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Wednesday 31 January 2018

SOKOTO IN YOUR "SHOKOTO" by Eriata Oribhabor (Bankole Kolawole's version)



This is a wakeup bell dangling with questions and answers.
How is your home fairing?
Now, where is the wing of foreign in the field of things?
How well do you manage your local spaces? Tell me…
Is everything foreign good or anything local now seen as bad?
What benefit lies in trading your culture for foreign vultures?
Damaging the sweet nectar in your own uniqueness?

See, yesterday may have attempted a snatch of today, but I laugh in past tense, at those jokers like mediocres with a mouth full of water.
Like our infamous Vote-seekers with kangaroo high neck stretching and itching to steal votes from every weak Tom, Dicks and Harries…

But listen!
I bare words like chords to strike melody into your heart’s custody; soothing, cooling, refreshing
Let none pound your ears with perforated promises
Lend not your ears to truthful lies, fallacious and malicious teachings on anti-imperialism
That lacks and lag the warmth of today’s global warming
Though globalization paces in phases, I will dwell in the duel of my state’s state of mind.

Welcome to the well-coined pros and cons of my rare words
See, slave trade, the once-upon-a-time school, that drove us naught…but in our thoughts,
Let it remain past, let the lessons lesson our allegiance to ignorance.
Let the experience inspire our doggedness,
Let’s refuse to dump the refuse of despondency in our repute…

So, let these questions question the already ruminating answers in your medulla…

-Did we sign a Memorandum to be abandoned in the lifeless lagoon?
Who unplugged the plug that played consciousness in our reasoning faculty?
Why attach sentiment to the condiments of your religion?
Why paint excuses on a coat of many colours-
From black, green, yellow, red, white like white lies
Or has abuse got a new name from the abused?
Is ethnicity, tribalism and favouritism now the first cousins of Love?

These leaders like killers!!!
Do you realize how many times they’ve butchered our future to enrich their fat smart pockets?
Won’t you rather spit venom on those thieves on the streets
than fight with one another on sheets for shit?

Have you ever wondered at the endless idleness at our National Orientation Agency?
The gradually dying Council of Arts & Culture at federal and state levels?
Or the National Library of Nigeria where ants and cockroaches are now the permanent occupants as Life Patrons and Matrons??

See, Lets come back home into ourselves
Sound the steps of our fore-fathers
Who stood for truth, not blatant lies!
We are the architects of own woes
But the solution to our madness resides right here…

It’s high time we seek wisdom in the asylum of goodness in our own uniqueness

But if,…in your opinion, this dangling, clanging bell isn’t loud enough to end your slumber!
Or answer your canal questions
You had better swallow your pride and bury any objection..


‘Cos, the Sokoto you seek lies right in your SHOKOTO..!!


©Eriata Orhibabor (2015)
Founder, Poets In Nigeria (PIN).


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