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Blog, Poetry, Writers

Sailor: A Poem by Victor Oladejo

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The day the trees bore me died, I, the son, stood on the edge of the cliff of my mountain and peered At the wreck of my ship, The ship that carried me there. My ear became a palace of voices, Voices that danced with promises made of glass: “We will help you,” one said. I guess that was my uncle. “We will shelter you,” another said. That was my aunt. But they shattered while I held them. So I set out to sea alone, My head filled with memories of nights When I tasted gold with my fingers And birds marveled at my joy, A sun-bright like the Sahara’s. Blood is thicker than water, This mantra escaped from my lips. For where is blood when a brother cannot deliver a brother? I closed the door of my heart to love, family, friends, and foes, And I surrendered myself to wander in the symphony of life. It was a journey filled with many crossroads Until we encountered Sade. That very hall was filled with golden light, Drowning us in its powerful radiance. The sun itself was a witness to a beginning And a promise stronger than glass. You taught me what it meant to see your butterflies unfurl And search the mystery of your garden. I started dancing before the hides of my drum knew The palms of my hands. Suddenly, I knew which map to follow. The journey of my life started. For in your love and warmth, The tides of my life said yes, To the wheel of my ship. ii Yesterday I woke from a dark dream filled with forgotten voices, my heart a swinging pendulum begging for comfort, then I felt your fingers on my neck, the tips searching the maps on my skin, I turned to hold you, to feel you, to grasp you with the excitement trapped in the body of a man who stumbled upon a pouch of gold in a lonely field. But they retreated into a frustrated clinch. You were not there; my treacherous mind was at play again. I find solace every day in the calls we share and I read our messages again and again, taking each word slowly with the elegance of a lead dancer in a troupe in service of a king. I savor them and get lost in them, but they are never enough. They say time creates despair, I find those words true, The last letter you wrote from America ended with: I can’t wait to return to you. Those words made my mind tingle, and I decided to write this ode about you, my light giver. I am not so good at the game of waiting, I fail terribly when I try to sit in the shade of patience. I struggle every minute to express what my mind can’t express and these words that bear no comfort but endless trials at consoling a mind that refused to be consoled. I need you here, I need you today, but I can only wish.

Blog, Essays

A Lily In The Sun by Oladejo Victor Olayemi

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Adewumi saw her in her dreams or rather created a place for her in her dream; sometimes as a Messiah and at a time a crescent fire casting light to an opaque part of her life. from the stories people who tasted of her kind gestures told her; they told her she owns a restaurant in ore, she was a kind woman who assists people to find a strong foot in the city. All this stories convinced Adewumi that aunty Clara(as she was fondly called), was the reality to her heights of daydreaming of a pleasant life in the city. When aunty Clara came to the village, Adewumi was elated when she visited her grandmother.  She told her grandmother in her own words that parts of the salary Adewumi would be earning would be sent to her occasionally. After all, preparations were made they set out for the city in Clara’s car. While the journey lasted,  Adewumi was filled with anticipation. She felt her lily spread its petals in the orange wash of the summer sun. She felt within her that her spirit rose from its shadowy nadir into its colourful horizon. she felt the gesture from aunty Clara would pull her from the marshes she fell into from infancy when her parents deserted her. She believed her lily would become luxuriant in aunty Clara’s restaurant, the lily that showed sufferance in the face of hardship and pain, the lily she nurtured on the soil of hard work and self-respect. When they arrived at aunty Clara’s home, Aunty Clara tore the veil from her face and Adewumi stared at her real face. She began to sketch the picture of what her real work was. After weeks of her stay in aunty Clara’s house, Adewumi began to notice what was subtle about aunty Clara’s work. when all that was in the hazy revealed itself she was bewildered. The business aunty Clara owned was a mirage of a decent job, the business was prostitution in the disguise of a restaurant that highly influential men patronize on a daily basis.  She was lost in the cyclorama of horrible pictures painted in black hues, she was trapped in between two choices; join the circle willingly or be forced into it. She could not fight her because she had all the backing of the influential men who patronize her, these men were the puppeteers behind the puppets that controlled the government of the state. She heard about the way the girls she met at the so-called restaurant was shredded of their innocence from the men whenever their conversations grew bawdy. While those pictures floated, Adewumi decided within her own piece never to yield to the circumstances she found herself. Though she lived in a hybrid of fear and anxiety about what would befall her when her turn comes, she decided that her lily would never be pulled, twisted and offered to please men old enough to be her father. She thought of her grandmother in the village, the poor woman who had always wanted the best for her, she thought about the impression she would have of what her work in the city was. The answer to her thoughts gave her the impression that her life would come to an impasse forever if nothing was done. She thought of any means of escape but found none. Her lily began to wither and suffer a lack of water. She tried to pray but she could not, the maze she found herself in began to make the pious imprint her pietistic village had on her before she came to the city; a blur of the actual photo. she began to sink under the weight of the bad influence Aunty Clara tried to make on her. On a particular day, Adewumi decided to find solace in her diary, while she was reading she stumbled on a message she wrote about a man who was born a cripple but through his trust in God, he succeeded eventually in life.  Drawn to this story, she saw her own very self reflected in it. Though she wasn’t crippled, she had no parents to walk her through life. she had learnt to trust God like the man in the story while she was at the village. The story kindled her trust in God and a new form of energy to strive even among thorns. After her brief meditation, she prayed silently to God. some weeks later, Aunty Clara decided to leave the city for Adewumi’s village of Ifon. A man visited the restaurant, seeing the birthmark on Adewumi’s neck, begged for privacy with her. The man told Adewumi that he was her father, he told her it was out of the the shame of impregnating her mother who was a descent from a lineage of slaves in their village that  pushed him out of their life, and over the years he tried hard to reach out to Adewumi’s mother but couldn’t. He begged her for forgiveness and promised to heal her wounds if he was allowed to do so. Adewumi forgave her father and she related the story on how she got to the restaurant to him, upon hearing her story; he decided to rescue her and those who were trapped in the restaurant. He filled a lawsuit against Aunty Clara and her influential circle members and justice had their way. Adewumi and her father went back to Ifon and reunited with her grandmother. After many years she became a successful entrepreneur. whenever the poignant story of her trial comes to her memory she always consoles herself that her lily blossomed and flourished in the sun at the end. Oladejo Victor Olayemi is a budding artist and a secondary school graduate. He lives in Ore, Odigbo, Ondo state and wrote in via victoroladejo95@gmail.com

Essays, Writers

The Union by Victor Oladejo.

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“ Mummy, daddy Tayo is coming” my five year old daughther says, pulling at her top that had a smilling sponge bob on it. “ Okay” , l reply , trying to hold myself. The pain was too much. “ have you done your assignment” l managed to say. She comes closer. “ Mummy, what is this” she says and points at my arm. “ Don’t worry it’s a stain of …..emm” “ Mummy you are injured , what happened” she asks, drawing ‘ what happened ‘ with her soft innocent voice. I casted my gaze on my arm. The scar was still fresh and the bandages were the colour of deep sienna. “ l fell, it’s the stairs” l replied and she shook her head. “ Sorry ma” she pulls at my pink skirt. “ mummy I want cornflakes” she says. “ Ok dear” l answered , reliefed that the lie worked. I didn’t want her fragile heart to be tinged with the darksides behind the silver cords of my marrage and at same time l think she deserves to know the truth. She deserves to know that it wasn’t the stairs, it was her father’s belt. She deserves to know that all isn’t well. “ Do you want milk ?” l asked, pulling the tin of peak milk closer. My daughter shrugs. I knew she was allergic to it but it had become a custom of my to ask. I cast my gaze on my beautiful queen. She came when l needed the comfort. She came as a proof that l was not barren. She came when l had turned a regular member at the township hospital. She was my prize. With her l had a foot in and the other out. I couldn’t believe how my world came crashing down. Didn’t they say, if you plan it well it would be well. Why the difference? When we meet, five years ago, it was at the musuem. It was a busy day at the bank , so l had to visit the museum to clear my head. He was tall, handsome and yellow. We stood next to each other in his brown suit with a Kodak camera handing on his neck. I didn’t regard his presence at first. I stood still and stared hard at the great pieces of Ancestral craftmanship when he started the conversation. “ I don’t see reasons why we can’t sue this Britons, the originals are there in their museum” he said, and turned to my side .His tone belied disgust. l was surprised at his pronoun, his use of ‘ we’ as if we already knew each other, as if l was the board of Arts. “ Oh, they are still our fathers “ l answered, “ and moreover, we have people trying to do it”. He smiled and l managed a dry one. 𝘏𝘰𝘱𝘦 𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘦 “ 𝘨𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘮𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘯𝘶𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳𝘴?” l had thought. He took his Kodak and he took a picture of the carved mask. “ Carving this type of piece takes time, don’t they? Some are from lkot lkpenne in Calabar. Those men handle chisels well” He said and gesticulated with his left hand on an imagenary tree stump and his right hand cupped around the handle of a chisel. “ Yes they do, but as you can see”, l switched to a very low tone, close to whispers. “ This one is a glue work, wood dust filling” l said. I felt a strange feeling of accomplishment that l had betrayed the museum’s false status of ‘ Original Art’ . “ Oh Oh, l said it” he said smiling. His smile was angelic. I was impressed. “ l told francis, but he won’t agree. This is a glue artwork, not the said original. Can’t you see this side, it is too smooth. Our fathers made theirs well and oyinbo people stole them. We make our own and we still cheat in the process. I would write about this” “ Where do you work? “ l asked. “ l am a writer, Kulture Art Masterclass, we deal on arts and arts news “ he answered , smiling again. 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘮𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘣𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘩𝘰𝘣𝘣𝘺, l wanted to say , instead l fed the fire. “ Wow. You guys are doing great jobs. So that is why you came?” “ Yes, and please, where do you work?” “ At first bank, Ore central branch” “ Why do you love art? “ He asked. Trust me, the fire kept burning and the by evening, l was typing my digits on his phone. From there we became friends and months later in a union. We were happy. I paid for everything from what l had saved up. I used my connections to get him a job. We were happy, really happy and feeling blessed for the first two years before the heap of words. 𝘏𝘰𝘱𝘦 𝘶 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘤𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨? 𝘐 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘰 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘯. 𝘐 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘣𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢 𝘥𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘬. Then when they were tried. 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘸𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘨𝘪𝘯, 𝘦𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘱𝘶𝘴𝘩 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘥 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘶𝘱 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘩𝘪𝘱𝘴? 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘸𝘢𝘯’𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘬𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘯𝘢𝘮𝘦? 𝘔𝘢𝘺𝘣𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘴𝘦𝘥. 𝘊𝘭𝘢𝘳𝘢, 𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘮𝘺 𝘴𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘨𝘰 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘰𝘸𝘯𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘱 𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘱𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘭, 𝘮𝘺 𝘧𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘺 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘴. 𝘏𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘦 𝘵𝘦𝘴𝘵? 𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘦𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘱𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘭 𝘵𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘴. 𝘊𝘭𝘢𝘳𝘢 𝘸𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘨𝘳𝘰𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘭𝘥𝘦𝘳. 𝘞𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥 𝘢 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥. When l had my first miscarrage, l felt like dying. She came with her sister with that stony face that l had once looked up to as a source of love. I felt like l had betrayed her. Some how l was happy at least it was a confirmation of all l had longed for. “ Sorry, God would bring another one “ she said, holding my pillow. She left that same day with her sister. My mother — inlaw! “ Mummy, daddy Tayo is in the parlour” my daughter said, holding the bowl of cornflakes to her chest. “

Essays, Writers

The Bird by Oladejo Victor.

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𝗦𝗛𝗘 was shaking violently, the bed was creaking. She was convulsing and her body was thrown forward as she did. She held unto me tightly and i clasped my hands around her shoulder. she was gasping for breath. My stomach churned , i felt a strong pain entangled with fear . i wanted to shout, but instead , air came. Then she was thrown forward again , this time her face was tightened with her eyebrows curving forward towards her forehead . she let out a shout and she fell back to the bed. She became still in the grip of death. “mother “ was all i muttered. The ward was empty , we were alone in it. My body shook, the skin under my navel became hot. I tried to shout, to call for help , but it was too late, she wasn’t breathing. I became languid myself , i dragged myself to my chair which was by her bed all night. A wave of pain swept through my body and i became dizzy, i felt my spirit was living my body, darkness came , pitch darkness and silence. The rays of light was on my face , i opened my left eye, everything was in a blur . i twitched . “ Thank God he is alive”. I stared to the direction where the faint sound came from. I saw nothing except colours dragging around like jelly. I closed my eyes again and opened them slowly, the room became pellucid. Mrs Tunji, the nurse that was in charge of my mother . she sat on a blue chair. She smiled dryly at me , i didn’t smile back. She stood from her chair and walked to the bed i was on. “ you fainted , sorry , your mother is dead, she is in the last ward. We met you on the floor this morning”. I wasn’t surprised, i took grief like that often. I didn’t cry , i turned on my back and stared at the blue wall behind me. I didn’t think of my mother, i was dead also, something died in me. During my mother’s funeral, my father came. He came along with my stepsisters and my stepmother. They wore black and held flowers in their hands. I felt paranoid standing close to them. I was burning with hate. My father was quiet and he had the expression the fuhrer had on his face on the cover of the history of Nazi Germany i read often. He sniffed and blew into his nose whenever our gaze cross. When the funeral was over , i rode in his car to my father’s house. When we got home my father came to the room i was staying. The words of comfort he said to nauseated me. I pretended to be listening, inwardly i felt like holding to his throat and choking him. He neglected me and my mother for a reason i didn’t know, all i knew was, they had a fight and he left. I visited him at his office whenever i needed anything and that was all, i didn’t know he had another family until the funeral. When l couldn’t sleep , i became introspective . i surfed through my thoughts about my mother. I wondered why she of all people died. I wondered why fate took away my voice . my voice was my hope and my hope was my mother. I was the happy and the singing bird until she died and my voice died when she went six feet into the earth. All through my stay at my father’s house with my stepmother and my stepsisters, i lost taste of everything i loved and cherished while my mother was alive. I was much of an optimist while my mother was alive, always full of hope because of the priceless counsel from my mother. She had the advice to anything and a way of doing things right. So it all changed after her death. Life became meaningless . My father began to care for all of my needs and i never lacked anything but it changed nothing. I didn’t heal. In my bid to find solace i fell into bad company. I began to smoke and drink alcohol secretly with my new found friends. I continued on my new path till i got admitted to the university. My stay at the university was uneventful , my drinking habit grew and i was an addictive smoker. I didn’t attend church often like i did with my pious mother while she was alive. I took my studies seriously but my voice didn’t return, i was hurting myself deliberately and i knew it. My relation with others suffered severely and the only person i related to was my room mate, Uche. Uche , a pious fellow, the last to sleep at night and the first to wake me up with his prayers was my room mate during my first year at the university. He was a person who won’t take no for an answer. He was the fellowship leader and he preached and gave me piece of advice anytime he got the chance . i was lost to my habit and nothing else made sense to me. I was depressed often. After a while i let my thought about my mother fade into oblivion but i never found my voice. My habit remained , nothing changed until my last year at the university. My habits had gone to it’s height, i missed classes and my grades fell. I went to the hospital and i was diagnosed with lung disease. I experienced fatigue and shortness of breath as a result of the disease. I came to my right senses but it was almost late. I went through several tests at the hospital and i used a lot of drugs. During the period of my disease the final examinations was fast approaching. I cried my eyes out and tried to study. The examination came and went , i received the result and i performed very low but i didn’t fail. The result and the

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Who Murdered Yesterday ? by Oladejo Victor.

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Ogunniyi was the chief of Ifon for years before his death, his grandfather was a pioneer of Christianity in the village. The imprints of this religion made him a very Orthodox Christian. He ruled over a court and a large family.  He settled disputes among the sons of the soil with an impartial mind, but he had nothing to do with Muslims and heathens. He shunned every activity that could make him fraternize with them. The eerie fire he carried in his heart towards them was very cryptic to his kinsmen and his fellow pious converts. Even in his court, no one dared to say anything profane about his religion. And with the skill of an alchemist turning steel to gold, he infected the hearts of his children. Like the tide flowing from the sea and ebbing back into it, Ogunniyi’s fire flowed into his son. As the strength of his youth, he built a source of illumination in him to guide his path through life. The fire he thought would illuminate his path and fight off the waxy fingers of darkness from his son. He believed his son would embrace his illumination and detest the darkness, the herald of the abyss, the abyss of the outer world of Muslims and heathens. Since life speaks in vague languages and signs, archaic and arcane signs that only the conscious could decipher. These conscious minds stoic and simple are the ones who could understand that in the universe of a babel of minds, accepting others is the true definition of a man with sapience strong enough to walk through life; even as a pious being. Growing up Alade was astonished at his father’s misanthropical lifestyle towards Muslims and heathens in his jurisdiction. His hands were always outstretched towards the needy but not to non-believers but he was too illuminated to see the pitch darkness at the end of the path he was threading, he was choked by his father’s stewardship of illumination, the illumination he had begun to have a lust for. He was lost to his father’s enigma. But in the middle of spiralling towards the fountain springing with fulgent  fire that flowed from the estuary of his father’s blind hate, he fell into a moment of reminisce. He began to see that the path that he thought was leading to the treasury of illuminated sapience was a fjord he would fall from into a gulf of pain and inhumane lifestyle if does not disembark. Ogunniyi was too blind with his stewardship to notice that his son wasn’t illuminated but was burnt like the Phoenix and returned a different being. Many years after Ogunniyi’s death, his son took the rein of the rulership of the kingdom and he treated everyone as equal because having hateful sapience about others is not a source of power for leadership. Oladejo Victor Olayemi a budding artist from Ore. He wrote in via ezekieloladejo375@gmail.com

Blog, Essays

Hoisting APGA’s Flag At The Senate by Ifeanyi Afuba

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Nelson Mandela, the African hero of the twentieth century, taught us that strong convictions are the secret of surviving deprivation. And we begin to get a sense of how the All Progressives Grand Alliance and one of its star brands, Victor Umeh, finally achieved a breakthrough in the knotty senatorial turf. In the most clinical fashion of a long distance champion, Senator Victor Chukwunonyelum Umeh breasted the Senate tape on Saturday, January 13, 2008, bringing to an end a cocktail of contrived confusion that stood in the way of implementing the Court of Appeal judgment of December 7, 2015. Thus, the successful conduct of the re-run election and the subsequent swearing-in of Ohamadike have immense significance for Nigeria’s democracy. However, a critical study of the APGA story will reveal that it is the most brutalized but not the most humiliated political party of the fourth republic. Its very registration as a political party was a tug of war. It had taken a Supreme Court judgment in 2002 to force the withheld official recognition. Posterity will credit the collective of APGA faithful for steadfastness in the face of many aggressions. But if individuals are to be recognized for standing up to the assaults, the honour goes first to Senator Victor Umeh. From 2004 to 2014, no single individual impacted on the fortunes of the All Progressives Grand Alliance as Senator Victor Umeh. The story of Anambra’s journey of transformation is in part, the story of APGA’s travails and triumphs.  APGA launched the movement that ushered in Anambra’s process of recovery from neglect and misrule in 2006.  Events took a critical turn in 2004, when the party was subverted from within, from the highest rung of its leadership. This came in the sudden declaration that APGA was no longer interested in the prosecution of its 2003 Anambra governorship petition, then going on at the tribunal. The severity of the internal conspiracy compelled a more deliberate search for a new leadership that could be ‘predicted’ and trusted. And it was in this delicate circumstance that Senator Umeh, hitherto national treasurer of the party, came to the fore as acting national chairman in 2004. Ignoring the issues of his indictment, the suspended national chairman, Chekwas Okorie, pronounced that he could not be removed because his name was written in the party’s constitution. The disengagement generated eleven suits, nearly all instituted by the sanctioned politician. With reality dawning, Okorie returned the APGA certificate in his possession but sought revenge with his bid to register a new party, United Peoples Grand Alliance (UPGA). The spoiler game was clear enough. The phonetic and syntactic similarities between APGA and UPGA were sure to have devastating consequences for APGA in a society still contending with low literacy levels. An alert APGA leadership swung into action, detailing grounds which ought to render Okorie’s application defective. INEC under Attahiru Jega, a man widely respected for his pedigree, sustained the objections for their merit. Okorie settled for the name, United Progressive Party in the end. There were more rivers and deserts to cross. About a year to the end of his tenure in 2014, a former governor was seized by his own pet idea of playing adventures with APGA. Members of APGA were at a loss as the ex governor tried to install a new national chairman in place of the man reckoned as an achiever, whose tenure had not ended. Umeh stood his ground and snatched victory from the lion’s jaw. Consequently, he was able to influence the nomination of Willie Obiano as the APGA governorship candidate in the 2013 election and also driving the re – election of Governor Obiano for second term. We now see why the outcome of the January 13, 2018 senatorial poll is so significant for APGA. If Umeh, the veteran of APGA battles, cannot make it to the Senate, what hope lies for others? With the prospect of free and fair elections brightening under Buhari’s presidency, the quest to launch APGA to the centre stage of Nigeria’s government and politics has become feasible with the congruent leadership of Umeh and Governor Willie Obiano.  With APGA’s flag flying at the Senate, notice is served to those ever in a hurry to define our political colouration as a two party system not to beat the gun. In 2019, the PDP will, for the first time, contest national elections without being in control in Abuja. That level playing ground guarantees that other political parties can no longer appropriate APGA’s victories as happened in the governorship cases of Ugochukwu Agballa, Enugu State, in 2003; Martin Agbaso, Imo State, 2007; and Alex Otti, Abia State 2015.  APGA now has its first senator from Anambra State; A senator who will not defect to another party! Source: AbsRadioTv

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