HIATUS

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I have reached that point where every blogger reaches in his blogging career. That point where strange questions pop up in the mind of the disturbed blogger as to the future of his blog. That point where he has to ask himself whether to continue or to drop out. Some may call it "giving up". Well, I'll call mine "hiatus". Even if I give up blogging, I can't block the ever flowing rivulets of muse which have continuously served as a source of inspiration. Certain factors have necessitated me making such a tough decision. Most important of which is the location from which the posts on this blog are written and published. It's a small town in Osun state, Nigeria, where I am constrained to live for the next three years save for the summer holidays. The network connection is quite frustrating; Spending an hour just to publish a post is an understatement especially on rainy days. I remain devoted to writing however, what is worth doing is worth doing well. Hurriedly writing a post and publishing it during a divine break in internet connection has not fulfilled the purpose of this blog which is to add value. On the basis of this, I have reached a conclusion to suspend further activities on this space till further notice. This may or may not lead to an end in my blogging career but, it is definitely a much needed break. Hopefully, I'll be able to drop-by once in a while to read and comment on other blogs. It's been an intriguing journey of three years. I'll love to come back here someday, stronger and better...
I reiterate that this is not an end but a break in transmission.
Regards.

Lamentations of a Youthful Generation

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At every street and corners,
You find them lurking
Day and night in dark and hideous places;
Prophesying and blame-passing
Fast becoming a hobby and agenda for meetings
They are
The youthful prophets of doom.

Ask and they’ll give you a lamentation
Of how cruel the old prophets are
And of their stubbornness to give them a chance.
They’ll grieve of lack of opportunities
Despite the preposterous indices of economics
They are
The youthful prophets of doom.

“See, they call us the future leaders of tomorrow
Yet they have refused to leave for us to lead
When will that tomorrow come?
There is no hope for us in this place.
Come, let us eat and dine together
While we wait for tomorrow.
It is well, my brother.”

O generation of vipers!
Tomorrow will not come
Until you realize it is already here.
From cradle to grave,
Thou remain clueless in the belly of the proverbial fish
Lacking the creative ability to think and re-create
While the gap-toothed and clueless progenitors of transformation
Continue to promise a better tomorrow.

Yea, thou art the leaders of tomorrow;
The ones to deliver us from the familiar Egyptians.
Tomorrow, thou saith?
Pray thee, What have thou done today?

 

 

 

 

 

Someday, You'll Regret Never Having Them.

"Friendships are not acquired, they are nurtured"

Phillips Olayanju

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I've never been a person who invests a lot in friendships. My life has always been activity filled and goal oriented and so there's little or no play time. Yes, I've had friends but, they were acquired and not necessarily nurtured. I never saw the need to nurture them until I decided to lean on them and like a malnourished child, they crushed. Alas, it was not friendship but a figment of my imagination. Lately, I've learnt quite a lot on the essence of friendship.

Friends are those who will stay with you through thick and thin. If you feel you can take it all on your own; you don't need anyone in your life, you're making a great blunder. If you want to go far in life, you need people. The problem is they are not books you find on your shelf, neither are they groceries sold in a mart. They are acquired, nurtured, grown and someday, when you are down and lonely, you reap the fruit of your labour. The great thing about friendships is that once you get them, you have to nurture them else, they'll disappear into thin air. Unfortunately, you wouldn't realize the damage until you realize you need them. That's just how selfish we can be.

To nurture friendships, the first step is accepting yourself. Accepting your strengths and weakness is pivotal to having a flourishing relationship. Also, accept your friends. Accept their faults. Tolerate them. Give them space to grow and make mistakes. Excesive criticisms could ruin a blossoming friendship. Lastly, repect boundaries. Never do to other what you may never tolerate.

Above all, stay positive. You may not become friends with everyone you meet, but maintaining a friendly attitude and demeanor can help you improve the relationships in your life and sow the seeds of friendship with new acquaintances. However, true friends should never be confused with acquaintances, which are people you are friendly with on almost a daily basis. True friendship will stand the
test of time.

Have you been a true friend? Is there any particular way to identify true friendship? How do you know those who truly care for you and those who are only interested in using you to their advantage?

Sinking Ship Nigeria (SS Nigeria), a Poem by Akano Abdulmalik.

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There it is and it was

In its wooden glory

There it is SS Nigeria

Look at the helm

Look st the main deck

Look at the wheel

Look at the captain's cabin

Look at the skylight

Look at the cannons, light and heavy.

What has she not?

What be missing?

Why be the same route we treading?

Why isn't the captain calling?

Why are the officers meddling?

Why are they preventing the captain from thinking?

Port some say

Starboard another say.

Indeed one be the way

Why is it the mind of the captain won't sway?

Why is he stiff on the wheel?

Where the the first mate?

Where he be i cant locate?

I see him with the captain

What he be whispering?

Why the captain be smiling?

Why, I know the smile.

It be the smile of greed.

It has been smiled by captains past.

Then, our destiny has been cast

How long would we last?

That smile be the smile of the ones before him

The future of this ship be dim.

The skies are dark ahead

I hear it, the pit and patter of the rain on the deck

Stop rain the deck already be a wreck

It hath been holed it be rotting

It hath hurt the crew

The sick bay be ill

The hurt crew member it cannot heal

Then I heard a scream

The all familiar name

Pirates!

In their glory around

Bout abound

To your stations go laddies

Nay not one moved

The gun powder be wet, they said

The guns be rusty they said

Cannons be rusty they said

Then I said we be dead.

Our faces in fear it white

In our gloom the captians face be light

Drop the sail he ordered.

I was aghast

For the ship he didn't care

His way of leadership rare

No, it be common to the black seas

The captain be focused on island before him

I be focused on the maelstrom before him

All hope lost at the what cost

At the cost of a familiar chink

In despair I resign

Admist the end I ask

What will kill us first?

They responded that be an easy task

For neither the pirates nor the maelstrom

But our own inaction and the pirates action

We have died

Good bye sinking ship Nigeria.

Akano Abdulmalik Gbenga.

What's There To Celebrate?

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In a twinkle of an eye, another year has passed and Nigeria is once again celebrating her independence from the claws of the British colonists yet, the annual national poser is put forward again: What’s there to celebrate? This, just like every other question challenging the state of the nation may always lie unanswered.

Over centuries and millenniums, birthdays have been known to be a time to celebrate an addition of another year to one’s time spent on earth. At the years of nascent it’s accompanied with: “Many more years to come”. At the middle age, it’s buttered with a golden jubilee celebration however, at the years of old age you hear words like: “Celebration of Life” and “A well life spent”. For such people celebrating the ‘life’ in their lives, birthdays are times for retrospection and not necessarily celebration.

Today, Nigeria, my alleged mother’s land throws a historic fanfare in celebration of her independence. More importantly is the fact that a century after the amalgamation of the northern and southern flank of what is today known as Nigeria, there is little or nothing to show for the union. It is a known fact that few years after the unholy marriage, there was a civil war that lasted for three years.  International extended family members (stakeholders) gave military support to the husband and he was able to compel nay force the Baifran-wife back into the union. Four decades after, there is a tug-of-war within the family yet some members celebrate. What are we celebrating? I plead to know.

I wouldn’t like to sound like a pessimist who doesn’t see anything good in the nation. Definitely, we have in-depth potentials, we have turbo-charged intellectuals, we have power-house politicians and imbued, highly saturated unquantifiable wealth but, we’ve had these for over three decades and from what we are told, all is well, the government is on top of every awry situation. As a matter-of-fact, it hasn’t been well right from the beginning.

Politically, Nigeria experimented with the parliamentary system of governance for three years before trying out the American modelled presidential system which we currently manage and haven’t mastered after fifty years of experimenting. It’s not that we cannot copy and implement. Without sounding ethno-discriminatory, copyright records will show that our brothers in East are doing a very fine job both home and abroad. The problem is we are unsuccessfully trying to perfect what was never made for us. Perhaps, if we fine-tune the presidential system of governance, as some other countries have done, to suit our diversity, we may be able to avoid the political mishaps we often seem to encounter. Speaking of mishaps, the constant hailstorm of terrorism, bouts of kidnappings, and the latest asinine $9.3m scam is enough to ruin a birthday party. It is no longer news that the Nigerian ship has long grown rudderless. But, the question remains: what has been done to put things in the right place? Our captain who unsurprisingly owns a doctorate degree in the dynamics of animalistic and other related behavioural symptoms seems not to be able to get a firm hold of his human sailors and passengers except those who reflect symptoms of a disease by crossing to the opposition party (they are well taken care of via impeachment procedures instituted by pocket friendly legislators). In the midst of these confusions, we celebrate! What are we celebrating?

Sadly, the index of our independence still remains physical emancipation. It appears we are yet to attain psychological and spiritual autonomy from the dementia of colonialism and military rule. We are still living with a colonial mentality. For instance, an average Nigerian believes in the qualitative superiority of imported products as he seems to have lost faith in the innovative ingenuity of his brethrens. We are ready to spend millions of naira on anything that smells foreign (even foreign education). The reason is not far-fetched. We still practice kleptocracy at the central, mamatocracy in the East, god-fatherism in the West and undertone Emirtocracy in the North. The late Fela aptly summed these manifestations in a single word: DEMO-CRAZY. I dare say that we suffer from Post Colonial Stress Disorder.

Truth be told, Nigerians have lost the appetite to celebrate. Just like every other day, this day shall pass us by as the common man plies his trade seeking for daily bread. The ship of our nation is dangerously drifting from the radar of intellectual leadership and until we realize our precarious state and take action, we may yet drift into oblivion. An infinite state of sober reflection should be the only celebration today.