Fireworks (For the lonely one)

New year eve.
You are quiet,
in the midst of the woofers and whisky,
gazing through
the intoxicating haze,
to somewhere,
where the sun is blue and the night sky,
starless.

New year dawn
and the children are dancing
the hard music of the spirits.
You are pointing
to the sky,
seeking light,
asking questions.

What will we see
in the last bit
of the mirage of our breaths,
after these indurating storms,
when the last thread
of moonlight
departs from our eyes,
when
we see the harmattan no more?

Crouched at the shrine,
you are probing the dead gods
for answers.
Why are we sent here
only to die?

Why are we invited
to suckle
the ripe breasts of life, yearly,
yet, we see only
the undying rays
of the blue sullen sun?

Why us, why not the others?

The tear drops wet your alter.

Why is your brother among the dancing group
while you are crouched with grizzled priests?

Why is your role the sad one, like Anthonio's?
You the handsome one; you the envied one?

You are gazing through      
the intense fireworks,
through the thick laughter and dancing,
asking questions bereft of answers,
looking for things
you'll never find.

The fireworks gets more intense and,
the drums of the spirits beat harder.

The new year, like a falcon,
comes swooping in.

Dike (For Dr Nnabueze, Agwor' oha)

The ogele sounded at the coming of light
In the center of Nwankwo market.

The men of the night had come,
Laden with a message to the priests of Odo,
Of the death of our children.
Their words were ravenous, like cancer
"The children will die"

The ogele sounded and men melted,
In the Crucible of terror.

The women cried,
Tears gushing and running like a river
They too,  had heard the cold voices
Of the dark gods,
Savouring the blood and flesh
Of our children.

Anguish.

The gods were always with us
From the time of our birth,
On the stony Hill of amokofia;
They had  always held our hands
Each day we tumbled in
Bloody pools.

"So,  where were they," the women cried?
Didn't they promise us  a life
Free from death?
Didn't they say
Our children shall dream?

Noon Came and the ikpa sounded our death
In Ekugwu market
Where the people despaired.

The women's  cry,  weakened the men,
Their tears taking down their hearts
And the men fell.

We lost our eyes,  the light.

Then,  came the warrior,
Nnabueze,
Agwor'oha -
The one who heals all;
Dike ogu,  who said
"The children will not die."

He came like Obodike, omer' ebariba,
Bearing a sun heated spear,
Wearing an armour of leopard skin,
Singing the song of our birth,
Fighting like Ugwu himself
Why not?
He is the first son of Ugwu,
Our mountain-
The one who gives the armour of leopard skin

And a battle raged.
And our warrior fought.

Till nightfall came,
Bearing the fading cries of the cold messengers
Of the dark gods;
Till nightfall came,
with the stench of their decomposing flesh
Tickling the nostrils of our children.
They could smell
For they yet,  lived.

Song.

"Our warrior has beaten the enemies,
He is till fighting"

The Opi sounded at full moon
Then, joined the ubo,  igba,  ekwe
And, the virgin voices of our grown children

"our warrior will live forever!"

Happy birthday,  Agwor' Oha!

Written by Nnaemeka Ugwu. @all rights reserved.

Your eyes (For Ada.)

I see you in the haze of the fog

I see you in the jarring light of the sun

I see you in the murmuring loneliness of my life.

And one thing is clear- I need you,

like the fish needs the water

Like the gods need libations.

Like the rose needs the songbird.

In your eyes, I see all of  my heart, beating,

Deeply crimson,  in sky-high ecstasy.

In your arms,  I see my enfant soul

In a flowery moon dance

With virgin squirrels.

Since I met you

I've been watching the shackles of sadness

Fall

Like broken glass.

I love you,  Angel

I do not know why.

Yellow street lights (chapter two)

***

Golden yellow street lights. 

When Obinna returned to the house, everyone: Obiajulu, both of his parent’s in-laws and his brother in-law were already asleep but Adure, was in the kitchen making stew for some of her coworkers who could not attend the party. He was still very hungry but the fear of what Adure could say was still very much vivid inside him so, he could not muster the courage to ask for food. He just went to the parlor and sat on one of the new black leather sofas she’d just bought. And he was careful not to let the crisp leather make a noise while he sat because, he wasn’t yet sure Adure would let him sit on it. ''What does a jobless man know about the cost of things?'' she had blasted four days ago when she had found him lying on the longest one. He sat quietly with his clasped palms between his thighs, listening to the shattering sound of the rain which came as fast as his saliva; his saliva always dripped faster whenever he got much shaken emotionally because his lips would quiver beyond his control. It was one of the issues the doctor had said he would have to try to cope with, when he counseled him on how to live with his new deformity after the accident.

The rain got him thinking of his first meeting with Adure; rain always took him to the past since the accident because it had rained heavily on that fateful day. It had rained heavily too, on the day he and Adure met at the University of Nigeria Nsukka. He had run into her in a little kiosk besides Caver building where they had both sought shelter from the rain, at the same time. He was tidying up his master’s degree project while she was in her first year in mass communication. He would never forget the glowing smile and sparkling teeth which she flashed at his face on that day; it had been so piercing that it went through his bachelor heart, piercing it, leaving an irremovable imprints of her face in the chambers of his heart.

And soon, they got talking and soon, they were inseparable. She wasn’t doing quite well and seemed to have very little passion for her course of study and naturally he, being someone who placed a lot of emphasis on hard work, wouldn’t have looked at any girl with such academic predisposition for a second time. But, in her case, he instead, felt challenged and, a strong desire to build her up welled up his throat. But he was quite impressed with her apparent good behavior, good morals and church upbringing and her charisma and home training; and she was quite caring and loving too- the two attributes that were the most important to him during those days when he was searching, when he often sang that song ‘I got you baby’ by Lucky Dube.

In the end, it was really an easy decision for him to make as per choosing to date her out of the myriad of girls, far prettier, more intelligent and richer girls, at his disposal at that time; he was handsome and had a master’s degree and a car and, in a small town like Nsukka, any girl would fall for him. And he had a lot of them he was sleeping with at that time.

He and Adure got on well, became what could be invariably called a couple in love, love- stricken love birds. She worried a lot about finance because her father was retired and sick and she was going to drop out of school if no help came. She wished she had an elder brother, or good relatives who would’ve helped. “All our relatives want us to suffer and die so that they would  have all of the very few lands of which they do not want my father-the only son of his own father, to partake of, to themselves,” she would say, leaning on his shoulder. She told him she didn’t want to sell her body just to pay for her education because it was a sin and because she was damned scared of HIV after her aunty died the most horrible death following a cold blooded fight with the disease. She told him about her three other siblings, how they were almost starving. And her poor mother who was just a petty trader.

Obinna often laughed inside his mind whenever Adure stressed that she didn’t want to sell her body for money because it was obvious that as a poor unattractive and needy undergraduate, it would have been very difficult for her to attract a guy rich enough to offer any significant financial relief; the university was full of too many pretty girls who would take all the attention if it got to the point of girls using their bodies to stay afloat. And this was where he could not explain his love for her because just like the university was full of better girls, his life was full of girls better than Adure in all ramifications. But, it was she who got dearest to his heart and he even reveled in the many ways she fell short of his taste for an ideal girl; and how else would true love be explained if not that it exist in spite of deficiencies in the life of the loved? He wasn’t looking for a perfect girl but, someone he could love forever and Adure was that someone.

Later, his reply to his friend when they told him they didn’t see anything special in the girl was “na my choice.” He soon broke up with the other girls in order to focus all his love on his one and only Adure. He told her not to worry that all was going to be well as long as he lived. He took care of her and the rest of her family just as he carried his own mother. And right now… now that things had gone sour and he was sitting on the sofa, hungry yet unable to ask his wife for food, how he wished he could still do it again- carry her on his shoulder again, his sunshine, his spotless eagle, his Adure, and say again to her, that all was well.

He was working as an accountant at Saint Theresa’s collage then, and life with Adure was a beauty every minute of every day. They enjoyed every bit of the exhilarating scenery of Nsukka: the hills, the oily food, the quietness, the humble hospitable locals and the fresh air that often came with the rather too frequent rainfall. And soon Adure graduated in flying colors thanks to the magnificent effort that Obinna put in her studies.

On the day of her convocation they also got engaged. It was a night that would forever linger in the chambers of his memory, regardless of the turn of things. The beautiful fluorescent hall at Conis hotel with multicolored balloons floating in the air; the smiling faces of friends and families; the beauty and life which flowed like a waterfall from Adure’s face, all combined to produce this everlasting memory which popped up in his mind each time he sat down like yesterday and today, to reflect on his life, on their lives, regardless of the nature of the reflection.

***

When the rain got to an abrupt stop, it was quite late into the night and with his mind and body well under the Influence of sleep and hunger and, a heart-consuming desire especially after watching Adure’s dance, his body lost its two years old restraints and he compulsively walked into Adure’s room; her room with the new sedate orange paint and sparse furnishing and exquisite art work and smell of lavender, the smell which they both had started loving from the night in which she gave her virginity to him, the night before their engagement. How could he have been so foolish to have attempted walking in there knowing how sour their marriage had gone, knowing how copious his saliva now flowed and how bad it smelled? Off course he got what he deserved for being a failure of a man, for being so deformed forever; he was soundly rebuffed and pushed away.

“What man stays home all day and still expects to enjoy the warmth of a woman, like the Chinese say huh’’ She asked him in that casual tone of hers which she employed when she got irritated by someone, before slamming the door against his face, as had been the case for the past two years, without waiting for him to speak. Then, she sat down on the bed and cried.“What is happening to me, to my love for my husband? Why do I hate him so much now?” she cried. Off course, she, just like Obinna lost the rest of the sleep as their minds slipped into the past again. And again, the regret and melancholy came storming in. But, Obinna did the more negative thinking.

Perhaps, he should not have loved the way he did, the way he reveled in the love between him and Adure and the family love that developed between his in-laws and he, a kind of love that he had never experienced since his father left. Things weren’t always this way.

***
By the time Adure finally got pregnant, after their wedding and years of trying and failing, Obinna had been promoted to the post of chief accountant of the school. He decided that Adure resigned from her old job in the supermarket to make sure there was no problem with the pregnancy after two years of trying; she needed a good rest. And their decision paid off because ten months later, their child was born effortlessly. He named him Obiajulu, meaning that their hearts had become calm and, the beautiful little boy indeed brought joy to their home. Adure’s mother was soon with them for Omuguo.  Obinna’s mother also came and, each day saw the old women entertain them with their numerous dance steps and folk songs and memories, memories that made them laugh with tears in their eyes. Everyone had smiles on their faces especially his mother who had been praying to carry a grandchild from her only child. They created one big family that reveled in shinny bliss.

Adure’s younger brother coincidentally, got admission into the university and was doing well so, Obinna happily paid the bills. He had only his mother to carter for since he was the only child and his father had long disappeared. Adure’s family was literally the only family he had, besides his mother. At least, before he became a failure. And so, when his father-in-law’s illness got worse and required a very costly surgery, Obinna didn’t hesitate to tamper with the school’s finances if it meant saving the life of his father in-law, the only father he’d actually had since his late father rejected him from the onset. The plan was to return the money soon enough, before the school asked for it. But, like our people say, when misfortune decides to visit, it visits in the company of its brothers.

There was a cogent need for money to repair the gully erosion which threatened to cut the school football pitch into two. The principal called him into his office and asked for the money. He couldn’t produce it and then one thing led to another and then, a few weeks later, he was sacked, after he had sold his only plot of land and his car at a cut price and paid the money. He was unhappy but, it didn’t last long since he never actually rated that missionary school job. He actually saw the sack as an opportunity, a wakeup call for him to start looking for a real job befitting of his certificate.  And thanks to the miracle of Adure getting gainfully employed within the next few months, at ESBN, their home did not suffer as what he thought was going to be quick job hunting turned out to be a prolonged, painful initiation into the teeming fold of the unemployed. Yet time passed by and things remained relatively calm and he still listened to love songs by Enrique Iglesias and still believed that love would conquer all. But fate had a different plan.

Exactly fifteen months after he lost his job, fifteen months in which Adure deftly carried their home, paying the bills with a smile on her face but with a mildly growing distant demeanor towards his mother for no known reason, something happened on a rainy Sunday.

Adure was in her village with the rest of her family aside her younger sister Chinenye, attending the burial of a distant uncle and so, Obinna was left at home with his mother and chinenye. On the evening of that day, Obinna’s mother took ill, and lost consciousness. So panicking, Obinna jumped into the car, the new car Adure had just bought and drove straight to the hospital; he drove as fast as Michael Schumacher. And then, bang! The slippery road to the teaching hospital did what it knew how to do best. The car summersaulted and fell into a gully. It was nearly fatal; in fact that Obinna, his mother and Chinenye did not die at the spot was a major miracle. They were rescued and the people thanked God. On the spot also, Obinna’s mother recovered from the unconsciousness that brought them to the road in the first place. While his mother came out whole, he and Chinenye come out of the mangled mass of metal, incomplete.

Yet Chinenye was better off, for whereas she only lost her left breast, Obinna lost more than half of his face.   And now he’s left with a severe facial deformity because some angry metal fragments crushed most of his facial bones, producing a severe damage which only a facial transplant could remove. The piece of metal drove into his face, leaving him now, dribbling smelly saliva, every minute of every day and, gradually but steadily since then, things have been falling apart and five days ago it got to the peak.

***

Their son, Obiajulu, was now four and felt lonely; he yearned for a sibling to fight and play with but, he had none and the loneliness was beginning to tell on him as he now daily, withdrew more and more into him. Adure had long stopped letting Obinna touch her since he was discharged from the hospital after the metal fragments where dug out from his face together with his left eye and lower jaw bone and so, they had no other child. She was flying high in her job in ESBN and her reason for not wanting more children was that a man who could not feed his family should not have more than one child. Obinna was still unemployed and so, he’d been keeping quiet and been saying yes and yes and yes; it’s ok. Whatever he thought could make Adure happy was ok by him, whatever that could make the discomfort of being with him lesser for her was alright by him. And besides, what choice did a man like him have?

A man who is already on the ground, defeated, should fear no more falls. Such a man should make no more protests if he still desires to see out his mission on earth; his only option should be to hold onto that-whatever it is, which sustains his dissipating life. In Obinna’s case, that which sustained his life was their son Obiajulu and for his sake, he’d agreed too many more “things not going the way he wanted it”. Like last year, when he saw what no other man have seen, when Adure started seeing other men, men who treated her like trash but nevertheless, men upon whom she showered her money and love and Obinna repeatedly cowered under her threats of divorce if he made too much noise about it.

But, the truth was that Obinna really stayed on in the marriage for the sake of their son but most importantly, for the sake of his love for his Adure; for whatever way she treated him did not matter much because there was something bitter sweet about his undying love for her, even in the mist of the most severe pain; something bothering on masochism. And if being with Adure was hell fire, he was ready to spend the rest of his life happily, in it.

The first case of his humiliations came on the kind of a day when one wakes up on the left side. A kind of a day when one’s Chi,  god, shows him his sins to his face and then, brushes his mouth on a rough patch of earth. Adure had just left to attend a conference at Owerri when Obiajulu took ill; fever. So, Obinna didn’t go out to construction site where he was managing as a laborer in order to be with Obiajulu and he was right not have gone out because at 5pm, Obiajulu started having febrile convulsion. Obinna rushed him to the hospital but he didn’t have enough money to keep him in there for the two days which the doctor said was required for his treatment. So he had to call Adure to send some money, even though she had vehemently warned him not to disturb her important conference at the Imo state capital. Nevertheless, he picked up the phone and dialed her number.

“Hello, sweetheart” he greeted when Adure finally picked up after he had dialed for the umpteenth time.

“Hello Obinna, what is it?” She sounded irritated.

“How is the conference going?”

She was silent.

“How is….”

“Bia nwokem, go straight to the point” she paused a while then giggled, sighed before adding “eheeh?”

Obinna could hear a masculine voice but, he wasn’t bothered. His main worry was Obiajulu.

“I need some money, sweetheart, Obiajulu is ill and I don’t have enough money on me,” he pleaded. Adure sighed. Obinna could hear the masculine voice still.

“Hope it’s not serious?”  She was concerned.

“Not to worry, he’ll be fine. I’ll take care of him,” he assured her.

“Off course, you can’t afford not to because he is the one eye that owes blindness,” she sounded cold. “Go to my room and check my drawer, I left some money there. When I get back I’m going to find out if you   tamper with my things,” she finished.

But she left the phone on, perhaps, by mistake; perhaps intentionally. By then Obinna was already rummaging inside the drawer searching for the money, unconsciously still holding the phone to his ear. He was about to lay hand on the crisp wand of naira notes, when he started hearing the sound of kissing then her voice.

“Wait now….waiiiit now, take it slowly because am all yours tonight.”

A short while later, Adure started moaning and screaming. Then, Obinna switched off the phone. Of what use was it to keep listening to such pain? Even with such evidence, how could he put up any fight against the only woman he loved and the woman who had his heart in her palms forever and who dictated his dream in the painful sort of way that day by day she increasingly climbed higher beyond his reach? The woman who paid the bills? The woman who held the knife and the yam? How could he put up a fight in the environment where the essence of his life-Obiajulu was been raised and hence, definitely denying the poor boy of that which he desired most for him-that he be raised in a complete unbroken home- a privilege of which he never had, since his father had left his mother shortly after he was born?  That would have been like the case of the lizard which brought chaos on the funeral of its mother.

And so, he took in the bitter pills of nights when his wife went out wearing skimpy dresses and returned home in the morning severely drunk. Nights on which he’d lie on the bed receiving calls from his friends and hers alike who called to say they found her at so and so place with one cute young man or the other in Enugu capital city, young boys whom she could not resist the desire to have a taste of. And this hurt her, filled her with guilt, and bewildered her, this ravaging desire for handsome men. It had not been there when her Obinna was still whole and this knowledge offered a little explanation to the withering of her once rock solid love for Obinna.  After every hot sex she had with a lover, her mind would be quickly occupied by what the reverend father told her when she had gone for counseling immediately after her first act of adultery “what really attracted you to your husband in the first place is gone and your body is now living its true nature, craving for that thing and it is your duty to get it under control.” But try as she did, she could not get her acts together.

But she cried after every act because she was always filled with guilt for betraying her Obinna. How shocked she was now, coming to the knowledge that love could die. And every time a man climbed on top of her, she would call her husband name. Obinna was her first and only love, she knew. Her pain was that she could not just get her body under control; her craving for handsome faces now controlled her since the one she called her own was now gone. Perhaps, Obinna understood and the understanding fuelled his endurance e and stoicism. And many times, he wished that people stopped blaming Adure because, to him, her behavior was just born out of frustration from the fact that she had lost what she treasured most in the man she called her own. Her time with her male lovers barely helped her with a little happiness because, ever since that accident happened, she had been spending her nights, praying and hoping for love to return in her heart for Obinna. Yet somehow, Obinna understood.

The day he bumped into her walking into a room with a young man at TOSCANA hotel where he had gone to see the manager of the construction company for whom he worked as a laborer, he just looked away even though he was sure they had seen him. And when she came home and murmured “sorry”, he could not say a word. Rather he felt something closer to pity for her; he imagined how she must have felt, waking up each day to see his pitiable face, realizing that she was stuck with a man whom she apparently never truly loved. A man whom she called husband and father of her son but for whom she had lost every bit of the feelings that made her say yes to him in the first place, a man who had lost every bit of the things that ever made him attractive.

***

Yes, Adure now found her husband nothing short of a piece of thrash, but she was still willing to stay with him and raise her son, their son, the fruit of their once life-saving love. She still wanted to stay and provide Obinna with food and shelter and care. She still believed that their love could come to life again. She was aware that her promiscuity was just borne out of her canal craving for handsome faces. It was just a canal feeling and so she still had hope that her marriage could one day stand up again because everything canal definitely comes to its natural death, one day. If only Obinna would reason with her now, would understand and play his own part, play along with her in her decision and efforts to save their home from his occultist mother, according to the pastor of her church, pastor Enoch. If only he would listen to her and forget about that witch he called mother, as pastor Enoch put it, who was responsible for the accident and the ill wind blowing in their home.

She had quickly consulted the pastor after the accident. And after due prayers and fasting, the man of God came to a conclusion. There was an insider who belonged to a sea cult and in her craving for power; she had chosen to sacrifice the family to the wicked spirits of the sea in exchange for enormous power.

He, the pastor was a huge man, always wearing black Italian blazer double buttons suit. He spoke with the authority that had come to define him and made him the most powerful and respected man of God in town. And all the while he spoke, his large distant gaze was on Obinna’s mother who for some inexplicable reasons had sustained no injuries at all from the deadly accident which had claimed chinenye’s breast and completely destroyed Obinna’s face. After the prayers, Adure’s mind was made up. Even before the man of God called her to her room to warn her seriously that the witch must be removed from their home and that all ties with her must be broken forever, she had already decided on what to do.

The next day, after she had gone to see Obinna at the ICU of the teaching hospital and, cried herself out, beside his bed and unconscious body, she returned home and sent the old woman away.Obinna returned from the hospital, a frail and dependent man and only Adure’s love kept him going during those difficult months of his discharge, months that the reality of his new physical deformities settled in. He had lost the use of his left arm in addition to the irreparable facial deformities and the dripping smelly saliva. He said nothing about his mother.

Time passed and the name of his mother was never mentioned in the family anymore. The old woman somehow understood and, in her desire to save his son’s marriage, she accepted her fate and willed her son to play along. She didn’t need to explain things because everyone apart from Adure understood that she could not possibly be the cause of the accident. And she also hoped that no one would blame Adure because anyone who felt the crushing blow of the accident as she did would understand that it was normal for her to believe the pastor’s words. She was so shaken and paranoia overwhelmed her.

Time passed and in the old woman’s stoic and silent grief, she fell sick but, kept it secret, until she got worse and worse until she was at the verge of dying. She still didn’t want to tell her son for fear of causing a problem in her son’s marriage but some relatives got the words across to Obinna.

That was how they got to this breaking point. Obinna was determined not to abandon his mother in her last days. And for the past five days, his mind had been occupied by the details of his storied life’s journey with his mother. From when he was in primary school when his father sent them away and his ikwunne rejected them too because his mother had disobeyed them and got married to the man from Mba ise who was said to have been an armed robber. He thought about those days of his primary school when he and his mother hawked boiled corn and lived in a batcher in Ngelevu ghetto on ugwualferd in Enugu. He thought about his secondary school days when he had to go to Aba to hustle until he got a scholarship with which he attended university. All the while, his mother had stuck to her rosary and divine mercy prayers.


He had been deeply in thought and could not sleep the night after the party. When the first cock crowed, he looked into the picture of his mother in her wedding dress and his tears and saliva wet his pillow significantly. He peered into the other picture he was holding which had his mother holding him as the priest poured the baptism water on his enfant head and suddenly, his limbs began to shake and then he got up from the bed. He got dressed quickly and rushed to Adure’s room. He knocked heavily twice and then said.

“Ada, I’m going home now and I’m going to bring mama with me. She needs medical care, and she should be here with us for proper care” and without waiting for her to respond, he was off to the motor park.

As he walked briskly towards the motor park, he was thinking of one thing: the first thing he would do when he got back to the city and inevitably found Adure’s divorce notification on the table would be to take his mother on an evening walk along the streets of independent layout, to admire the golden yellow street lights. At least the old woman deserved it before meeting her death.

Obinna,  walking into the sunset,  alone. 

Written by Nnaemeka Ugwu. @All rights reserved.

The sad truth -we are unaware that we are all slaves.

It's not uncommon, these days, to hear people, especially teenagers affirm vehemently that they are the sole custodians of their decisions and principles. They tell now,  more than ever, self destructing lies like "I see all these things in the media,  I watch and read immoral things  but, they don't affect me."

My teenage friend, after levelling vicious, veiled insult and attack on me, for daring to criticise a writer's view on sex and teenage relationships,  finally said to me:

"I'm a teenager, I grew up reading a piled up collection of James Hadley Chase novels my dad had acquired over the years. Some teenagers have read worse, they haven't killed people or gone into prostitution. I just don't think the book and the concepts in it should be enough for someone with common sense to want to try out everything in it."

After thinking it over and looking critically into the comment,  I saw it clearly - people,  especially the new age kids, will never see it- that they are being manipulated by the people in charge of the media,  the custodians and makers of culture. And that's the tragedy. We are all but lost.

Brainwashed sheep,  time to wake up. 

Lost! Because, yes, we know that  human beings have freewill but, we fail or refuse to know that that will is heavily influenced by external ideologies and cultural changes. We refuse to acknowledge that  the human mind  is gullible,  more gullible than anything else and,  daily,  every minute, every second, the world around us alter our principles,  our perception of things, our souls. Most times  we, sadly, think that this does not happen; we think  we are in charge. But,  ultimately,  we are wrong. We are all slaves to the influence of the world around us.

Most people are confused and do not know where they are going. Most times, we  just go with whatever is in vogue, whatever the world around us tells  us is OK; and most times, we are unaware of this. Whatever  the rich,  the popular, the successful and powerful people do or say, reigns supreme in our hearts. We follow without knowing it that we are following. Like sheep.

The elites know this gullibility of ours,  this weakness of our spirits and so, they  exploit it in their bid to shepherd and control us; they publicise or create Ideologies and cultures that best serve their interests and, they find ways to imprint these ideologies and cultures in our souls.

Sometimes, these ideologies are good and designed to help organise the society at large, for good.  Yet,  other times,  they are designed to 'dumb down' the people, by encouraging them to self destruct,  weaken them, and then, make them easy to rule.

And most recently,  the aim has been to create a new population of humans who do whatever they want,  irreverent of tradition and culture or religion. This is aimed at wrestling from the tenets of conservatism and religion,  the souls of the people, who'd then, do the bidding of the puppet masters.

'Dumbing down' meaning: get the  people down  by clouding their thinking,  their principles; make them revel in their frailties. They'd become pliable, easy to control.

A myriad of methods have been used in the past to achieve this but, non has been as powerful and successful as the system being used today-media power.

Ever since Goldenberg invented the printing press, the society has been virtually in the hands of the  few who know how to use it. The invention of TV, Internet, etc, has further solidified this situation. And, in this era of blind 'worship' of super stars, they- the  supers stars, are heavily being used to propagate the favoured ideologies and cultures.

An illustration of how the big corporations and elites control the masses. 

They are now being used to hack into the minds of the people, to get them to follow like sheep, to do whatever the elites want. Our kids and teenagers now want to dress,  walk,  behave and live like Miley Cyrus,  Beyonce,  Niki minaj etc, without even knowing it.

Some ideologies are encouraged while others are not. It depends on what the elites want. Example,  Some western literature are banned in China because, China suffered a lot in the  hands of the West in the  past  and are now trying to avoid anything western, clouding the  minds of its people.

Religious teaching,  especially orthodox  religious teachings like that of the Catholic Church and belief in God are now being subtly discouraged in Western schools because, the elites do not really agree with such things these days because,  religion and belief in God takes the eyes and hearts of the people from the iron fists of the people who crave the power of government. There are myriad other examples.

Movies that encourage tolerance of gays, for example, are now being encouraged in Hollywood and every other outlet of information. This is so clear in the movie 'spartacus',  where Characters like  Agro,  Saka, and Nassier are so beautifully designed that, in spite of their sexuality, which many viewers frown at, they are so loved by same viewers because, they are designed as great characters with profound human souls. My favourite character is Agro,  by the way. Which one was yours? And please,  note,  I'm NOT against gays; I was just making an illustration.

Music and videos that encourage nudity and vanity are now,  more than ever, being promoted in the hip hop world. Those who are making and selling this culture know why, what they want to achieve with it. The more explicit your work is,  the  more endorsement you get; the more vain,  the more awards you get.

And the people are just lapping up everything because, these things are associated with rich, popular super stars whom they-the people, literally 'worship'. Some of us even try to imitate every bit of the lives of our superstars.  My own stars are Chimamanda and Lucky Dube; we all have our own stars.

And in the future,  people are going to be quoting and living the words from today's super stars, no matter whether these words are worth quoting or not, irrespective of whether these super stars are good role models or not. The kids will inevitably look up to them,  emulate them. Super stars like Kim Kandashan, Snoop Dog, Rihanna, super stars like Mily Cyrus,  etc.

Remember that popular Merylin Monroe quote that is on the lips of every female human being,  today?

"I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle.But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best"

Now, I don't necessarily hate Merylin Monroe but,  I wouldn't want my daughter or my wife or girlfriend to be making that quote. It reeks of selfishness,  self-centeredness and an inability to consider other people's feelings. I mean we have flaws  but,  we should try to curb our flaws or at least feel sorry for them,  instead of glorifying them.

That's a classical illustration of the power of super stars in shaping the people's lives. Women and girls now quote and believe and live that Merylin Monroe quote,  today, because it was made by a very big super star. And the sad thing is that most of these women and girls do not even know who Merylin Monroe was, what she stood for, what she believed in,  what  that quote implies.

The end result is this: the people end up being just what their puppet masters-the elites, want them to be. And they-the people,  the  masses, all of us, will even be ready to fight whoever  tries to interfere. Or criticize.

I recently had an ugly experience on Facebook when some of my guys, ganged up against me,  called me the worst names in the  world,  just  because  I tried to criticise Tiwa Savage's 'wanted' video. Lolz! It was my fault; I criticised their goddess.  I know I would defend Lucky Dube fiercely, too..

Picture of Tiwa Savage's wanted video. 

We get so absorbed into what is shown to us,  thrown to our faces,  fed to us in the books and news pages, the Internet, until it's becomes part of us and we are ready to die for  it.

We have become,  are gradually becoming, what people like Allister Crowley wanted us to become years ago- a people who no longer possess souls,  only doing what their cravings and desires require. "Do what thou Willeth"  was the law he created. And through the media,  that law has been perfected in this new age.

Remember  the Germans? After  being  indoctrinated with Nazi ideologies, they were all ready to  die for  it. And die for it, they did. Likewise, the Japanese soldiers were so deeped in the  samurai teachings,  during the second world war, that many of them killed themselves rather than surrender.

The Japanese militarist government, during the war began disseminating propaganda that romanticized suicide attack, using one of the virtues of Bushido as the basis for the campaign. The Japanese government presented war as purifying, with death defined as a duty. "Tenno Heika Banzai" (天皇陛下萬歲 ? , "Long live the Emperor"), the unsuspecting soldiers would shout before charging, with empty guns and bayonet, against American machine guns,  only to be cut down like grass.

Think  about what happened during the sexual revolution when it was reported that some motherless and fatherless children were raised in secret kindergartens where they were made to fondle adult sex organs, etc.  Reason? They wanted to remove any scepticism or fear the children might have had about sex and morality.

They wanted to make the  children into adults, free to explore their sexuality without restrictions.

These children, reportedly, finally grew up to help in exploding the pornography industry and spreading the message that "sex is NOT  IMMORAL, outside marriage". This is still subject to serious verification, though.

In the same vein, the apartheid government, to an extent, successfully dumbed down the  blacks by flooding the  ghettos with drugs and alcohol and by encouraging sexual decadence  in the ghettos.

This is similar to the opium trade which the  British  perpetrated in China. It was documented that the  British flooded China with opium in a bid to get the  people too drugged and confused to ask questions. There are  other  countless examples.

However, I have to say  that the people's freewill is not entirely lost. There are millions of cases where the  people,  by luck or by chance, have been able to say  "No" to exploitation and manipulation and the  likes. But,  at least, we can  be sure that the freewill; thus the society, is still heavily altered by what  is fed into the people.

So, when things go wrong, as they sure have, in this age of teen pregnancy,  STI, divorce, rebellious children, single parenting etc, we shouldn't talk about the people's freewill ALONE, and say " Oh, the people are to be blamed because, they have their freewill to choose good over evil." We shouldn't start looking at the  misleading statistics all over the  media. We shouldn't start looking up to theories that certainly do not apply in reality.

We should rather, also talk about the ideologies and cultures that alter the people's freewill because, the peoples' freewill is shaped by the ideologies and cultures they are exposed to,  just as The  Egyptian,  Roman,  Persian and, Greek cultures ruled the lives of the people of the world  during the various  times of reign of those countries.

Those people were the 'happening' people at those various times and everyone wanted to be like them. likewise, the dominant cultures of today,  mainly American and European cultures are completely dictating our lives today.

In my opinion, in order to get our wayward,  sheeple  selves,  and, society of today back to our senses, in order to combat HIV, Rape, teenage pregnancy,  family breakdown etc, we have to root out the wrong  individualistic, vain, and other wrong ideologies and ways of life that rule our lives now and, replace them,  we must, with the ones that will return us to the right path. And,  I mean,  replace them all over the world : in the  schools,  in religion, institutions, media(Movie,  music,  books  etc) and other  outlets of information and knowledge,  the world over.

Remember what Mao did once he got in power? He brought about a cultural revolution that completely destroyed the low,  slave mentality of the  Chinese, ushering  them into an era of self belief and glory. Foreign cultures,  literature and literally every form of Western entertainment were all banned,  allowing the Chinese to build their society the Chinese way.

No one is ever free until he is completely emancipated from mental slavery. Join  me,  let's single with Bob marley.

The legendary Bob marley sang to educate the masses about the way the elites tries to enslave th masses mentally 

Emmancipate yourself from mental slavery
Non but ourselves can free our minds
I have no fear for atomic energy
Cos non of them can stop the  time.
How  long shall they kill our brothers

Golden yellow street lights (chapter one)

                                                 

                                                         
Obinna looked on as Adure stared straight into his eyes; hers were wide and hard. And her words too, like they had been for the past ten months, cut very deeply, very deeply into his heart. He looked on, unable to speak like a funeral ram. And a shroud of self pity was fast obscuring his eyes.

''I told you not to come to this place,” Adure fumed. “You knew quite well that your presence is not needed here......in fact….. When you are done staying here, just find your own way …I mean, do not dare come close to my car,'' she glared before sizing him up from head to toe, rapidly. And then, briskly, she walked away, back into the hall, leaving him standing at the gate where she had called him out.

It was her birthday and also his and ever since they met, they had always celebrated together. But with the turn of things, recently, he should’ve known better than to turn up at the lavish party which held at the glitzy Blue Island hotel, independence Layout.

He did not know what to do; whether to stay till the end of the ceremony or to start going home; confused and ashamed like he’d been for the past ten months yet, he waited, enough time for her to calm down, before he went back inside the hall; he could not take his eyes off her. The crowd of friends and families was already dancing in the mist of the glitz and affluence and perfumes and flying naira notes. Adure was in the middle of the dancing; her red sequined silk gown fluttering as she danced. She had become a lot more shinny, a lot more alluring.

Those who were not dancing kept their eyes on her dancing and at the back of the hall, sat Obinna with them, talking to whoever cared to listen on how he loved his wife so much; how he was so happy for her on her birthday; how he often looked forward to this special day ever since he met his wife, because the day gave the world the chance to see his Adure through the lenses of his own eyes. He lurked until the party was over and all the guests gone before he started walking out of the hotel premises. He was dressed in his favorite cooperate wear of the F&F ash colored shirt and the GUCCI black pants whose boot cut trim rested on his St. Michael’s brogues shoes. And save for his face, he almost looked like the gorgeous Obinna of old. As he walked, he replayed his wife’s dance in his head. It was as new as ever.

His beautiful Adure! To him she will always be beautiful regardless of people’s opinion: the orange shaped face, the short flat nose, and the near Caucasian lips were ever new, more beautiful in his eyes, with each new day.  And her straight build never told the story of childbirth and her dancing would forever appeal to him. All her near weakly feminine attributes glowed in his eyes just like they did during the first months of their courtship when they were drunk with love, when they went all night clubbing at Erina hotels on weekends.

She'd always known how to dance-the one thing about her that appealed to other men other than him. She’d always known how to wind and twist her V-shaped waist; her lean body until all masculine eyes around came falling at her feet. And, those days, she'd get him up even before they got home and he could barely wait. Today, as he watched her dance her beautiful self into his eyes and heart, he momentarily wished the clock would go back to those good old days when he often woke up with a headache after nights of bliss with her. He still desired her, perhaps, more than ever but, that was now like hanging his cloak where his hands would not get to. Like a poor man desiring Owerri soup, Ofe Owerri.

His walk home was heavy and tiresome. He was hungry and wanted to get home quickly to see if he would find something to bite on to give him the strength for the big thinking that lay ahead. He was hungry because while still at the hotel he’d totally lost appetite because he was scared he would choke while eating and perhaps create a scene which Adure would not have liked and so, he did not receive the food given to him by the over decorated, over painted serving girls who handed out pre-packed meal of fried rice. And again he had wanted to avoid Adure’s hard eyes which had been growing hand in hand with her upward movement in her new job at Enugu state broadcasting cooperation, her hard eyes which she had cast on him two days ago at the book reading of his friend Taiwo, when he had stood up to ask a question and saliva poured out from his mouth. The same wide eyes which grew hardest five days ago when she threatened to walk away if he disobeyed her as regards to his mother.

But, beneath the bite of his hungry stomach, lay the even sharper bite of the reality of his situation. And also, there was the fear in his belly of Adure’s harsh words nowadays. ''Since you didn't provide any money for food, how do you expect to eat food eh?” she had asked two days ago when he had asked her for food after he had called his mother to ask of her health. And so, he slowed his pace and all of a sudden, he did not want to get home anymore. He looked up then to stare at the golden yellow street lights lining the street and they were lovely to behold. This was why he liked the governor; his aggressive modernization effort had made the city beautiful at night and at times like this, the streets were good for a lonely sad walk ridden with painful thinking and self pity; the one exercise that he loved to engage in times of difficulty. And so he slowed down even more, briefly forgetting the hunger gnawing on his stomach mucosa, as the thoughts invaded his mind. Would thing have turned out differently if he had married someone else? What did he do wrong? Perhaps he did not play his cards well as David De Angelo, his favorite author on relationship matters would say on his blog? Any failed relationship is the fault of the guy Angelo would announce at the beginning of all his blogs. His pace got slower and slower and he drifted unaware, into the middle of the road. His ear piece was in his ear and Enrique Iglesias’s “maybe” played loud.

He was standing in the middle of the road; lost in thought, when he was jolted by the blaring of a million horns behind him. The impatient angry commuters laid curses at him. He had always thought the city of Enugu to be a soft city filled with even softer people unlike cities like Aba and Onisha which were filled with hard impatient and ambitious people who would trample on anyone who blocked their way. But now for a brief moment, he thought he was in Aba all over again; Aba, the hot city which had initiated him into manhood when he spent two years there hustling to raise money for his mother’s treatment when she had breast cancer.

“Go tell whoever sent you say you no see me o” somebody yelled from a yellow cab which had just stopped suddenly behind him.

“Yeye man. Go hug transformer” another shouted from a green keke.

Still, Obinna could not move. The whole drammer had him dazed, fixed like a statue. Then, a ferocious looking keke driver jumped out of his keke and made for him, grabbed him by the collar, dragged him to the pedestrian lane and then flung him by the side before walking back to his keke. There was a noisy murmur of approval from the other commuters. The mad man had been removed from the road. And life could move on again.

This was the climax of the story of his life and as he staggered to his feet he let out an awkward giggle, with tears wetting his eyelids.

“Obinno Odoh. This is what you have come to; this is the result of love and marriage.” he muttered.  Yes, it was easy for him to lay the blame on his love for Adure and his marriage to her because what killed him most, now, was not that his life had crumbled but, the sadness arising from his knowing that his love  for Adure had betrayed him. It had given him a brief hope of happiness in his mostly sad life and then left him abruptly in no man’s land; he had built his life around it. What weighed him down were not the difficulties he was facing in all aspects of his life but, the fact that the love he shared with Adure, the very phenomenon he valued most and which had been the driving force of his life was on the verge of extinction. And at the moment, he did not want to, could not think of living with this loss.

Before now, he would have taken whatever life threw at him stoically as a man. Like when he had to sell roast corn to pay his way through school. Or when he watched his father’s people chase him and his mother away after his father had abandoned them; in all these difficulties, he always rose like a phoenix but, the loss of the love of his life was too much to bear.
"There is nothing left to lose after losing you,"
Enrique was singing and he nodded to the slow beat. The melancholy brewing in his heart was getting red hot and once again in his life, he found himself contemplating suicide. But how could he be so selfish?
Who would take care of his mother if he took his own life now?
Who would father Obiajulu?
And so, suddenly, as quickky as it came, that thought of the relief to be derived from taking his own life was instantly stripped away from his heart.  He sat down on the pavement and began to cry.

Love conquers all.

The old  man always told me  something. "love your wife, your family above everything else.  Give no room for  ego. Always remember that whatever you do in your family,  you do it for no one else but yourself."

And you'll love him, the  old  man. He was a real man; his love for his family was as bare as early morning sunshine. And they loved him back. It was also as glaring.

Day and night, they all gathered around  him,  his family. Even as he was dying of TB, they held onto his hands,  telling him that they were proud of him,  how special he was, how he was still the most handsome.

His wife  stood out: strickingly beautiful in a youthful sort of way. So  beautiful and young that yesterday,  I had to ask myself  how on earth such a young beautiful lady could love an old man so. The  answer was not far-fetched.

Remember, that word 'love'.  It is not just  a spoken word,  it's a habit; it should  be. A habit  borne out of a daily renewed decision to keep  being the  best you can be to the  people you care about. It is,  giving your whole self,  your  spirit,  your  pride.

The  old man was surrounded by love because he had sown love. And, in my years of practice,  I've never seen such a family as his. United and extremely bound together; they  personified  family love. They were ever present in the  hospital, every one eager to stay behind with him. And laughter always rang out from his  ward room. I've never seen such happiness in a dying  man.

"My children na anwa ike ha", he always told me. They are my, happiness, my joy and I can say that I have the best family in the  world.  Their love has given me the  chance to die with a smile on my afflicted face."

When I commended his wife for the way she had been taking care of the  old man, she told me "the old man is the best husband and father in the world, we only wish we could have him with us, forever", before breaking down in tears.

Initially,  I thought she was crying because of financial reasons but,  I was wrong. For, there was a young, beautiful,  successful lawyer,  crying because, she was about to lose her loving husband.
"The loss of the love he brings to our family will be  devastating, " she said.

Over the  years,  I've certainly,  always  thought about  it. "It is better to have loved and loved and loved again than never to have loved at all." Though,  through the  days of my youth I did derail constantly from this thought,  it's content  have always  stayed somewhere in my soul, even if only  dormant.

And now,  that I am a man and wanting to  settle down,  I am beginning to think  again. Love  is selfless, it should  be and, selflessness is giving up myself, my all for another whom I love.

So, I have decided to be a real  man,  to put my wife and family above all things,  including myself.  And now  I will try my best to get people to  share in love once more,  to see its essence as it really is, as it  has always been.

"It holds the family  together.  It is what make relationships really  blissful. We should  leave no stones unturned when we express it. We have to."

"Young men should always bear in mind that being loving does not translate to being  weak. You must  make clear, the difference because, only when you do, will you actually,  completely express all the  love bottled up in your soul." the sage said.

"We should try to  help out with house chores. There is  nothing wrong with getting into the kitchen to cook for  your family.  Even when your wife is there. There's nothing wrong with going to the market to buy food stuff and provisions. Neither  is there anything wrong with waking up at night to change the  baby's diaper. " He explained, further.

" men should get more incorporated into the running of the  home; it will foster a greater and stronger family unity. "

"There's  something magically loving and lovely about a guy  who tidies up the  house while the  wife is busy with the  children.  There is something princely about the guy who looks into the  woman's eyes and tells her 'you are tired,  baby,  let me  do the  chores' ".

In the years of youth,  I used to think these little acts of affection and selflessness were tantamount to weaknesses but,  now I know  how  wrong  I was.

In this era of divorce and counter divorce; this era when ego and pride is threatening the very fabrics of our existence,  only  a reinvention of selflessness and spirit of compromise in both  sexes can lead us to true  happiness.

And after years of research and interaction with people and, close study of families,  I have come to realise that the happiest ones are those who live in their barest forms,  without any sophistication. We have to live in our simplest from,  we have to shed every  bit of negative ego in our lives.

"I am the man of the  house ; I am the bread winner in this  house ; I feed and cloth you; I trained you, etc. "

The old man  said, these kind of words should be thrown into the  trash.

"When people are married,  they should always bear in mind that they  have become one,  one flesh, one soul."

The men should stand up once again to  fight for the  family, for their women, once again. Fight against all odds, including your ego. Fight against those bottles of beer and those tingling cravings for other women.

Make the sacrifice for that little empire you have created- your family. Because, it's failure is your failure. It's success is your success.

There's no gain in reveling in your vices in the  name of being in charge of yourself.

You don't have to spend your life in the  bar,  against the pleas and tears of your wife,  before you become a real 'in charge' man.

You don't gain anything by running after every woman in the name of the  lie that 'men are just like that'.  Stop saying "no one can tell me what to do".  Listen to your woman; she is part of your soul,  now.

The  thing is, in all you do,  remember,  the  family you have raised is the most important unit of human existence. You owe humanity a well groomed family. It starts and ends with how much you are willing to sacrifice for its sake.


These were the words of the old man who had seen life in its most beautiful  and brutal form. Yet, there he  stood with a smile on his face, in the  face of it all.

Days later after he had died, I asked his wife what kind of man he was, and she replied:

"His love defeated me in my misguided pride and extreme feminist attitude. I never thought I would love a man, after all my father did to my mother; he literally made her his slave. So, you can imagine my notion of men and love, growing up; you can imagine how many men I turned down. But, he came along and he defeated my skepticism towards men. His selflessness towards me, made me believe. Now........" she  sobbed.


Make your own deductions.

For me,  I say... The family is what the men make it. The more selfless and humble and loving, the men are,  the more stable the families will be.

Offcourse, the women must do the same.

We are children of the morning.

The rain was heavy,  the flood,  knee high.  The battlefield was burning. We were running.

The night came with terror. The battle took our hearts.  We were left quivering, bracing up for our death. And there was dessent in our ranks.

The men, looking into the eyes of the high sky beings, asked questions. "You left us to die; you let the plague bleed our children". In their eyes, there were dark rain clouds blinding our hope, as it has been for years.

Years that the night walkers spent, throwing blackened threats to our faces, reveling in the flow of our vulnerable tears. And when our children cried,they said they squealed like cats. Our golden children who came from the shores of the watery gods.

Our brave men fought fiercely, marched through the stony path.  Weighed down by the bodies of our pregnant women, they engaged the  steeled night men in a storm battle. A fierce battle that left them dead in the morning. You can imagine how downcast our spirits got. It was like a mother losing her newborn at birth, after seasons of painful labour.

Oh! Look at us, born free on the eve of the coronation of the the virgin Prince. We should live; we are the rightful heir to the blissful life in the garden of blooming cherries. But, now we are threatened with a life of fear and slavery by the tiny creature of the night.

So, we gathered at the feet of the breathing deities, seeking their face, to end our misery. We called on them even though we had cursed them, earlier. But, our men who cursed them were now dead and we had no shame.

We pleaded, humbled in spirit, bowed of heads. "Let us live again, let us grow crops again, let our women raise children again" we pleaded.

But, the gods only laughed.

They  Laughed at our fearful faces, our streaming eyes. They were amused at our lack of faith. " How are they so fickle?" they asked.

But, their laughter soon got pained, filled with disappointment.

They got sad because we could not see our souls, our steely hearts that could win the war against the forces that besieged us. So they angrily sent us away. "Go find your path" they said to us" their faces, bitter. "Look within, for our guiding hands"

We left as the gate of the temple shot at our faces.

* * *

Come on then, brothers, let us be on our way. Let us go back to the the hearth of our birth where our cords sleep. Let us find shelter in our feeble hands. And eschew anger in our hearts for the gods, for they are full of love for us.

Remember, on our birth, they said to us " go forth and conquer."

They dream of the day when we'll stand on our  green feet unaided. They want to hear our victory song.

So,  sing therefore  with me,  brothers, sing:

We march to the frontline, to fight.
We march to the dark field
to rip our children from the thorny hands
of the storm pirates.

We march

Within us, lies the key to our eternal freedom.
Within us, lies the path  to our healing.

We march.

We are children of the morning
Within us,  lies the power of the gods........

On love and sex.

Sex is very good and pleasurable and sweet thrilling. It can make us go gagger, forgetting ourselves. But, the way we abuse it is wrong.

The way we make it the center stage, the priority; the way we build our lives around it is pathetic and, dangerous. And, if we fail to arrest the situation, we'll lose the most important concept which is love.

There's never been a great man who became great becos of his sexual conquests nor a woman who became great becos of her sexual promiscuity. Bill Gate became great becos of his brain and Celine Dion became great becos of her voice and musical talent.

There's never been a game changing invention or innovation that came through sexual thrill. And our forefathers built this our great world becos they focused their energy on the more important things in life-love, marriage, family.

In their time, love survived without sex and marriages survived alot longer; people stayed married even when the pleasure of sex was long dimnished.
Becos they controlled their cravins, shamful behaviour like infidelity was unheard of. So much unlike thìs our age when married people prefer sexual pleasure to love and children and once the pleasures of sex goes down, our marriages/relationships come apart and as a result, infidelity is rife in our time and is tearing our families and relationships apart.

An example is this: before the invention of the contraceptive pill and the sexual revolution which it helped bring about, marriages were sacred and survived most difficulties it faced. And divorce was quite very low. Relationship s were more valuable; we were a lot happier. But, all that changed with the advent of sexual revolution. And soon, people will prefer to have sex with machines rather than fellow humans. Soon, our sacred institution of marriage and family will become a distant memory.

The greats became great because they had control over their bodies, their cravings and cherrished self mortification. And when they enjoyed sex, they did in the most honorable way, the most dignified manner. So, much unlike us, the present age, who are willing to let our entire existence go in flames just so we could satisfy all our cravings. And how pathetic are we!

Believe me, people, our world, our lives will have greater and bigger, more lasting meaning, if we should exert a greater control over our cravings especially Sexual cravings which is both the most beautiful thing and the most dangerous thing in our lives.

Let us go back to our roots, the way it was in the days when human dignity and LOVE was all that mattered. Days when sex  was secondary and love was primary. Those days when relationships were built on love and sex came as a blessing to that love and we were alot happier.

Diamond Candle

Vast, whose real name is Nwachukwu Ozioko, the lead Singer of the Nigerian HipHop group, 'The Brackets,' grew up in the same street as me.

He was just one of us-boys of slaughter road nsukka, who woke up every morning to go and fetch water at ''work and Pay''  or  bore-hole and on saturdays, to the Timber shed to fetch saw dust used as fuel for cooking. I got to know him through  Ambrose Onah, my clasmate during our confirmatiom cathechism classes and I remember him-Vast, shaking my hand with both of his, as a mark of respect, when I got admission into UNN. But, the last time I saw him in Nsukka amist cheers of ''yori yori'' from all and sundry, especially the numerous Children that hawked one thing or the other, at Enugu road junction, I was too scared to walk up to him and shake his hand.

How could I have mustered the 'liver' to move close,  to greet or shake hands with a celebrity who moved in the company of big shots like Emeka Mama, Dekumzy and Emeka Onyishi- peace mass transit CEO? That was a guy I used to look down on, during the days of our youth, because  I saw him as one of those street kids who did not do well in school.

You see, life is a very long and strange journey. One in which where you have been does not have much influence on where you are going. It is one in which that single diamond candle which your maker put in you when he made you can, one day, in a heart beat, easily calm whatever dusty storm you are passing through or have passed through, and illuminate your way up to the sky, enabling you to be among the stars as one of them. If only you will look-out for it-that Heaven made Candle and light it up.

It doesn't require a University degree for you to do that. It doesn't matter that you were born without a Silver spoon. It does not require that you must be handsome or beautiful, tall or short.
It does not require that you must be brilliant.

This same Vast of a guy attended the worst school in Nsukka (Nru boys). He was born out of wedlock. He was often dirty just like any of us then. He was often in a hurry, running errands for his grandmother who used to fry Akara at Enugu road junction.

Who could've predicted then, that he would be living in Lekky by now? Who could've thought that in less than five years after secondary school during which he spent his free and break periods rapping Tupac to entertain his classmates, that he would be standing on the stage now, with the very best of Nigerian Artists?


I've been listening to their latest Album and the track 'only time' has been on repeat for two days now. In the song, he enjoins anyone, every youth struggling now, to look at them(Brackets) and, their story, and know that there is always light at the end of the tunnel. He sings:
   
 
''I remember when we dey beg for money because 'Happy day' wey we sing no dey bring us money and our producer dey vex with us say him dey invest money but him dey get no return. But, see us today. We be Brackets and we sing song of the year. We feature Psquare and Tuface, MI and Banky....frustration don go away.
My brother, in whatever you do, just dey work hard and pray and surely, one day, God go bless your work...''


There are many more guys like him who made it from no where and ,you, my guys out there, can always look up to them as examples of what your God given talents can do for you. You can name them:

Tuface, Psquare, Mikel Obi, Ronaldinho, Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Jay Jay(Pa Jay) Okocha, Victor Moses. Just name them. They are so many, more than I can count.


I'm proud to be an Nsukka boy and Am proud of you 'Vast',
Nwachukwu, nwanne Oluchi.

Our country, our land

The country is under siege, my people. There are dark shadows crouching over us,  shrouding our eyes. Yes,  we are at war with our own. And like cannibals, our brothers and sisters have taken up arms against their innocent siblings for no just cause. And our morale is low. Our spirits,  downcast.  Deep down,  we are bleeding.

Our situation is especially tricky and sad because our leaders are making effort , doing  what they can to solve our problems but our own people who should help in nation building are the very ones who are sabotaging our leaders' effort ,  for the selfish reason that they want power. Not just political power but,  religious power as  well.

And so they go about destroying their defenseless siblings in order to make the nation chaotic, so that they would rip power from the hands of those we democratically elected to lead us. And here, I am talking about Boko Haram,  not the North as a whole. As, we all know,  Boko Haram have made it open that their aim is to overthrow the government and subsequently impose sharia.

It has always been the method from the ancient times, that the power hungry employed in order  to seize control of people: create chaos, disorganize the people,  turn them against their leaders and then,  strike at their hearts and rip them out and then,  totally control the people,  the land.

That has been the way of power hungry evil men from the ancient times. The same trick that those who have besieged our country are employing and sadly,  from the way it stands,  it appears they are succeeding, because, we are now, effectively turning against our leaders, and,  ultimately,  we are playing into the hands  of  Boko Haram. And soon,  they will overrun the country if we do not recover our senses,  our patriotism.

There are now senseless and crass demonstrations and march all over the country and, movements all over the media, calling on our 'weak' government to resign. We now think our government weak because some of our people have chosen to sabotage all the government's effort to run the country effectively and that is sad.

A times,  I wonder whether we as a people actually reason properly. I mean,  how would a  right thinking person believe that the government is actually doing nothing about Boko Haram?

Why are we just glibly believing the words of our enemies about our elected leaders? They-our enemies, pull the strings supporting the insurgency in the dark and then come out in the light and say that the government is weak and we sheepishly believe. What can really be more deplorable than this?

If you were the president,  what would you do if the people that are working with you constantly stab at y our back,  taking advantage of the nation's woes to help their own quest for power?  What would you do as the president,  if you send your soldiers to do one thing,  and they go and do another,  because they are also sharing in the beliefs of the enemy?

How would you fight the battle if the people who elected you in power now choose the words of the enemy instead of your own, calling for you to f***ck off because you are 'weak'?

Would you just order the killing of everyone,  even the innocent to show that you are strong? Would you invade Sambisa forest with a brutish force, even though Boko Haram  have threatened to kill those girls if they sense any attempt at rescuing them?

Would you order a brutish destruction of the North just to get at boko Haram,  when even the police action you are undertaking is already being termed 'genocide'  by the same people you are trying to liberate. Let us please, be fair  and considerate.

No true leader ever wins a battle without the support of the people. And in our case,  how can our president fight if all we do is blame him and echo the words of the enemy,  instead of his,  calling him 'weak'  and ineffective,  instead of supporting him?

The thing is: The president is not weak. He is not ineffective.  A look at the other parts of the country,  how peaceful and prosperous they are, will testify to the fact that Jonathan's government is the best we've had. There are medium and large scale indigenous industries springing up everywhere. Our economy is now the best in Africa. Our states are developing faster than ever because the president does not interfere in state affairs.

Because,  these other parts of the country are inhabited by people who actually want peace,  things have gone well with them,  something that can not be said of the North.

I'm not trying to be tribalistic here; I'm only being realistic. How can Jonathan effectively defeat Boko Haram when most of the people inhabiting the besieged states are Boko Haram sympathizers? Indeed,  it will be impossible. Even, the Nigerian army is heavily infested with enemy sympathisers.

So, it's high time we began  to stand behind our president. It's high time we tore down those banners,  reading "Jonathan out," and replace them with ones reading "we are together in this fight and together,  we shall win"

I also plead with our Northern  siblings  to help the president. Instead of accusing him of trying to commit genocide, they should lend their backing and information on how to strike at the heart of the insurgency.

And again,  our dear 'elites'  like Iyabor Obasanjo should lend their help and support  instead of encouraging the people to turn against the government. I was so disappointed when  I  heard that she was sympathising with BH in their 'revolution',  in that open letter of hers which I'm yet  to read,  anyway. I thought that someone with the kind of education she has should be able to understand the difference between  revolution  and what  BH  is doing.

If GEJ steps down now,  tell me,  my people,  what next? Where next do we go?  Do you guys actually know the kind of chaos that would come upon us? Who do you guys think will do it better?

Have you guys ever heard of a leader deserting his people in times of trouble?Aren't you guys the same people who will call him coward if he should resign now with enough money in his pocket and perhaps move out of this country to enjoy his life elsewhere?
Let's stop all these blame game,  hypocrisy and,  self righteousness and embrace reality-that we are at war with the devil and that no president can win a war if he fights alone.

We have to stand together and fight as a single unit or fall as a divided one.

She wanted to be free

I saw something today!

One of my patients, a 15yrs old, previously beautiful girl and the only child of her parents, is currently struggling to survive the complications of a septic abortion she did, in a failed attempt to terminate a 15 weeks pregnancy. And men, what a sorry, tear-inducing figure she is! Pale, frail, sad, cachectic. And full of regrets. And, believe me, I cried today.

She was driven into having sex because she religiously read a feminist blogger who says that girls' sex life is being suppressed by society, parents and tradition and that girls should be free to exploit their sexuality without any 'peevish' family and traditional restrictions.

The blogger also convinced her to follow her feelings, her heart desires, neglecting the words of her parents, and their strict rules on boys.

So, the young girl rebelled on her 'oppressors' and went out to 'live her life the way she wanted'. Armed with adequate knowlege of Condom and contraception, etc, she went her own way, away from 'restrictions', to sexual adventure.

Of course, she ensured to use protection always, as her darling feminist blogger adviced. But, one day, she and her lover became so driven by too strong a passion that the protection failed and, boom! The semen travelled so fast that before she could realize that these protections fail when you need them to stay strong and that those people who encourage her to 'live her life the way she wants' do not, in the least, mean well for her, an embrayo was firmly implanted inside her womb.

She told me, hot tears inuandating her beautiful cheeks: "Doctor, I thought that I was doing the right thing. I thought that my parents were old fashioned and sophocating me. These people made me hate my parents"

Now, the only thing in her mind is

"I should've know that my parents meant well for me and were protecting me. I should've listened to them, knowing they are driven by their love for their only child"

She also told me "Doctor, please, ask my parents to forgive me. Pray for me to be able to forgive myself for hurting the people who love me so dearly, just because I was foolishly doing things 'my wrong way' ".

I just returned from the ward and now in my room, I'm begining to understand something: though we have the freedom to live our lives the way we want, we should bear in mind that our ways are not always right, hence, the need for us to listen to the criticisms of our elders, family, friends and loved ones.

Today's media have sucessfully brain washed our youths into sheepishly believing in individualsm and in that destructive new law of "Do what thou willeth", without telling them the fatal, mortal complications of that way of life. Complications capable of ending lives, in the most brutal fashion.

And, last month, a very famous writer, whom I love so much, INDIRECTLY, suggested we should teach the girls to become sexual beings, the way the boys are because if we don't, then, we are encouraging gender inequality. And, our brain washed masses sheepishly hailed her and swallowed her wrong teaching wholely, without thinking, just because she is a super star.

I wish, this famous person were here in the hospital so, I can show her this helpless girl who might never ever have children anymore because, she wanted to "be a sexual being the way the boys are."

And, please, hear me, I'm NOT encouraging the boys to become sexually promiscous. I'm just saying that we should protect the girl child, raise her to be very careful with her sexuality, irrespective of how the boys behave. Because after all said and done, its the girl who suffers more consequences. Even animals like chicken and goat know this.

It hurts me greatly that these so called famous people who do not have their own children yet, try to paint our parents and traditions as evil, just for making the love driven effort in protecting the girl child, knowing that she has so fragile an anatomy and physiology that her entire life could be destroyed by any little mistake.

I wish this famous feminist who kicked against nature by questioning the society's effort in protecting the girl child, sneering last month "We teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings
in the way that boys are", were here to see this little girl whose life has been tainted and threatened all because she wanted to be 'sexually free' like a boy. And, I wonder who told that lie that we raise the boys to become sexual beings.

Note, I'm NOT a preacher, NEITHER am I a born again christian. Infact, I do NOT belong to any religion.

Our story. (for UMSA 011 class)

We climbed the mountains
In slow snowy rain
We stretched our will
To hold the sun.

Past silent flashes of darkness
We soiled our feet and
Grew naked fruits
 We climbed the mountains
In slow snowy rain
We stretched our will
To hold the sun.

Past silent flashes of darkness
We soiled our feet and
Grew naked fruits
Each sunrise,
Built our defiant future.

And, our might grew
With each drop of our tears
With each coming of the night

We took shelter
Under the crimson flame tree
That held glowing birds.
We set out eyes
On the  purple alter
On the radiant saviour
On men who held in their hands
Songs of sorrow and joy....

With fought
With each clatter of breaking
Shadows
Each time, the  slavers came.

Now, the gathering comes to an end
Where the sails start to rise
And, the stars ascend the sky and,
We realise we must not go apart

We must await tomorrow
When onto the  stars sky
Our gazes will be

Above, where Uche and Nilla stand
Amist the stars
Arm in arm
With angels.

We rejoice!


March, 2011.

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