buddha in his Bible

    The fallow intersection between

    The Cross and the Crescent

     

    The Healing Wisdom of Orunmila*

    Whose universe is a house of a thousand rooms,

    His metaphor came from the sky

    Looming umbrella above our common heads

     

    *

    Truth and Reconciliation

    Reconciliation without Truth?

    When a savaged country needed a brave man

    To clean up its monumental mess

     

    It unleashed an avalanche of horrors

    Whose telling un-plugged the tongue:

    Widows embraced their husbands’ murderers

    Orphans shook hands with those who dispatched their fathers

     

    Between the Forgiver and the Forgiven

    Between the incubus of partial amnesty

    And the absolution of evil

    There lies the aching complexity of Conscience without Contrition

     

    To forgive and forget

    To forgive and never forget:

    Which path leads to eternal damnation

    Which, to the endless cycle of violated Justice?

     

    Your Truth, Noble Shepherd,

    So straight, so Ubuntu, steered a nation

    Out of its self-inflicted carnage. But the scars remain

    Stubborn maps on the landscapes of our memory.

     

    You taught the world

    The largeness of Love

    The inevitability of Courage

    Hope which sustains the Dream

    ——————

    *Yoruba deity of divination, philosophy, science, and wisdom

  • Ni Soki

    Ni Soki

    Sharp

    orange rim

    tinged with

    aspects of grey

    trans

    lucent

    in ethereal distance.

     

    Aspects of

    a Sahara sunrise

     

    *

    Wild Saturday night

    wine-laced laughter

    moaning mattress

    tell-tale bed

    sleep-less tenant

     

    On the upper floor

    Of a wooden shack

    the landlord

    is fast at work

     

    *

    Soft as a sigh

    disarming as a charm

    your voice

    perfumes the path

    between

    dream and desire

     

    *

    Between

    the sea of sounds

    and

    the silence of the sands

    a whisper

    dives like a dolphin

    into the deep end

    of our patient pool

     

    Our direlogue

    floats on troubled waters

  • SNAPSONG 146

    SNAPSONG 146

    In this blessed country of ours

         No good deed goes unpunished

    No evil is considered

         Too evil to be rewarded

    Penury is hard work’s predictable outcome

         Indolence swells the fortune of the idle-handed

    If in doubt, hear this line from a juju anthem: 

         Ise kekere, owo nlanla*

    What do you say about a people

         Who have strong arms without

    Knowing what to do with them?

         What do we call a machette

    Sharp and shining, without a handle?

         How so often the deer falls

    In the town of kniveless hunters

         Venison so near, but vision so remote?

    We live near the river

         But perish from thirst

    Croaking frogs mock the madness

         Of their arrogant neighbours

    In our beloved country

         The thief is not the one who steals

    The real felon is one

         Foolish enough to be caught

  • Questions asking questions

    Questions asking questions

    How long will it take
    To cook a stone
    How many tears do we need
    To float a ship

    How versed are you
    In the syllabary of silence
    When last did you pester Thunder
    For a serenity of the spheres

    When last you counted the teeth of the lion
    How many were they
    Any blood stains
    In the gaps between the bones

    Where can we find a lie-detector
    For fraudulent politicians
    How long will it take for that gizmo
    To collapse from acute overuse

    Why are the chariots of lies
    Faster than the horses of Truth
    In what part of the body
    Lives the heart of the evil one

    Have you counted how many buckets
    Of water will fill up a sieve
    Ever thought about that flickering ray of light
    In a universe of darkness ??????

  • SNAPSONG 144

    SNAPSONG 144

    The sickly stupidity
    Of the two-legged apes
    Who boast so loud they are powerful humans
    Oh how vain to be so proud and dumb!

    They die every day
    From my viral scourge
    The young, the old, the rich, the poor
    And the millions in between

    Yet swear so loud and long I do not exist
    Crowded morgues, depleted households
    Wounds that neither time nor tribute can heal
    Wails in the night, tears at noon

    Some hide behind party flags
    “Pro-life”, they claim, but also pro-COVID
    The Science which I dread and long to kill
    Is mindless myth in the hands of the Deans of Denial

    From their senseless Superstition
    I derive my logic of being
    Increasing and multiplying, changing and changing
    More liberal, more lethal, my viral venom

    Alas, the disease of the body
    Attracts a quicker cure
    Hardly ever so with the virus of the mind
    Vital lessons from the Book of COVID

  • GIVE US LEADERS (2)

    GIVE US LEADERS (2)

    Give us leaders who have mastered

    The riddle of the crossroads

     

    Leaders who can spot

    The path to hidden virtues

     

    Give us leaders bold

    Enough to embody our hopes

     

    Leaders whose smile

    Is longer than many miles

     

    Give us leaders who feel

    The terror of the tear

     

    Leaders never fond

    Of the whistle of the whip

     

    Give us leaders who

    Treasure the sanctity of Freedom

     

    Leaders who will fortify our roofs

    Against the siege of pestilential rains

     

    Give us leaders who bless

    The fields with the bounty of coming harvests

     

    Leaders who will send

    Waste and want into permanent exile

     

    Give us leaders who

    Are never frightened by their own shadows

     

    Leaders who find

    The sun on the right side of the sky

     

    Give us leaders who think

    Give us leaders who can feel