The Nation Newspaper

Category: Niyi Osundare

  • THE TREES UNVEIL THEIR MINDS

    We bleed when cut

    We burn when ignited

    We breathe to live

    We cleanse the air

     

    We are the boundless family

    Of a million folks

    The tangled tales of countless bonds

    Ancient, sufficient, and wondrously young

     

    Our roots traverse the sprawling earth

    From the Congo* to Sulawesi

    From Mabaruma to Kota Kinabalu

    Down to Tabajos, the Brazilian Amazon

     

    We are the bread and breath of the Earth,

    Shelter of the rivers and nutty squirrels

    The mercilessly delicious mushrooms

    Thrive on our crowded floor.

     

    But the greedy axe, the insatiable digger

    Have blighted our bower of peace and bounty

    The prodigal farmer and his slash-and-burn

    Have left a gash in our fragile flanks

     

    The Iroko calls the Kapok

    The Barrigona touches roots with the Mahogany

    The forests are falling, the birds are gone

    The lungs of the Planet are in dire distress

     

    A Kind of Index

     

    A ‘congress’ of places and trees in the world’s rainforest.

     

    Congo: country/river in Central Africa; Sulawesi: an island in Indonesia; Marubana: a place in Guyana; Kota Kinabalu: a place in Malaysia; Tabajos: a place/river in Brazil; kapok: one of the rainforest’s tallest trees; barrigona: palm tree with a prominent bulge.

  • THE CROOKED KING AND THE LOYAL FOLLOWER(S) (4)

    By Niyi Osundare

    Again the song:
    An f’oye l’oju
    An mi Janduku j’oye
    A f’oye l’oju*

    He wraps himself in the national flag

    Though he sells that nation short to foreign foes

    But who says some help from far and foul

    Can hurt the polls a home?

     

    Foul-mouthed and crude, we know he is

    With a malicious slur for everyone

    But his Twitter tantrums renew our nerves

    Roforofo** Ruffian we have come to love

     

    He does what he wants

    And lives above the Law

    But we hail all his crimes

    For he is the Law, the Law is he

     

    For him the wrong is right

    The right is always wrong

    The line between the two

    Is there for the weak and foolishly decent

     

    A worthy scion of a proud pedigree

    With Hitler’s demon, without his depth

    King of clichés and flat-out rants

    “Hoax”, “tremendous”, and “beautiful” too

     

    We know he is light in the upstairs region

    But we have left all our thinking for him to do

    Those who know are afraid to talk

    For the next election season is a shout away

     

    * They blinded the world/The day they put a crook on the throne/Oh, they have blinded the world

     

    ** Fetid swamp

     

              (Concluded)

  • THE CROOKED KING AND THE LOYAL FOLLOWER(S) (3)

    By Niyi Osundare 

    Again the song:

    An f’oye l’oju

    An mi Janduku j’oye

    A  f’oye l’oju*

    Beyond Commonsense,

    Beyond Conscience, beyond Compassion

    But a fervent executor of our Party’s noble program

    God-sent, Fate-favoured, to serve our needs

    A walking plague, for sure,

    With a dark and criminal contagion

    Since the day he cheated his way to power

    Copy-Tyrants have spread across the world

    Everything he touches

    Turns into dust and ashes

    But we all adore his ‘Midas Touch’

    And his Supremely Stable Genius (SSG)

    Allergic to Reason, above Restraint

    Reckless Outlaw with imperial disdain

    For all that is just, all that is right

    Mafia Boss who en-Mobs his nation

    He believes in everything he does

    That he is far beyond reproach

    A god on earth with stolen legs

    But we fall on our knees at his grave command

    Because of all his virtues

    I have pledged my vote for him

    Ready as I always am

    To follow him to the end of the world.

    * They blinded the world/The day they put a crook on the throne/Oh, they have blinded the world

     

    (Continued next week)

     

  • THE CROOKED KING AND THE FAITHFUL FOLLOWER(S) (2)

    Again the song:

    An f’oye l’oju

    An mi Janduku j’oye

    A  f’oye l’oju*

     

    I know he smells like sulphur

    But his whiff is music to my nose

    They say he is rotten and quite insane

    But my love for him is quite divine

     

    The shallower his wit

    The deeper my praise for him

    His widely acknowledged madness

    Ensures my sane support

     

    I know he swims in a sea of scandals

    With a life jacket riddled with vices

    But I live my day and night

    To swim – or sink – with him

     

    He is the kind of King

    That leaves the throne with mounds of mess

    But the more virulent his stench

    The sweeter, serener, his royal airs

     

    He lacks the gift of feeling

    And mocks those who bleed

    When cut. Behold, therefore,

    My hero, cast in stone and steel

     

    I know he hardly smiles

    Or relish the juice of a jolly joke

    The smile, he knows, is for the meek and weak

    Oh praise the sanctity of his scorching scowl

     

     

    * They blinded the world/The day they put a crook on the throne/Oh, they have blinded the world

     

  • THE CROOKED KING AND THE FAITHFUL FOLLOWER(S) (1)

    By Niyi Osundare

    Again the song:

    An f’oye l’oju

    An mi Janduku j’oye

    A  f’oye l’oju*

     

    I know he is a chronic liar

    But I love him all the same

    He plies his base untruths

    With such infectious aplomb

     

    I know he is a blatant racist

    A big and blustering bigot

    But I am so pleasurably impressed

    By his doctrine of hate

     

    I know he is a hopeless crook

    But I just cannot resist

    The devilry of his deals

    His brave contempt for honour

     

    I know he grabs and gropes the women

    And tosses them like things for play

    But I will gratefully pledge him

    (If asked) my one and only daughter

     

    I know he has an ego

    Big and boundless like a raging bull

    But his emptiness, so imperial,

    Fills my pride to a glorious brim

     

    If/When he plunges the world into war

    I will be sure to fight for him

    When he brings home the tanks of blood

    I will drink a cup or two

     

     

     * They blinded the world/The day they put a crook on the throne/Oh, they have blinded the world

  • FOR NIGERIA AT 59

    With limbs half limp and a vacant gaze

    She plods through the months and hazy days

    Some hail her as Africa’s Giant

    But she bears herself like a hapless ant

     

    Blessed with sunshine and abundant rain

    She blights her people with needless pain

    Their boundless strength she makes converts to curse

    Their bus to bliss becomes a hearse

     

    While others make, they prefer to fake

    The sweat-fruit of others they take and take

    Insatiable consumers of foreign goods

    A land long lost in subservient woods

     

    The best of her brains desert in droves

    This land of paupers and princely rogues

    Who fritter our flairs and drain our dreams

    With their fell designs and venal schemes

     

    A land so blessed but so betrayed

    She leaves the world ever so dismayed

    Big-for-Nothing is her middle name

    An Open Sore and a Continent’s shame

     

    But Hope’s wide door is never shut

    Its kernel is hard as a seasoned nut

    The Sleeping Giant may yet awake

    When her folks rid themselves of their mindless ache

  • WE ARE (4)

    (Choreo-poem in Three Voices)

    (Pause)

    ALL VOICES: We are people of the past

    Beyond the past

    We are the rainbow

    Which define the sky

    (Pause)

    1st  Voice:

    The Zambezi tomtoms the Mississippi

    In a twilight of purple whispers

    2nd Voice:

    The Kilimanjaro towers over

    A trail of migrant dreams

    3rd Voice:

    The Atlantic so red

    In the bitter banter of sugar-cane groves

    1st Voice:

    The moon is a broken candle

    At the altar of predatory prelates

    2nd Voice:

    The sun knows the colour of fettered flairs

    The naked inhumanity of cotton kingdoms

    3rd  Voice:

    There is a yawning jjaaazzz in tired chains

    And ears which smell the soul in manacled moments

    (Continued next week)

  • WE ARE (3)

    (Choreo-poem in Three Voices)

    2nd Voice:

    On roads so glorious with golden flairs

    3rd Voice:

    On nights of flaming cannon

    1st Voice:

    On rivers which wriggle towards the sea, toward the sea, towards….

    (Pause)

     3rd Voice:

    For the Sea is Memory

    Of blind, blind waves

    And sharks with oblivious jaws

    2nd Voice:

    For the Sea is Memory

    Of greed-tossed galleons

    And catacombs of crowded decks

    1st Voice:

    For the Sea is Memory

    Of blue-black waters

    And multitudes of murmuring mermaids

    ALL VOICES: For the Sea is Memory

    1st Voice:

    Listen, oh listen, to the throb

    In the tropical accent of the drum

    2nd Voice:

    Listen to the open hurray of the hide,

    Listen to the restless clamour of clashing cymbals

    3rd Voice:

    Listen to the metallic prophesies of the gong

    Listen to the gathering cadence of silent epochs

     

    (Continued next week)

  • WE ARE (2)

    (Choreo-poem in Three Voices)

    1st Voice:

    We are the stars of ebony nights

    Measuring dark plenitudes

    In sparks and liquid laughters

     

    2nd Voice:

    We are the elephant

    No idle feast for

    The greed of a single eye

     

    3rd Voice:

    We are the fire on the mountain

    Who dare blight our blaze

    With a fickle shower?

     

    (Pause)

     

    2nd Voice:

    For the beauty of the antelope

    Is the eloquence of its leaps

     

    3rd Voice:

    The beauty of the peacock

    Is the pride of its feathers

     

    1st Voice:

    The glory of the parrot

    Is the fire in its tail

     

    (Pause)

     

    2nd Voice:

    Through silent spaces

    And clouds heavy with reticent rains

     

    3rd Voice:

    Through footless mountains

    And valleys redolent with rainbow petals

     

    1st Voice:

    Through puzzling croooossssrrroooaddddssss

    Stubborn darings and knotty options

     

                (Continues next week)

  • WE ARE (1)

    (Choreo-poem in Three Voices)

    1st Voice:

    We are people of a past

    Beyond the past

    When migrant clouds wailed from grief and joy

    And their tears swelled the open sea

    2nd Voice:

    We are people of a past

    Beyond the past

    When seven sand grains touched the sea

    And the earth loomed from a dodging distance

    3rd Voice:

    We are people of a past

    Beyond the past

    When a mighty Voice thundered

    Across the sky

    And mountains shook to their roots

    1st Voice:

    We flow like the river

    From upland travails

    To a sea quick with capering shoals

    2nd Voice:

    We fall like the rain

    Softly, softly, through

    The sieve of anxious skies

    3rd Voice:

    We are the plains

    Melodious with the alluvial lyric

    Of famous floods

     

    (Continued next week)