The Oil Thieves Of Thief Country by Niyi Osundare

The Oil Thieves Of Thief Country

Laden with the best of our sweetest crude,

Nice, smooth stuff, low-sulphur delight

Choicest take on the global market

Proud and prompt, it swayed on the sea

Parting waters bowed to

The weight of its wealth

Its fame spread beyond our shores

Banks beckoned, princes doffed their hats

Docks threw open their eager doors

But its charge, alas, was illegal,

Its costly cargo stolen from our sleeping shores

And so when sighted mid-sea

And pursued like a fleeing robber

It ran and ran, descending, clean,

Into the belly of the whale

From Bomadi to Abuja

From Forcados to Funtua

Sea hounds raced after the missing ship

Armed with candles

In the middle of the day

And hurricane lanterns and microscopes

They searched the waters

They combed the sands

They asked the minnows in their wondering shoals

The waters laughed

The minnows were amused

The sands chuckled beneath

Their floundering feet

They fumed and fumbled:

The Police blamed the Army

The Army cursed the Customs

The Customs nailed the Navy

The Navy neighed like a harried horse

Oh crude, crude, crude, this crude war

On our wondrous and wasted shores

A loaded tanker took to its heels

Vanishing fiam into the fish’s belly

A sticky truth, a viscous (de)vice

There is a salty ring in the voice

Of our lying chiefs.

Prince and prophet by day

A plundering pirate by night

The bunkerer has the key to the house of power

He knows the tricks of tribe and bribe:

Lift your loot and leap into wealth

This bounteous boom, our dreadful doom

Our blighted land and viscous rivers

Our nights aflare from infernal gas

The country is dumb, the Law is dead

This little ode to our faltering stride

And the vanishing magic of African Pride

Niyi Osundare

Niyi Osundare was born in 1947 in Ikere-Ekiti, Nigeria. He is a prolific writer and highly valued literary critic. In December 2014, Osundare was awarded the Nigerian National Merit Award (NNMA) for academic excellence.

What Is Wrong With Our President? by Ahmed Fouad Negm

What’s Wrong With Our President?

I never fret, and will always say
A word, for which, I am responsible
That the president is a compassionate man
Constantly, busy working for his people
Busy, gathering their money
Outside, in Switzerland, saving it for us
In secret bank accounts
Poor guy, looking out for our future
Can’t you see his kindly heart?
In faith and good conscience
He only starves you; so you’d lose the weight
O what a people! In need of a diet
O the ignorance! You talk of “unemployment”
And how conditions have become dysfunctional
The man just wants to see you rested
Since when was rest such a burden???
And this talk of the resorts
Why do they call them political prisons??
Why do you have to be so suspicious?
He just wants you to have some fun
With regards to “The Chair”
It is without a doubt
All our fault!!
Couldn’t we buy him a Teflon Chair?
I swear, you mistreated the poor man
He wasted his life away, and for what?
Even your food, he eats it for you!
Devouring all that’s in his way
After all this, what’s wrong with our president?

Ahmed Fouad Negm

Ahmed Fouad Negm was an Egyptian poet. He is often referred to as the poet of the people and he is popular known as el-Fagommi. In 2007, Negm was chosen by the United Nations Poverty Action as Ambassador of the poor. Ahmed Fouad Negm won the 2013 Prince Claus Awards for ‘Unwavering Integrity’. He died on 3 December, 2013

Just A Passerby by Oswald Mbuyiseni Mtshali

I saw them clobber him with kieries,

I heard him scream with pain

like a victim of slaughter

I smelt fresh blood gush

5 from his nostrils,

and flow on the street.

I walked into the church

and knelt in the pew

“Lord! I love you.

10 I also love my neighbour. Amen”

I came out

my heart as light as an angel’s kiss

on the cheek of a saintly soul.

Back home I strutted

15 past a crowd of onlookers.

Then she came in –

my woman neighbour:

“Have you heard? They’ve killed your brother.”

“O! No! I have heard nothing. I’ve been to church.”

Oswald Mbuyiseni Mtshali

Oswald Mbuyiseni Mtshali was born on 17 January 1940 in Kwabhanya, he is a South African whose works have been commended within and outside Africa. He writes both in Zulu and English languages.

I Think About You, Mogadishu (2) by Efo Dela

I Think About You, Mogadishu (Part 2)
I want to be a part of you
To extend my hands where yours end
Sit at fireplaces with you,
And stare. Stare as we whisper stories of nothing.
I want to be that part of you.

If you would let me, I would hold you
Let you sob softly on my shoulder
Wipe your tears off my neck
If it will make anything easier
I just want to be with you.

I want to call you home
To belong to you. Be a part of you.
Run on your shore to stretched shore,
Show you off to the world.
This is my lover. This is you
This is Mogadishu.

But you say I cannot call you home
That you are no bed for me to stay
That you do not sleep when night has come
Your days are full of sudden flight
From yourself but also from me.
Why can’t I belong to you, Mogadishu?

I can drown in no ocean
But give me a saucer of your love
And I will drown.
Your love is red
too red for me
I love your love blue
Red with memories you want to forget.
Why can’t your love be blue?

I ask little, I expect less
I can sleep on the floor, I have nothing
Huddle in the corner
For the joy that in the morning,
You will be here.
Why can’t you love me like I love?

We have no need to think of food,
Our love is more than we can eat
Your name, our dish, my name dessert
We call our sweet names and we are full
Sugar pumpkin banana
Why can’t I belong to you?

We can forget all others who have been.
The strangeness of past loves haunts you
Shot, migrated, arrested, left you
And your tears from one heart many times broken
Makes a thousandth acquaintance with your face.

But let me love you and we will stay here.
If I can wake in the glint of every morning sun,
Careless of the night that may have brought death,
Careless of flight, careless of the gun
And just look upon your beauty
As you lie beside me, my lover and my home
Let the world burn around us
The only fire for which I care
Is the one that burns within us
Burns within me for you,
If only it would burn for me in you.
I think about you, Mogadishu.

I Think About You, Mogadishu (1) by Efo Dela

I Think About You, Mogadishu (Part 1)

You star in my nightmares
You seduce in my temple
You challenge my sleep.

You keep me up till 11:30
Then you wake me at midnight
You should leave in the morning
You should leave in the afternoon
But by evening you’re still here
Strange damsel of my dreams
I think about you.

You hide many secrets in your hijab
I cannot unravel nor understand
Your smile is brighter, embarrasses the sun
You frown darker than night.
When you turn and walk away, I know you want me to follow
You tell me nothing; only in your eyes I see everything
Strange damsel of my dreams
I think about you.

You have been intimate with sorrow
Worn heartbreaks like a thousand wristbands
Each one for each day
Your arms are short or you will wear
One for each hour.
And even now there is no space for more.
Maybe underneath, you hide the scars of many lives
One life lived many times.
Because you have died. And resurrected.
And died again. And you’re here
timeless.
Tattooed with eternity
Going in and out of my dreams, strange damsel
I think about you.

You have shores but they have no sands
Sand is flimsy; you have rocks.
Rocks for engraving the names of past loves
Love rocks.
You love rocks.
Your love rocks.
But the rocks are bare.
Your loves have left you, craving you, reaching
But unable.
How does it feel to be loved and left alone?

Strange damsel of my dreams
I have not seen you before
But not a day passes that I don’t think about you
One day
I shall look for you
Carrying my album of dreams and fantasies,
my only pictures of you.
Pursue you across museums of the brokenhearted
Are you black like I am?
There is no colour in a dream.

I think about you
Fair lady on the rim of the rising sun
Your love has taken me prisoner
And you don’t even know me.
I will show you the cuffs when I arrive
Where it burns a golden brown into my wrist
Night comes and my sleep is threatened
For you will stand again at the gate of my sleep,
Commanding new nightmares.
I think about you, Mogadishu.