LIES

Above the voice

Of reason

Lies scream aloud

To be heard.

Like the lie of oil wealth

Spreads as wildfire

Doing the land

A great and grave harm.

Lost forever is the voice

Of the people

The voice of violence

Walk our streets

Flow in the creeks

Leaving trails of blood

As communities are pitched

Against one another

The police are overwhelmed

And the military called to war

At the home front

And my compound is on fire

LET SAMUEL NOT DIE

Like a gathering wild wind

Sweeping everything in its path

The area boys came upon a boy

Hands joined for a common ploy

And in that mad moment

A day was gone

Eclipsed before the sun could rise

Lynched in the market square

Before eyes accustomed to brutality

Worse still, before a reeling eye

That captured the stale tale

And the infamous denial

Moment by moment

Denied boyhood by his papa’s land

The big country

Denied by his helpless mama

Upon seeing death galloping, like a horse

Her way in the hour reason failed

Denied by all good men

Who saw nothing

Who said nothing

Who did nothing

To hold back the hand of the clock

SO ROUGH A JOURNEY

The road to NEW NIGERIAN land

Has been a TELL tale

Of ghastly political wreckages,

From election bumps

And deaths trap political holes.

We see DAILY TRUST

Disappear from faces

Despite the people’s resilience.

Seasoned DAILY TIMES

Cannot tell, why in the SUN

THE NATION rode under clear skies

The Kaduna express way.

Making stops at every village

Assembling corrupt godfarters.

THIS DAY, the drivers turn

To Lagos-Ibadan express road

But the rising smokes and destructions

Only confirms the terrain’s

Ghost of the Wild West

Making OBSERVER(S)

Who CHRONICLE road mishaps

Raise questions,

How can this neglect be?

Can these people survive

Another civil war?

Every day is NEWSDAY

NEWSWATCH is now our pastime.

The town criers scream

All they are allowed to say;

“Military assaults on the Niger Delta”

“Militants kidnap foreign oilmen”

“Military burn down village”

Like burning Kalakuta Republic

Echoing all these around the world

As ENTERTAINMENT like the

Twin birds of fortune;

CNN and BBC do is sheer profiteering

But hearing the silence

Of the STATEMAN and GUARDIAN

Traditional farters is troubling

As the motorcade takes East West express

At a season of high TIDE

Of blood and oil spills.

The price of neglect

Which gave birth to political banditry

And losses the drivers cannot afford.

Shamefully (s)elected men await

The Queen’s TELEGRAPH

While the tribe of INDEPENDENT judiciary

Who should stand as VANGUARD watches

In ridiculous wigs, like women

As the bus continues its journey

Relying on the northern STAR as navigator.