The Nation Newspaper

Category: Niyi Osundare

  • SNAPSONG  220 

    SNAPSONG  220 

    Do you still remember

         That 500 billion naira

    Which missed its humanitarian road

         Landing pat and pretty in Sikira’s bank account?

    She hissed and huffed

         When asked how the billions

    Meant for the people’s need

         Were caught and cornered to feed her greed

    “The money missed its way

         The first, second, and third time

    Three unfortunate mistakes

         Completely beyond my watch”

    But why this fuss over a common practice

         Have you forgotten our Apex Bank boss

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    Who printed 685 million naira notes with 18 billion

         And the brand-new stuff never found

    Their way to the nation’s vaults

         Or where is that Lilliputian Governor

    Who emptied his state’s treasury

         To pay his children’s fees

    Now holed up in his village

         Amidst loud drummers and adoring praise singers,

    Beyond all reproach, beyond the Law

         In our own dear native land, Corruption is king. 

  • FOR HENRY CHAKAVA (2)

    FOR HENRY CHAKAVA (2)

    “Come back again”, you said,
    Your face glowing with that generous smile
    Your voice that semi-baritone whose music

    Embraced the listener’s ears.
    There was a redolent lyricism to your laughter
    An adorably mischievous wittiness to your humour

    You took me back to that day in Nigeria
    When I called you “Prince Henry” and assured you that
    We, your hosts, had sent somebody to bring your crown

    I remember the way you looked at the Nigerian sky
    Through the publisher’s window, chuckled heartily;
    Then this unforgettable retort:

    “Give me a kingdom first, then
    A palace populated by restless books
    And a throng of willing readers”

    We laughed so lustily that afternoon
    The sun almost joined us from
    The height of its tropical escape

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    The book was your life, now your legacy
    You read it, wrote it, lived it, pressed every page
    Of it into earnestly humane service

    And built it a temple in your capacious mind.
    Candor met courage and loyalty found a niche
    In the pantheon of vital virtues

    You who threw open your pages
    To our neglected tongues
    And the eloquent power of their hidden beauty

    Sleep well, Brother
    Tell Marjorie we are still trying to Make it Sing*
    Even as we count the stanzas of Micere’s Mother’s Poem**

    Tell Rubadiri the village still “looks behind banana groves”
    As Imperial Stanley meets the welcoming Mutesa***
    Our past still eyes our present from its long, inscrutable mask

    Rest well, Miyinzi the Bookman
    The future lives on the pages of your vision
    We embrace it with literate aplomb.

    *to *** Reference to Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye’s “Make It Sing”; Micere Githae Mugo’s “My Mother’s Poem”; David Rubadiri’s “Stanley Meets Mutesa”.

  • FOR HENRY CHAKAVA (1)

    FOR HENRY CHAKAVA (1)

    The Veteran Bookman from Vokoli who illuminated the world

    with the rainbow of African letters

    If this tribute took so long in coming

    It is because your passing left me wordless

    From a slow, unspeakable grief….

    The hills left no hint

    The roadside grass betrayed no whisper

    The rain never told the roof

    About your quiet, reluctant parting

    Before we woke up that March morning

    And discovered you had picked up the horsetail

    And danced to the other side of the Great Mountain

    Alas, Vokoli’s Veteran Bookman has gone

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    Unfinished chapters ruffle the pages of our memory

     “See you in Kenya again soon”

    That was your pledge the last time we met

    “It’s a long time now since you came our way

    And the Kenyan rain has watered many new seeds:

    New songs, new stories, new sciences in the laboratories

    Of our thoughts and ideas; new modes in the magic of being

    Come again and pick more petals from 

    Your “Flowers of the Rift Valley”

    Multiply your marvel at the stunning majesty

    Of the flamingoes, pink and proud.

    Furrow through the fabulously fertile soil

    Of Limuru, birthplace of the Storyteller

    Whose tales traverse the world. Share another song

    With Chavakali High where fledgeling stars groom

    Their wings for rainbow skies

  • FOR AYO BANJO AT 90

    FOR AYO BANJO AT 90

    Seasons come, seasons  go

    But your virtues remain steady

    Untouched by passing fancies

    Below is a slightly amended version

    Of my ode to the Teacher

    Two remarkable  decades ago. . . .

     Old teachers never die; 

    They simply wax wiser with passing moons. . .  

    Old teachers never die

    The wine of age is winking in your glass,

    Sip it in style;

    Sip it with relish.

    For when you sat in the saddle*,

    You never rode roughshod upon our earth.

    Your voice called up our depths 

    Your silence gingered us into song          

    Our growing scrawls mellowed into hieroglyphs  

    On the tender papyrus that was your palm:

    (Allophones we all, of your happy phoneme)

    Liberal star, compassionate moon. Scion of a stock in league with Light

    Let your ebony laughter unknot our brows          

    As we journey all season from sky to sky         

    Powered by the wind of your word.

    Morning by morning

    We count your blessings

    And regard our days

               Old teachers never die;          

    They simply wax wiser with passing moons. .

     In the Saddle and Morning by Morning are two exceptionally crafted and evocative autobiographies of Ayo Banjo.

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  • Random Snaps 219

    Random Snaps 219

    Hunger and anger

         Are no accidental rhymes

    An empty stomach is the storehouse

         Of a thousand demons

    The real consummate enabler

         Corruption makes bad things happen

    And makes good things unhappen

         The little maggot which consumes a giant nation

    When NEPA turns the land

         Into a jungle of utter darkness

    Do not let the country put out the light

         In your groping heart

    Gaza, gruesome Gaza

         Babies are burnt offerings

    To the god of war, insatiable ally

         In the temple of hate

    Are you too afraid of the tree

         Whose breath repairs our lungs

    Whose bower is bliss and blessing

         For our harried bones?

    The crab’s counter cross

         Is a crawl on millennial patches

    The fastest speed hardly comes

         From a monopoly of multiple legs

  • SNAPSONG 216

    SNAPSONG 216

    To Mr. Afolabi, Vendor of Admirable Virtues

    Quick-witted

       Long-memoried*

    Master of the well-primed retort

       Who knows the hiding place

    Of poignant proverbs

        He dialogues in an accent

    Which bears the scent

         Of distant places

    For he has journeyed

         Through the sand and sound

    Of many climes, crossed long rivers

         And answered the summons of distant mountains

    Here sits he now in the throbbing centre

         Of Nigeria’s premier university

    His ware a running rainbow of tabloid tales

         Screaming dailies, and monthly mags

    In active war against the virtual competition

        Of the cyber platform, lean pocket lines

    And the long-necked curiosity

         Of the Free Readers’ Association

    Day in, day out,

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         Heavy rain or scorching sun

    His witty laughter never departs his lips;

         Ever present, his firm, humane comportment

    The tabloid’s tangled tales

        The politician’s perfidy,

    Mekunnun’s*** impoverished lament

        In print and pattern, bright and bold   

    You bring them all

         To our eyes and our ears

    With a diligence which doctors indifference

         A kindness which ennobles our world

    * Veteran newspaper Vendor at the University of Ibadan

    ** Signifying on I Is a Long Memoried Woman, Grace Nichols’ remarkable poem

    *** Common people; the impoverished.

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  • FOR JIMI SOLANKE

    FOR JIMI SOLANKE

    (Maestro with a Thousand Masks) (3)
    SNAPSONG 214

    Music and purposive mischief
    Talent and its tempting torture
    That impatience with settled laws
    Which painted Liberty in lurid letters

    You argued with the clock
    Queried old songs with new stanzas
    Tutored ancient drums with daring steps
    As if your leg was the chosen stick

    On their patient membrane.
    You chanted folklore into folklaw
    Pressed idle Memory into busy Re-telling
    Converted sleepy legends into urgent summons

    Your eyes always on the young
    Who pampered ignorance into trendy art
    Torturing native names into meaningless appellations
    Swearing in the temples of foreign gods

    Songtime
    Storyland
    How so valiant your striving to mend the leak
    To call on our Past to address our Future

    Farewell, Olujimi Omo Solanke
    Tell the Langbodo men* over there
    Our feet are set on the increasingly steep climb
    Our eyes on the prize still still beyond our gaze

    • Reference to the late D.O. Fagunwa and Wale Ogunyemi: the former created Oke Langbodo in his fiction, while the latter used it as both trope and title for a pan-Nigerian, pan-African epic drama.

  • FOR JIMI  SOLANKE

    FOR JIMI  SOLANKE

    (Maestro with a Thousand Masks)   (2)

    SNAPSONG  213      

    The Total Artist that you were/are

        That voice and its divinity of honey 

    Its surprise-studded soprano

         Its clear command of reverence

    The supple fluidity of your body

         When talkative drums sent

    Your legs on errands and your hands

         Ruffled the rafters in their tender places

    The smoothness of your motion

         The magic of your movement

    When your maestro wonder burst the chart

         And Onilegogoro** roared into the clouds

    That was when Highlife was high life

        And all Stars knew their niche

    In the galaxy of celestial Lights

         Before the blinding blackout by Eating Chiefs

    Then stage-centre

         In the measured melody of The Chattering

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    And the Song; Ovoramwe, regal victim

         Of imperial hubris; Elesin’s bounteous bravura

    And the deadly twilight of Kurumi’s*** uncanny courage….

         Light on, fade out, and black out

    Your masks were many, the stage was your home

         The cyclorama loomed large behind your shadows

    ** A chartbuster highlife record by Roy Chicago in the sixties. Jimi Solanke authored  the lyrics.

    ***  Reference to four important plays that had Jimi Solanke as main feature: The Chattering and the Song, a stupendously lyrical play by Femi Osofian; Ovoramwen Nogbaisi and Kurumi  by Ola Rotimi; Death and the King’s Horseman by Wole Soyinka.

                 (CONTINUED NEXT WEEK)

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  • FOR JIMI SOLANKE

    FOR JIMI SOLANKE

    (Maestro with a Thousand Masks)   (1)

    SNAPSONG   212   

    The last time we met

    Our laughter rang through the concert hall

    The evening was young, with you readying up

    For a long expected show

    Your crowd was large and young and old

    But their ageless longing

    Rode the crest of the wind as you

    Swung and swayed in your purple moments

    You sighted me from a distance

    Ploughed through the fold

    To meet me in the threshold of

    Of a wide and busy door.

    A warm embrace, then our customary question:

    “When shall we have the collabo?”*

    A cryptic code over thirty years old

    Born when Songs of the Season

    Made its first few outings

    On the tabloid platform

    “A-niyee, those are good poems-

    We must aid their spread

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    With collaborative performance”. . . .

    The Generals’ iron grip undid our plan 

    But “collabo” survived with its conspiratorial abbreviation

    Now, alas, my Collabo Maestro has taken his last bow

    * Three times Jimi and I tried to meet and plan the collaboration, but our effort was thwarted each time by disruptions caused by the military juntas that had Nigeria in their stranglehold in that period.

             (To continue next week)

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  • SNAPSONG 211

    SNAPSONG 211

    Japa Song

    The grass is not always greener

         On the other side

    Nor is the Nightingale’s song

         Half as sweet as the Weaverbird’s

    Look left

         Look right

    Look left again

         Before you cross that road

    Aching memories of moons which moan

         In foreign skies

    And the sighs of a mother whose only child

         Is lost to distant dreams

    “See you in another month”,

         Your promise was strong

    As you hurried towards the waiting jet

         With tears in my eyes, hope in my heart

    Three years later your infrequent letters

        Tear me apart with their changing addresses

    From countless places. A curse flies out of my mouth

         Each time I see a flying plane

    I wake up every day, wondering

         How to sing my song of loss

    I damn a cruel country that stands

         Between me and the Love of my former Life