I have been gone for a while…

*“The firewood of this world is for only those who can take heart, that is why not all can gather it…” (Songs of sorrow – Kofi Awoonor)

I have been gone for a while, adrift in life’s frightful tides: sometimes to float, sometimes to sink, but my purpose holds, to find answers to man’s meandering destiny. “I have been somewhere, if I turn here the rain beats me, if I turn there, the sun burns me. The firewood of this world is for only those who can take heart, that is why not all can gather it”. The cries of distant Africans who waste away in a sea of bequeathed hunger, the discomfort of the voiceless African child whose rights have been trampled upon by careless and insensitive mothers whose concern lies predominantly in gratifying their selfish whorish interest! They have eaten their piece of meat, yet they scramble for ours!

I have been gone for a while, basking in the euphoria of a successful ‘selection’ process which Nigerians called election, hoping that this new era would bring with it something better. I have been gone for a while but my wandering heart has not ceased to question the irony of nature’s prejudice to the black skinned which is a sort of benediction to our white skin brothers – “I am on the worlds extreme corner. I am not sitting in the row with the eminent. But those who are lucky sit in the middle and forget!”, Yet humanity teaches that we are all equal!

I have been gone for a while, uncertain of the silver lining of the dark clouds of political rain that has gathered; the virulent storm of religious and ethnic violence which has been rocking the nation in different quarters; the volatile state of affairs in the Niger Delta region of the country and the incessant cases of kidnapping and abduction which has rocked the nation for years and has caused us disrepute in the international scene; from these national maladies, I have sought a retreat! But, for how long? “I have wandered on the wilderness – the great wilderness men call life. The rain has beaten me and the sharp stumps cut as keen as knives (but must) I go beyond and rest?”

For how long can we shy away from the harsh reality that stares our nation in the face? For how long can we live with this escapist ideology when each time we make a come back from our reveries, our troubles have been doubled! The affairs of this world are like the chameleon faeces into which I have stepped, when I clean it, it cannot go”. Our child is 47 years old, yet we still spoon feed him! When will that child learn to be self-dependent?

This pen will never cease to lend a voice to the voiceless pleas of Africans, far and near! For someday, we will embrace true democracy and liberty if not absolute equality! For let not our voice raise a song of sorrow for this great continent – Africa and our great country, Nigeria!