NAIJA BLOG

 What does a broken soul look like It is the thousand-year stare from empty dead eyes, vacant and numb  Triggers playing on a loop of tortured memories It is the tiredness of the rested And the rest of the tired... Weary from thoughts that line up like executioners  each shooting to kill It is the weariness and the tearless cry That rips through you and you talk to yourself Because no one wishes to hear It is the quiet despair that sits with you wearily at  noon You welcome sleep from the turmoil Alas sleep itself is full of torment so you wake unrested...and tired  The days are bleak...the future tortuous...the past tormentous and the present enveloped in an unending blanket of pain You call to heaven...the silence is darker than hope...

 I tried to create happiness but sadness came and enveloped me in its clammy embrace it stayed with me faithfully as I moved away and stayed with me like the shadow of death I saw happiness flee away I chased and chased but its feet  were so flit I tried to cage happiness by building a fortress of warmth and laughter  but sadness came and filled our home with grief sadness embraces me in the quiet of the noon and I weep and weep as I grieve and grieve pain that has nestled down in the  small of my chest and mourn and cry at the bleakness all around me 

 I thank you for showing me The side of unending pain that  Cut through the seven layers of the soul  The pain that goes on and on And leaves no tears I thank you for killing me with searing words And burying me in my despair That made me wait for the next tear I thank you for the lost years of the lost voice Of the broken hope that I groped for myself And found the image of you molded into the depth of my soul  I thank you for the betrayal ,the market square humiliation that left my soul bare and naked amid sneers and jeers I learnt from you to wall away To walk away  Even when you came back broken by life You found the shell you planted Soulless and hardened by you And I laughed at your fall Without mirth or anguish I thank you for the  lesson of life I am Still learning To be cruel to you and laugh as you crawl in throes of pain I learnt from you all lessons you taught  I learnt to use all the lessons you have

 why do we give too much credence to men the starters of wars the killers of truth the greedy, lustful and covetous we spend our years hoping in the fallible  making the fallen our heroes, they too are lost... and afraid of the death that stares at them are afraid of the age that charges at their reflection daily live in fear of the darkness that pursues them in the dark of the night we are all fallen and in darkness and we grope like the blind for answers Fate has scattered on the floor we are all blind lost and fallen and not one soul has the answers we all seek 

 Drawn to the lights The perfect and the beautiful Filled with covetous longings  Envious of the greater beings who Have all the shiny things.. We are led by passion, lust and wants We are led by the self-lovers, self -loathers Self-indulgent A world led by the lost We have failed to listen to the questions Our forsaken mind asks We do not discern reality from illusion We cannot decipher right from the wrong  Our leaders are vain and perfect on the digital screens And fill our empty ears with empty words.. We are led by the lost

 In their eyes you will find the questions you never asked The answers you always sought  In their smile you will find the hopes  You thought were lost And the courage to face the world  In their little hands you will find the strength you never had And the guiding light in the midst of all darkness These little beings with eyes so big and toothless smiles are our guardians through these stormy seas They will teach how to love And what love is They will show you how to be strong..stronger than Hercules But softer than water They will show you the secrets of the future You will not live to see.. They will heal you of your pain Your self They will heal you

Some say Karma is real, you reap what you sow, But men are not bothered by this old wives tale, existence is for self,trailed by seas of  tears ,sometimes blood, most times sorrows, this era of self. You were great once, a mustang wild and untamed Your word was law and you towered like a rock..  Even when they called for your head The young ones who shouted, cried and whimpered as they died... 8 unnamed...you did not go But they did.. nameless and forgotten... You prospered in wealth Were courted by power.. and Were forgotten.   But Nemisis is a Mushin Fighter... Dirty and shameless.. It was her turn to bare you naked to the world.   So we learnt you are now a shell and imprisoned by your love..  How you are slapped and can't say a word..the mighty Ali...I shake my head.. The cooks, garderners are only too glad to tell your tale to a gossip-thirsty world.. You are a shell Ali, old, scared, and imprisoned, devocalised  by life...you cry alone... You left the wife your youth...where

 I write you this love song  because you never let me go... I deserted you like ungrateful lover.... but you haunt me in the comfort of my abode...you draw me close.. I dream of the sandy roads of Bolori, The old woman who gave me kosai and doya The house of Ismail and his unmarried sisters who were in their twenties harangued for never getting married Maiduguri I dream of my crush seated in his majalisa... Of trekking to school and eating farah..spicy grasshoppers with yaji... And reading ikebe supper, Dauda the sexy guy... Maiduguri..I wake up one night at 3:am and see a cripple from my window going to the mosque...what happened to you cripple...forever etched in my 13 year old brain.. Maiduguri..we would go to auntie Dijes and trek to Wulari for church, until we learnt that someone was crucified on the railway tracks... Maiduguri..you were magical and kind... In you I dreamed and hoped hiding away from unfathomable sorrows for a heart to young to bear... You will come this night and

 I saw the eyes and they showed me the depth of your soul They were Di Vinci's Mona Lisa With them I could fathom whatever I desired It was the desolate  The gate to hades encrusted in diamonds.. What happened to you nameless one with the beautiful eyes that held a thousand hurts.. Was this your goal...prancing on pink with rent boys in defiance with your broken beautiful eyes... Your eyes are my canvas for my art.  Sad and beautiful... Cruel and desolate... No one listens in this world of ours.. So we chase primal passions and destroy ourselves in our pursuit of purchased happiness, stupored joy,  fatal embraces.. Your eyes showed me a soul struggling to be free. From you

 You will learn how to nurse your hate Like a child that suckle your bosom and watch it grow and make you strong  Till they see the embers in your eyes burning brightly and they slink away defeated  You will learn how to look at the stars and don't see them and look at the moon and don't see it but see the voices and their words and their actions and their regrets plat like the loop of an Instagram reel  You will look at the eyes of your son and really see his soul And look at mischief of your daughter and really laugh And your heart will burst for joy Yet your heart will fear the fear of a mother  Always afraid You will learn to stand up tall  When you are broken  Colour your eyes after the tears And find that joy is on the broken roads of ushafa hills Walking with your son and your heart will leap with joy Finding layers of things you never knew  You will learn that most friends are false Most brothers are traitors  Your circle is envious Your path is lonely You are strong An

 You were a fixture at the junction eighteen years ago, I in the midst of my struggles, you pot-bellied, with fair skin of the southerners I passed you then not caring, non-seeing, I was in the midst of my struggles, I passed you when I went from Gwarimpa to Wuse  To  the plaza  To the market, To work When I searched for work in those bleak days of Sky Memorial           You were there planted, firmly on the tar intersecti0n 5 years, 10 years, 15 years  you were still  rooted at the spot and then I wondered what made you rise  day after day,  with eagerness, and happiness that turned to despondance and dread and then heaviness and weariness as you saw years of life, fly by in minutes and days, you looked thin, and scruffy, and i wondered if you were sick or if you had stepped on an oga's toes for you to be banished to the  spot forever I saw you today, at another spot, hurry, you had moved,  I threw you some notes and you uttered in a guttural voice Thank you, Madam, I noted sadly,

I await the coming of the distant ones, pale like mmuo with eyes like mmri my goods sit patiently under the palm trees  while we wait for the messengers I have sent to find out if those ships have come the women are black like unyi and their teeth gleam like cowries on the river banks,  they sit on the found and wail all day,  longing that their babies suckle their breasts the men are tall and strong, ogologo my son whispers when he passes them broken giants, reddened eyes in despair and fear, they are destroyed like the ill-fated palm fronds trampled by goats even before they sprout, I await the messages from the distant shores, that bear me good tidings and take from me this cargo of humans to a land unknown

The colour of poverty is brown, dusty brown, dark brown, the dull brown of layered dirt, rotting roof, hopeless brown speckled with slimy green the texture of poverty is grainy, dusty like the streets of untarred roads that stretch for miles and miles the smell of poverty is the gutter smell of feces, stagnant water, rotten food, lack, and indolence the aura of poverty is squalor, sloth, despair, despondence, the folding of hands despair, the heavy sigh of despair and bleakness, the people of poverty are defeated, wearied and weighed down by Life and its Sisyphuisan existence broken minds, healthy bodies  from bacteria resistance,  defeated eyes, young-looking old men in threadbare clothes, perpetual suffering mothers children too wise and too old, and the life-hardened young drugged up and soulless whose scars tell the tales of murders, thefts and stabbings, the dogs' litter starved, pregnant, and vacuous like the inhabitants of Poverty.

Seven months pregnant, off a long-haul flight,  mourning  my father, invitro my child was sick, with a hole in his heart; I arrive at the hotel in Dublin, the Polish receptionist says I can't stay even with a booking with my Mastercard with my cash, I can only stay the night, Penang is hot, with friendly faces here I wear my skin in comfort I don't stick out like a stain, Dubai is full of shops,  no one cares, I shop till I drop, with my first, in vitro, my second (in vitro) my third at six months, I think we got Covid, because we coughed and coughed, Turkiye like the Muslim states welcomed me,  I ate roasted chestnuts and got lost in the Grand Bazaar, with shops that sold the same things with shopkeepers who looked like Arab princes and shop boys who knew all the tricks Ghana was hot and sane till they heard you speak,  their eyes narrow because you are a Nigerian, Saw the Elimina Beach and rubber plantation where the trees swayed like slender dancers in nature's mysteriou

 I wanted to be your friend at twelve because we had been friends at  five but life has changed,  i was  poor  while you had the best I wanted to be your friend at fifteen because we were friends at five but you laughed at me I thought you laughed with me till you drove your tyre over my leg I gasped as i hurt  but you smiled and drove away i knew i could never be your friend I saw you when we were older you with your charmed life working in the big yellow firm mother luck had smiled at me and gave me something worthwhile you looked at me and saw me I still wasn't much the years had passed and we had both left the arid plains of Borno and planted ourselves into the prosperity of Abuja I didn't need to be your friend anymore..I shrugged you away after our little meet but the tyre on my feet stuck in my mind,  you still haunted me I met you again after some years, you were fat , short and sad..you had seen me as I waited  impatiently at the aisle,  I had no car key dangling in my

 Who will write about the dusty plains of Maiduguri where sand stretched for miles and miles; the house parties and the maijalisas,  who sang alangoros to the wealthy as they passed. Will the world know about the streets, still etched in the depth of my mind thirty years after,  the albino waiter "Yellow" of Arewa Hotel, who I saw when I went back seventeen years later, the same place, the same face, frozen by time,  Will they know of Bolori Market, West End, Federal Low-cost Damaturu, who will tell the world Tabitha lived,  cocoa-skinned, long hair , long and fine like the Shuwa -Arabs, the prettiest girl I  had ever seen, who will tell the world of how she died, sucking men into her tangled web after her...and we had the tales of the deadly gift she gave them and they lay shriveled up. Who will tell the world of GGSS Damaturu, of coming to Abuja on a Borno Express bus,  seated to the fair-skinned giant who knew all the words to Don Williams that made me fall in love with hi

 The house felt heavy and sad.. Like a damp cloak of sadness had enveloped it No smiles on the faces of the children or women, something sad, some despair  hung languidly in the air.. my eight-year-old feet could not run away fast enough from this bleak house of pink-lipped Jonathan, the Ghanian, his beautiful teary-eyed mother and her defiant sister ...as we walked away we wondered and a playmate said,  the father had married Jonathan's wife's sister...

 You walk in shuffles, in your white shirts and suspenders hair black and straight, full in a straggly afro features small and fragile, hands effeminate.. In this jungle State, you are a walking magnet for the predators who come in different forms; the dubious, the crafty, the downright evil; I fear for you.. But your mind is astute, like a serpent,  the depth of your intellect is astounding, quoter of Purfrock, Greek mythologies and Yeats, What is your story,  why leave the security in the twilight years, to survive in a place where even the strong falter Behind the fragility and intellect, lie years too hard for you to face the neglected children, estranged from you, the cheap women who use you, the annoying pseudo-intellectuals who annoy you, the family you left behind in security who never visit you. You cling to the longings of the past, that have ruined you.. Sir...its so hard to see, a lost life, wandering on the heated tarmac.. defeated, yet finding little pleasure in purchased

 She seats and watches with troubled eyes looks the same, those haunted eyes.. its been twelve years now since I saw her and she has not changed black, fat and defeated peering, her eyes full of anguish and angst... where you bullied and rejected? were you ever happy once and did your heart flutter at the sight of your love did you have dreams as a child to be a doctor, lawyer, or engineer, why are you a fixture at the NAF base, year in year out? The answers will tumble out, if I stop and ask, but I wont, wrapped up in the drama of life, challenges, fear, anxiety and worries, there is no room .. So you watch me with those troubled eyes every time I pass... Defeated

Where I played chess titans and mah-jong; where I dreamt and hoped And life was a petal that was blossomed and fresh, promising me so much, The good old days flit by as I listen to Lofi-girl and think of when books were my only distraction. Where are they now, all faces of my youth, the kind, the sneering, the racist, the good, all disappeared in a haze of painful memories. Those days were kind because of my hope, So I dreamed and read and wrote and hoped, In the streets of Kado, in the confines of Plot 14 Bamako Street, in Gwarimpa, I had to hope

 The trouble that wants to overwhelm me likes beneath my tired chest and stifles me.. my eyes grow tired from the tears so I sigh.. troubles parade like beauties in a pageant... each waiting their turn to stifle and drown me.. I sit forsaken  alone and hopeless seeking distraction from my problems in pages of irrelevant A voice tells me these days are temporary. I sigh and fight for another day to stay alive

2023: INEC officials diverted from their place of assignment ... Hundeyin  The INEC officials were assigned to Imam Thani Street by House No 9A for today's exercise. They were, however, found within the church premises. Residents raised concern & informed the police. The DPO Ijeshatedo swung into action and brought the INEC officials to the station. Preliminary findings show that a resident of the area who volunteered to transport the officials from their office to the center was responsible for the mixup, deliberate or not, further investigation will reveal. Meanwhile, the officials were immediately released to proceed to the correct center to continue their assignment. Click here to read more...

Some thugs have invaded St. Bridget Catholic Church ljesha, Surulere Lagos, and carted away registration machines and disrupted officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission from registering people for the permanent voter card (PVC). As at the time of filing this report, the Parish Priest of the church this reportedly locked up the church while people who came out to get registered scampered for safety. A resident of the area who pleaded anonymity told Vanguard that the thugs invaded the venue, saying they wouldn’t be allowed to register because they won’t vote for their (thugs) candidate. He claimed they destroyed INEC materials and carted away some registration items. He added that the police have been mobilised to the area to prevent further breakdown of law and order. Click Here to read more

The Executive Governor of Rivers State,  Nyesom Ezenwo Wike,  has accused  the former Vice President and  current flagbearer of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of telling lies against him. This accusation was made by Wike, on Friday  at the  arrival  hall of  the Port Harcourt International Airport. The  Governor also accused Atiku of using bigwigs of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to slander him. The governor vowed to respond to both the PDP presidential candidate and the party chieftains whom he described as Atiku’s ‘attack dogs’  in due time. Wike faulted  comments credited to the former Vice President on the day he unveiled Delta State governor, Senator Ifeanyi Okowa, as his running mate in Abuja. He said  “I have decided to be quiet because PDP is a party I love so much. I have moved on to conclude my social contract with the people of Rivers. However, it is time to let Nigerians know the truth.” Wike stated that posterity would not forgive him should he fail to set