ACHIEVING 2010 TODAY

My only surviving grandparent turned seventy one [71] late December 2009. She was full of anticipation for the new year, and I wondered why a septuagenarian would be so apt about 2010. She looks forward to seeing her last daughter tying them nuptials, another year of bliss hopefully, good health and perhaps this time next year, should be boasting of more grandchildren [and who knows, great grand children]. I understand her position towards 2010 from an old African proverb that says "what a child can't see, up on an iroko tree, an elder does sitting". She's seen it all, and not to give preference to the schemings of 2010, would be to fail from the start.

Today, the transfer window officially open in England, and those of you - like me, ardent football freaks would monitor, analyse, "mock-buy", predict and follow the happenings. Like all of you, I expect the right activity for my dear supported club. However, another transfer window opens today. "The Resolutions Transfer Market". With a lot of bad habits, misdemeanors, acts, immorals and shortcomings expected to give way to chastity, discipline, good behavior, "clean bills" and character. I ask how much do we need to buy good over bad? For some, its keeping a clean sheet. For others, its surpassing 2009's goals. In some cases, its just sustainability. In all cases, beating the gun won't be a good way to start a race of three hundreds and sixty five days.

Sometimes, we try, but don't try well enough to achieve the goals we set. Sometimes, we even set goals so we can - like every achiever, talk about goals and ambitions. We never understand the reasons why well enough, nor customize goals to our realities. I for one, fail on this basis. In 2009, three of six books were started; none has reached an advanced stage. Some manuscripts are even long forgotten. For some of the books, there are a lot of plot clashes. For others, its an issue of starting what I can't finish. Emotionally, I have failed to tie myself down to some commitments, responsibilities and demeanor. Yet, 2009 was a success for me. Yet, I crave to be better. To relate well with people, maybe not all people but most people; to set out on goals with precision, and to live a fulfilling life before God and before men.

Today, is my best shot at making 2010 the best of my life. Why should I wait for tomorrow am so uncertain about? Thus, I'd live it, like it was my last. And I expect you to follow suit. Don't be like Osuofia, who tries to calm a crying baby by asking it what it would do tomorrow, if it cried today. If you need to cry, please do cry today, when there are lots of shoulders to provide succor. I will live out 2010 today, stepping on them stones of yester years' experiences, and hope I achieve the goals of 2010, today!

THE SECRET ADMIRER

Indulged by beauty
Polished in the courts of the gods
Guile unmatched, so terrific
Heads unduely turn, adulations abound
But the secret admirer looks on
In the hope that fates swing you his way
As he in long-suffering, yearns for you
And lurks in shells, admiring your beauty
Tarry no more, in returning his love
For dear, as the old moon wanes
So his love lingers

Character

These past months, there has been a huge test for me, most especially as it concerns my personality and character. A redefinition of character was most paramount for me, in a period where in class the reigning thing was forgery of field data for dissertation purposes, while in my professional niche, a string of failures littered my world. There was a great drop in self-belief, and emotions were thumping high on the meter.

People around me just seemed to be getting things right at the time, while I was on the better side of Goliath. But I weathered the time. However, not without support from people I hold very dearly. No one even knew about my predicaments at home, so papa and mama had nothing to do with this. But I had quasi-professional help. I had a lot of character building and redefinition, and today I can proudly say, that am better off.

My spirit stands strong on a rock that outplaces Gibraltar's, and my personality has been repositioned, to beat every failure that looms. Ly Thi Bich Nga and Adeniyi Adeyemi have been very instrumental in this, and so is the Campus Life team, of the Nation Newspapers, most especially Ms. Ngozi Nwozor. Ufoma Egbamuno and Daniel Tanko, good friends have been on the flanks, holding up my hands in times of emotional wars.

The Compulsory One Year Youth Service in Nigeria

The Nigerian society is perplexed. It continues to trudge in antiquated paths, yet expect to get the best out of life, and perhaps, slide to the top of economies in the world. Well, it better reinvent its dreams. The other week, I finished school. I wrote my final exams, and father reminded me of Youth Service.

He so exalted it, that it seemed like the pinnacle of living here in Nigeria. Perhaps he still reminisce his days in camp. But I bet he doesn't realise things have changed since then. He has gone on to marry, have kids and now, one of them have turned a graduate. However, the thing is that the National Youth Corps Service have gone down the abysmal alley, becoming another scorn for Nigerians.

Today, you can bet, school proprietors are not recruiting staff. They have a steady flow of hands coming from orientation camps. All they need do, is apply for the next batch of Corpers, and yepee, the staff list is complete. Think also, of competent people who have the skills required to excel in certain fields who rather are confined to the walls of the classroom. Most of these guys are actually not trained to teach. And the last time I checked, the teachers Registration Council was rueing the quality of teachers in the country.

Yet, we want to be one of the top 20 economies come the year 2020. I think this is vague for us for now, and we are not really ready to achieve what we so babble about. Why must I be subjected to the scheme? Must I be far flung within my country because someone thinks its best for me? While somebody else earns fat pays for over pricing the Youth Corps apparel? Or recent graduates get posted as cannon fodder to some political cum religious battlefields?

Well, I'm a recent graduate, and am not ready to serve. Tell me I lack national consciousness, and I'd let you know that leaders are not made as such. What if these recent graduates are sent to such countries as Sierra Leone, Liberia, Sudan, Haiti, Burma, Zimbabwe et cetera, and made to contribute voluntarily to the building of these crumbling economies? Wouldn't we be doing great justice to the now capsizing image of "Giant of Africa"? I've seen many young people who claim they are serving in some purported hinterland, cooling off all year round in their homes somewhere, because somethings have traded places.

While some have played down their ages, because they want to get enlisted in this show of shame. Its compulsory, and I say that's not right. Give us the right to develop ourselves mentally and entrepreneurially, to enable us become independent, and social entreprenuers.

MAZEY LIFE

They say nothing is constant in life except change. Well, I just hope that if there should be change in anyone's life it should be positive. A negative course of change would just be disastrous. However, how about a neutral change? Can there be anything as such? a change but neutral, not really tilting, but changing in magnitude. If there were any philosopher who talked extensively about change, I'd really like to poke into their works, and delve more in to this story of change. I really bothers me, most especially when you seem to have just had some change in magnitude, but not in direction.

Life continues to prove impossible by the day, with the many surprises and challenges it throws my way, I guess with the belief that I can treat them aright. Well, life must understand that am weak...and really weak. By the day, I feel empty, like something I really want has been taken away from me, and am let to just drift off towards the Antarctica.

Then the talk about me being...Gay? I continue to ponder... They say am DYKE. Everyone in the LC says so, that its an identity that has glued to my shirts. Fine I just hope its the shirts, before my boyfriend...pardon me, my girlfriend finds out.

School is a mess sometimes. I can't imagine, just like yesterday, I got admitted into school. Now, 'they' say am a graduate, awaiting the "compulsory" one year youth corps service. I see it as a waste of one precious year, which I can use to better myself. What do you think?

Then my love life? YES I know you want to know. Its in shambles. However, don't let my sisters know, because it could be the beginning of something I can't handle, because my girlfriend might just come knocking on my door, demanding an explanation. But when would I grow up, and acknowledge that some things in life follow a predestined course?

My family? I adore them. I love them so much, even though the need to be independent remains top on my agenda, and my father doesn't want to hear any of those... What do I do with so much bothering my family now? You know, sometimes I hate the fact that we are still where we are. But perhaps, everythings are for a reason. I just hope so.

When do I finish my dissertation? I bet you should ask my supervisor. I don't know myself. I just want to pack my bags and be off to some unknown place, where perhaps, life can continue for me, from where it has presently paused.

THE MYTH OF MIDDLE EARTH

The warlords of Mordor in fierce battle cry
Allies with Orcs, Dementors and Sauron
Seek the white gates of Gondor
In a frantic bid to seize middle earth

Time upon time, the ring long lost
The sovereignty of middle earth given up
Gondor gone merry, Mordor in rubbles
A surge from bottom earth very imminent.

AN ODE TO POETRY

Man's language in pleasure
The most perfect of speeches
Brings nearer the truth –
Truth seen with passion

Truth united with pleasure
Calls imagination to the help of reason

Caused by intense realization,
Life explores its amazement
The spontaneous overflow of
Powerful feelings – emotions;
Emotions put in measure

Its ingenuity translated
In to language busy about imitation
Life really, is poetry.

RAIN

With the company of thunder and flash
Where the mountains agree with the clouds
Lo in the land ‘the bard sang about'
Downpour unannounced, cold uncontrolled
Sweaters, jackets, turtlenecks and cardigans
Pandemonium, stillborn lakes and droning roofs
What is it that pelts on roses?

Dust, fog and sand all of blessed memories
And baptism wholly accomplished
For old things did pass away
As the third of these poured down
Storm, haze and rain
Baptizing and springing to life, new converts
Heartily welcomed to this sinful world.
But it sounds silly that it's just raining

MUCH ADO ABOUT SOMETHING

Done to death by slanderous tongues
Was the hero that here lies dead
In dungeon of their rights
Gives him fame which never dies
Such was the death that died with shame.

TROUBLES NEVER SINGLY COME

The winds wound round the hills and came tumbling in to the sleepy town, carrying heavy July clouds. In this part of the country, the months of July and August come with heavy dark clouds that causes downpour, sometimes for days unending. It was the second week in July, and the water aquifer was fast coming closer up.

Irish potatoes would soon be ripe for harvest, and the local acha will revel in the much rains. The rains always come with angry winds, which torpedo after crashing against the fore-slopes of the highlands. They will take off roofs of houses, uproot trees and cause fear down the bones of children.

The swoosh-swoosh snarls that engulfed the low heavens that evening, ensured that as many peasant farmers that made it to their farms that day, returned home early on to the comfort of their hearths. Some animal was scowling in the wild, probably lost, and the sound was coming from near the village gate. The winds continued to torment roofings made of palm fronds, even as the poorly made ones began to make way, and the old ones allowed water to gather inside.

Somewhere distant from the village square, close to the burial ground, about a few meters from the border of the village and the ‘evil’ forest that sits below the hills, the cry of a woman rented the air almost beyond the sonority of the winds. In defiance, the winds increased in noise and intensity, the rains now pouring down in anger and torrents.

From the north, almost in the opposite direction, lightening flashed across the grey skies and the resulting thunder rested at the base of an old dried oak, three huts away from the place the cry had emanated. The winds had died down now, but the rains continued to pour. The thunderbolt had ignited a fire at the base of the tree, and flames began to blaze in the rains, even as the wail of a newborn rent the steel cold night.

Ayuka was fatigued. She and the unborn had tussled from midday. She had prayed to the Good Spirit, to let her get a safe delivery, and the prayer included her labour, in her hut. But her wishes were not being fulfilled. She began to realize this, the moment those severe pains had started. She was tending young mushrooms on a strip of land, an echo from the thick of the forest. She thought of the bountiful harvest she was going to reap, and the profit she would make at Tallata market. And of the clothings and good healthy food she was going to stock for the baby. She would call the baby Arziki, and prayed it would be a girl.

The land was very fertile, and showed this by the huge growth of tender edible mushroom that grew from it. At first, she thought it was someone else’s farm, and overlooked it. Her repeated strolls through that trail, alerted her to the weeds that now competed with the mushrooms. No good farmer would allow his farm overgrown with this much weeds she thought. And that was when she took over.
Her tummy had been bulging for five moons now since she took note of the protuberance. As the days waned, she became aware of intermittent pains. Although she had learned from experience to be as subtle as possible, not to call up the bouts of snapping pains, she was carried away in her thoughts, and didn’t realize how rigorous she was getting with the tend.

That was when the pains started, and got unusual. Though she had witnessed similar pains in the past, they had varnished after some while. This one had forced her to abandon the tend, and head for home. She felt very sore from the pains and from her urgent pace to get home. And it was right on her way, that the tumbling winds had met her. The gruesome throes of labour right in the heavy downpour had left her muscles battered and aching.

Her under body was still on fire, like those times the illness overthrow and got worse because she had nowhere to go, and no one to call for help and had to lie in her hut till she began to feel better. On those days, the reproachful words of her father would ring aloud in her head, while Inna’s loud sobs burst tears down her sullen cheeks. She had had little time to take enough valuables before the Majjalisar Dattawa came calling. That day was austere and desolate. She had never felt love leave her like that day.

For now, getting the child warm was her utmost priority, as every bit of clothing was drenched and unsuitable for the occasion. The cold was fast settling in. She let out frequent sobs now and then, and the frequency was getting on the high side. However, she thought not of herself, as the little bag of life lay, yelling to the night.

She mustered what was now left of her strength, with a lot of gut, and snapped the umbilical, as she tried to separate the baby from her, to then clean up the mess. The scene was indeed gory, as she, in closed eyes undid the child from her, and silenced it in “first milk”. Not knowing from where the will came, she dragged, not in an attempt to get to what has been her source of shelter for nine moons now, but to get closer to the burning tree.

They both now desperately needed the warmth, but as the baby sucked, what remain of her energy seemed to drain with the flow of the milk. She had not had anything to eat, since she ate some of the tuber some benevolent passerby had gifted her the day before. She could not remember the last time she had ample food to eat, so she continued unending, to thank the man, until his bicycle had had taken him far from hearing distance. She had roasted a half of the yam, and planned to eat the rest when she returned from the farm today.

Rumblings continued in the sky, but were now from afar. The rains had now migrated, and only the Good Spirit knew what havoc they meted where they now poured. No one would complain by morning. “The rains have made repairs” they would say, as peasants with damaged houses would now go about renovating them, while those with waterlogged farms or severely damaged crops would count their losses.

But now in the cold dark night, a parliament of owls exchanged successive hoots in the not too far distance, the most resounding coming from the hills. She knew that owls told of bad augur, and hoped whatever it was, would be as distant as the continuous rumbling of the skies. Her only source of salvation was the fire, which crackled in the rich fuel of the old oak.

She was grateful to be close enough now, to provide ample warmth for the newborn, a baby boy, and to also keep away any wandering hyena whose path may seem to cross here before dawn. The fire crackled as if in response to her. And she prayed that it burns far in to the night. Then everything went blank.

The torrents had moved ahead, but drizzles continued in its wake. The heavens were just clearing up the remnants of clouds that were heavy some few hours before. On some occasion, it would drizzle on until the resolve of the people would force it to stop. This they seem to do by defying it, and continuing their normal business. Today, there would be no need for it, as dusk was already night, and the hearth would provide better comfort. Only by morning would any damage be of any significance.

Some rhythmic mantra broke the silence that ensued for about a quarter of an hour. It came from the hills that stand guard for the village. The marabou, whose duty it was to carry messages from the Good Spirit for the village, had made there his home. The place and its inhabitant were very revered amongst the people.

Between the hills and the village laid the ‘evil’ forest to which no inhabitant of the village was to step. It had human eating creatures; fathers would tell their children to deter them from hunting Agama lizards from thence. Only the Majjalis – the council of elders, after cleansing could walk the forest to the hills, where the Good Spirit lived, and the marabou made adulation daily. And on such occasions, like today’s, atonement and reverence would be their only reason to approach the hills.

The tapping of the marabou’s drum was notoriously paramount amidst the chant. The Majjalis was performing a ritual to cleanse the land of all evil and abominations. It was a yearly event. Twelve moons counted unending, and then restitution would be sought. The marabou had premeditated the day for the ritual, and hoped the Good Spirit would provide ample supplies of sacrifice. They had needed the blood of an innocent child, or of a stranger.

Now, the ritual had gone ahead. It would last till the early hours of the morning, around when the cock let out its first crow. Then they – the Majjalis, would tarry two more days to unwind, and travel down from the hills from where the marabou’s shrine laid, a watchtower for the village.