The Nation Newspaper

Category: Niyi Osundare

  • SNAPSONG 265

    SNAPSONG 265

    When NEPA kills the light
    It kills the Nation’s Light

    It is seven days now
    Since NEPA* last remembered our address
    We have wondered through its darkness
    Stumbling like a leaderless herd

    A sunless sky disabled the solar option
    As massive clouds sabotaged the refuge
    Of the lucky rich from gated condominiums
    To the haven of Eating Chiefs

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    Here like abandoned hordes we are
    Mouthing helpless supplications
    To Nigeria’s God of Darkness, our knees
    Bruised and blemished by listless begging

    A bedlam of roaring generators
    Belching fumes and toxic tar
    From factory-size monsters
    To I-beta-pass-my-neighbour junkies

    Generating more noise than light
    As the nation loses it hearing
    And its rulers’ golden edicts are
    Smothered by the chaos of long-time incompetence

    Dark nights, damaged days
    Humless factories, lightless labs
    We stumble through the chaos
    While blaming History for our millennian blindness

    NB: I composed this poem in Ibadan, like most of its ‘NEPA’ counterparts, on a darkness-disabled night, with the light of an imported torch.

    NEPA: National Electric Power Authority – the former name of Nigeria’s power ‘authority’.

  • SNAPSONG  264 

    SNAPSONG  264 

    When NEPA kills the light

    It kills the Nation’s Light

    It is seven days now since the sun

         Beamed its blessing

    On our shy, expectant brows

         The clouds stand still in nonchalant distance

    Like airy sentries between

         The sky and our wondering eyes

    A strange, unseasonable cold has stolen

         The warm imagination of our night

    As trembling dreams mock the truth

         Of our fraying blankets

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    And frigid fabulations unnerve

         The motions of wingless yearnings

    Idle window panes burn my fingers

         With their cold, immutable temper

    Even as the hinges crick and crack

         Between the posts and their swinging doors

    Lightless labs, humless factories

         Merciless markets, aching pockets

    Forbidding threnodies; the frightening

         Rhyme and un-reason of Hunger and Thunder

    But a thousand hilarious hurrays

         For the priceless Super Falcons whose honour

    Scored countless goals and warmed a billion hearts

         Beyond the orgy of dizzying dollars.

  • SNAPSONG  263 

    SNAPSONG  263 

    Super Power

         Killer Power

    How can a civil world

         Survive this explosive madness?

    My bomb is bigger than yours

         My rocket is a ruthless arrow from hell

    I own the piece of sky above your house

         I can send death on countless errands

    From a thousand million miles

         Our missiles can spot your innermost hideaway

    We can strike you in your bedroom

         And pluck you clean from the bosom of your wife

    Our missiles never miss

         And when they ‘obliterate’ unintended targets

    We possess the Super Power Impunity

         To ‘obliterate’ our crime

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    Nothing is ever wrong

         Unless we say it is

    Never ever right

         If we decree it’s never so

    Super Power corrupts

         Super Power corrupts dangerously 

    Too many deadly toys in the hands

         Of those who act before they think

  • SNAPSONG 262

    SNAPSONG 262

    The Camera’s Green Eyes

    Rise this new dawn, Earthchild,
    And sing your way to the top of the day
    Measure your stride
    With the supple simplicity

    Of gifted moments. Commence your dialogue
    With the trees whose leaves
    Swing to the urgent warrant of the wind
    Under a sky still quick with the mellow magic

    Of compassionate clouds.
    The birds, ever so grateful
    For your quiet company, welcome
    Your voice to their choral company

    Green, graciously green, the trees cherish
    The way your toes touch their roots
    The way your hands embrace their bark
    And your defence of their right to life

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    They pledge their leaves as your fan
    On days the heat is tense
    Their shade as sacred spot for
    For your striving fancy to stand and stare

    Bless the roving lenses and their capture
    And the hand which steers and steadies their gaze
    There is no aspect of the tree’s green glory
    Un-proclaimed by your camera’s prodigious practice

    The trees sway to the music of your Muse
    Oh Earthchild
    May your Orchard of Grace
    Stay forever grand and green

  • SNAPSONG  260

    SNAPSONG  260

    We have been too large, too loving, for too long

         Time, once again, for a season of smallness

    Snatch that milk from the starving baby

         Make Greed supreme over the human Need

    Here, once again, are dreams of Empire

         Of conquered spaces and stolen names

    Of galloping horses and blood-soaked swords

         Secured in his royal rout, King Cruelty

    Proclaims the abolition of Kindness.

         And the absolute deification of Ignorance

    In his historic cabinet, an array of stars:

         A viral superstionist who stands modern medicine

    On its parlous head; a valiant cowgirl whose peticidal*

         Prowess earned her the laurel of decisive executioner

    A mephistophelian magnate whose frantic task is 

         Teaching the rich how to make the poor poorer

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    So back, back to the good old days

         When white was white and black was black

    And one knew its place at the top, the other at the bottom

         With no woke wars and DEI debacles

    Tyranny’s terror unnerves the world

         A medieval darkness assails the citadels of Light

    The wind secretively sown that November day

         Has authored a whirl that now assaults our commonweal

    Season of Cruelty, season of Darkness

         But crueller rains have fallen before

    And the noontide Sun has scorched their scorpions. 

         It is Humanity’s eternal blessing that Evil is not immortal

  • SNAPSONG 259

    SNAPSONG 259

    Here once again

    The golden era

    Of the Emperor, bold, loud,

    And triumphantly heedless  

    In every Ivory Tower

    A statue for Nescience

    To every beacon of Vision

    A shroud of dreadful darkness

    Let Silence ring

    From the classroom to the newsroom

    Let retributive venom unsettle the wind

     From the marketplace to the lawyers den

    Oderint dum metuant*

    For this is another season

    Of fear and silence; of anxious tongues

    Hanging limp from the trembling mouth

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    Shibboleth hunters at the national gate

    Immigrant-catchers are on the prowl

    Those cat-eating, dog-chewing strangers

    Are cargoed back to their native  holes

    Promise made, promise kept

    Nothing makes one country greater

    Than a brutal diminution of other countries

    The era of liberal kindness is long done and gone  

  • SNAPSONG 258 II

    SNAPSONG 258 II

    He knows no difference

         Between the truth and the lie

    Profanity gallops out of his mouth

         Like a rabid horse from a troubled stable

    His syllables stumble on the outcrop

         Of an oversize tongue

    His consonants are brittle bones

         Constantly at war with peace  

    Falsehoods come naturally to him

         Compulsive and serially insane

    “If you say the sun rises in the west

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         He once declared, “just stick to the line

    And watch the people swear

         By the veracity of your science”

    For him truth is the way it is

         Because of the way they say it is not

    Seal up the schools

         Latch up the labs

    Drag out the dons

         And trash their stubborn tomes

    Defund their dreams  

         And tame their thoughts

    Teach them the way

         To bend and bow

  • SNAPSONG 257I

    SNAPSONG 257I

    Total rulers command

     They never obey

    The only summons they heed

    Is the swing of the dangling prey

    I I I I I I I I

    Of the blind and snarling Braggart 

    The only thing he sees

    Is the world beneath his foot 

    The Tar the tar the tar Tariff-King

    Ariff ariff, a riffraff riff

    Tar the world to death

     Riff away their ribs

    In this brave new world

    Of Tit-for-Tat

    My Tit is a billion times

    Bigger than your tiny Tat

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    Let the Big eat the Small

    So the Small becomes the smaller

    A Mimic Fuhrer is back in town   

    Decreeing the world to kiss his ass

    Season of Cruelty, season of Darkness

    But crueller rains have fallen before

    And the noontide Sun has scorched their scorpions. 

    It is Humanity’s eternal blessing that Evil is not immortal   

  • FOR NGUGI WA THIONG’O (1938-2025)

    FOR NGUGI WA THIONG’O (1938-2025)

    In the eloquent water of the River Between

    Minnows argue the terror of the shark

    Rifted mountains hold hands

    Across a vast and breathless silence

    A soil unspeakably rich:

    Red-rooted vegetables beckon from roadside stalls

    A corn-covered distance connects my eye

    To a yearning horizon

    Bleating sheep romp in temperate coats

    Unmindful of donkeys trotting under

    Their missionary burdens, trailed by tough-limbed

    Peasants sobered by the vagaries of the market

    Voices and echoes

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    Across rifted silences

    Echoes and voices

    Of half-told stories and syncopated songs:

    Of the grain of wheat

    Which feeds succeeding seasons,

    The long, sweat-soaked journey

    From grass to bread…

         In a house

         Somewhere there in Kamiriithu

         A story-teller was born

         Whose tales traverse the world

    •This tribute first appeared in “Flowers of the Rift Valley”, a section on Kenya in my book, If Only the Road Could Talk: Poetic Peregrinations in Africa, Asia, and Europe, published in 201

  • SNAPSONG  256

    SNAPSONG  256

    You capture the evening’s rapture

         With the vigilance of your camera

    Your piano finger on the button

         Which unfolded the shutters

    Quiet evening, almost night

         A friendly wind whispers among the eaves

    The walls endure the murmurs

         Without betraying their loyal silence

    Above the trees

         Below the sky

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    And the moon which looms above the trees

         Like an orange lamp

    What colour of Paradise

         The leaves are wearing tonight

    Do they swing and sway, as always

         To the summons of the silent wind

    And you on the balcony

         Of your book-embowered house

    With a heart full of songs

         And a goodness that never wanes

    Your camera captures the tropical temper

         Of a sky that is evening into night

    Behind its orange moon is a dawn

          Crystal-cool from the diamond of the dew