₦airaland Forum

WHY ARE YOU NOT MARRIED?

A famous animal does not always fill the hunter’s basket. Why are you waiting for the pension that never comes? You can’t complain about not having shoes while the person you are talking to has no legs. Why don’t you want to hear the patter of little feet?

Why are you not married? Are you still waiting patiently for the right man, for the right woman? Waiting for the right time and the right moment to walk on the aisle with that special man or that special woman of your choice? What are you waiting for? There is no Mr Right out there! What are you still waiting for, woman? Keep waiting; keep praying and rejecting suitors coming for you. Or that woman that will love you for the rest of her life. Keep seeking for God’s face for the right man or the right woman that won’t give you stress or that man that won’t in any way lay his hand on you. It is very good to wait until you wait no more; it is very good to keep praying for God to reveal the face of that man or face of that woman for you, until you start changing prayer point and change the way you tie your scarf to church. Until you start changing the kind of dress you wear to church like that of Mary-Amaka kind of dress. Why are you not married, sister? Why are you not married, brother?

Are you afraid of the frustration in marriage? Are you afraid of the responsibilities in marriage? Are you afraid of the desperation in taking care of a man or that woman you are dating? Are you looking for the right woman or the right man to your soul? Or are you looking for money? The truth of the matter is that there is nothing like the right man or the right woman for any man or any woman. There is no such thing. No man is better than the other and no woman is better than the other woman, the only thing there is the understanding between you and the man in question or the woman. You have to sit with him or her to discuss whether or not he

or she could live with you as a wife or as a husband. Sit her down, let her see reasons and why both of you should get married if it would be favourable to her or him. Let her know your weaknesses. Don’t hide anything from her, don’t hide anything from him. Marriage is of two people, it is an institution to be managed and developed by two people. There is no right man there as well as the right woman there. We all have our weaknesses and flaws.

I was once listening to a radio program where a woman was advising some women to stay in their marriage no matter the circumstances. She advised them to stay and stop divorcing men. She lamented on the amount of divorcee out there both a two weeks wedding are dissolved because of little differences between the man and the woman. She counseled not women not leave their men because MR B left hers. She said majority of the issues in the house are being caused by the women folks. I agreed with her to some point and I disagreed with her to some points. In a situation where the man is a monster, beating and punching his wife like a punch bag; I will only advise her to go so that she won’t get killed by the man. In a situation where she found out that her life is in danger in the hand of the man, I will advise her to find her way. One thing for sure here is that every man has a woman and every woman has man. I have seen a man who killed his wife and threw her into a suck away and ran away. The children woke up that morning and could see their mother and father. They waited for them but they were nowhere to be found. The neighbours came and the wife and the husband was nowhere to be found. The children were left alone for days until one morning. A stinking odour which people could not comprehend started coming from the suck away. The neighbourhood began to search for what was smelling and lo and behold; it was this woman that was killed by her husband, a pretty woman was found rotten inside the suck away. It was also a marriage where the man and the woman took an oath and said I do. This was the same marriage that the man sworn never to leave the woman in pains and in bad health.


This same thing happened in Ikotun part of Lagos where a husband ganged up with his sister to kill his wife. I witnessed this one. The funny thing about this is that love itself can be funny. Women are always the prey, the victims. It is their cause to love genuinely. They love with their heart, they were told them that they have to stay to build the family, they told them to stay even if the man is abusing them, the religion asked them to stay in the abuse to build and be Christ-like because the husband is the head of the family and they; help meet. This is madness. One pastor once narrated how a woman who was severally abused and was beaten black and red to the extent that her mouth, cheek was swallowed. She was asked to leave her husband but everyone was surprised when she told the court that she loved her man and she was not going to leave him. The most interesting part of the story was that she had not bear any child for this man. And she had caught this man on several occasions having carnal knowledge with their maid. And she still loved him.

You see, this is why most of us are likely afraid of marriage; the emotional torture, the emotional trauma, the heart breaks, abuse and many other things involved in this so called institution of marriage. But we must get married to someone eventually, we must fall in love someday looking out for how to make our home a happy home not seeking for the right man or the right woman but that man or that woman we can live and she or he understands us because marriage is that institution that one keeps learning and never graduates and our depth of our maturity is determines the height of our marriage. Stop looking for the right man, stop looking for the right woman or when God reveal that man or woman for you to know he or she is your husband or your wife. You have to choose, choose wisely because rush is the death of marriage and the carelessness of a man in a marriage brings a she devil called wife. Don’t rush it dear woman and man, take your time but don’t spend the whole of your youthful age looking for the right man or woman. You have dated Amaka and she disappointed you and you

left her for Chioma but Chioma didn’t give you the assurance you needed and you left her for Angela. You have dated ten men in a space of one year. Why are you not married, dear woman? Are the ten men irritating you? Are they not man enough to satisfy you on bed? What is your problem man? How many women do you want to sleep with before you finally say I do? What is your problem woman? Your marriage can only be successful as your singleness because you can only bring to a marriage what you are as a single person.

Rejecting suitors can be dangerous but that does not mean you have to jump into hell fire because of your mates are all married. Take your time as I said earlier but remember the goal in marriage is not to think alike but to think and act together. Be careful who you jump into his or her arms.

© John Chizoba Vincent
#LiquidWords

IT IS A CRIME TO BE POOR HERE

The other day I was listening to Olamide’s song “Poverty Die”. The chorus got me, it went into my veins, to my bone marrows; and I remembered how being poor here is a sin, how being poor here is a crime because you will be denied of many things, many luxuries because you are a poor man; it is a crime to be poor here, a crime you never knew when you committed it, you are enslaved and imprisoned by whosoever has the money. You sell your conscience because you are poor, your freedom is denied from you by those that have the money. You don’t have a say and even if you have; it will be taken for granted. In the land of the blind, the one eye man is a king. I remember the suffering of my people, how injustices reign among them. They are getting poorer yet; they smile always amidst their poor states. They still laugh, rejoice and dance amidst their suffering.

They still kill each other, they still betray each other, and they still slaughter dreams; their brothers and sisters dreams, to rise. They still use another poor man for rituals; they still canvass against their poor neighbours, they still hurl disgusting words against their poor neighbours, sell them to the greedy politicians who turn them to cans of Bin. Sometimes I wish I could help them to think, sometimes I wish I could just help them to overcome this ignorance, to overcome this poverty but I can’t; every man is on a race, a one man race, none knows the end of his own race.

During this recent Election, It happened that I was in one of those their party’s campaigns and rallies in Ijesha area of Lagos, they were sharing sealed Garri and I stood afar off, and I saw how the market women were struggling to collect one seal that wasn’t up to two Derica if measured, they were killing themselves while those sharing the Garri were laughing at them. Laughing their head off their necks, I think they realized that those women were extremely poor that was why they were laughing their heads out.

Suddenly, some women who did not collect their own Garri started fighting those that collected. This is for you to understand how extreme the poverty here is in my country home. It was annoying to me watching those women fought over what they could buy with their money. I was imagining if that sealed Garri could last them for another four years that the said person contesting would stay. It was the only thing they thought they could use to attract those women to vote for them in the forthcoming election and after the election, they’ll never be seen in the street or near the market place until another election comes around. We’ve sold ourselves and our mentality and conscience because of the rate of poverty here and these politicians knew about it. These set of people knew where to hold the masses without a second thought.

When I left Ijesha to my house, my sister told me how their ‘Babaloja’ (the person that owns their market or takes care of the market) had told them that they must vote a particular party in the forthcoming election and anyone who fails to do so will have his or her shop locked up till further notice. I was surprise but I hid it from her. I asked her what she would do and she said she would go against her wish reason being that this said Babaloja made sure that they all registered in the same polling center both Igbo and Yoruba so that he could monitor them. He played with the women’s intelligence to achieve his own greedy and selfish interest. They were given the same sealed Garri and nothing more. How could we be this heartless in a land flowing with milk and honey?

This same thing happened to me a day before the governorship election. On that Friday I was on my way to Lekki to deliver a music video I shot for one of my artistes since he could not meet up to come to the studio. When I got to Oshodi, everywhere was crowded; there was no bus and the ones that came was collecting seven hundred naira instead of the four hundred

naira it used to be. I had no option than to enter. What was the cause of the high in price of the fare? It was because one party was campaigning along the expressway. Their buses and cars were more than thirty on the major road. We spent nothing less than two hours from Oshodi to Third Mainland Bridge, a distance that shouldn’t be more than twenty minutes to cover if there was no traffic. Many people in our bus and the buses behind us still went down to collect some printed sack bags, designed t-shirt and spoon on the traffic. Seeing how overwhelmed they were and the rate at which they struggled to make sure they collect those items amazed me. They have to use those things in the next four years until another man is presented to them by their godfather in the politics. Poverty has taken our sense of reasoning, it has taken a vital part of us and it only takes the eradication of this poverty mentality to solve these problems. And the abnormal thing here is that poor men are the people those politicians used to achieve their devilish goals. You can’t see their children in the polling units voting, you can’t see them fighting for their fathers to remain on seat rather it is those poor people that fight for one man who doesn’t care about them to remain on seat. Take a look at what happened in Rivers state, Lagos state and Kaduna; those that were killed because they were supporting this party or that party or they were voting for one man who doesn’t know their names to remain on seat. It is high time we learn from our mistakes. Don’t allow poverty make you ignorant of your rights and your personality. They sit inside and told us they are the boss while we campaign for them day and night.

Poverty makes people treat you anyhow; it’ll make those who are not up to your level to talk to you anyhow because they have the money and you don’t have it. Money is the only difference. No one is better than you, no one does it better than you; money is just the difference. These insults have led many people to join the league of Yahoo boys and some other dirty betting games in this country. It has led many to do what they don’t want to do because they want to clean the tears of their parents and live above

poverty. You’ll see a man that is over thirty years still jobless at home. He still lives with his parents and his parents still feed him and give him pocket money whenever they are going to work. You’ll see someone who you are better off poke his fingers into your eyes because he has the money and you don’t. You swallow hard when he or she insults you, you know right in your mind that he or she wouldn’t try that outside but you have to swallow hard because of the money he/she pays you monthly. He/she shouts at you, sometimes, he/she knocks you on the head and you endure the pains because of the money. Only because of the money, if not because of the money; you know your worth and your kind of job but you just allow them to treat you just like they want because of the money; just because of the money.

This same person sends you to wash his car, babysits his child and you run errand for him at the end of the month, he will still not pay you the meager money he supposed to pay you. You tolerate many things just to make money to make those people who look up to you proud. Just to live fine, just to put a smile on the face of your mother and that of your father who had laboured day and night to see you through school. But you still live with them after thirty years and they still feed you and give you pocket money and you work somewhere, you work somewhere promising yourself a better life and a better future, keep the dream alive. You’ve tried to get another job to no avail, whenever you goes out to look for a job, you will experience and discover that there is a shift in the economy. It is no longer the certificate, it is no longer the grade, it is no longer what you know; it is no longer who you know, it is now the rich against the poor. It is now the rich and the powerful men placing their children in places they did not and can never merit in reality. Dramatically, you obey every rule that comes to you. You sell your mind to do those things that favour them. Poverty is a bastard and that is why you have to eliminate it. Find every means to eliminate it from your root. Make legal money as long as you have something doing, pray, plan and produce. Don’t just sit and dream; dream

and do a legal work and wait for your sweat to produce. No shortcut to success.
On a lighter note, there is no justice anywhere for the poor. Once you are poor, you’re poor; you are like a rag that the Rich trample on top. You see, people will only listen to you once you have the money, once you have the name, once you have that car, they will only call you when you have the money to spend on them. Brother, in all that you are making, make the name and money. Name first because it is the name that brings the money; build a brand of name that they can’t easily pull down no matter what. Don’t allow the devil take your memory away. You have to use your wisdom to create money to live above poverty. The fact that your parents are poor does not mean you too will be poor. Poverty does not run in the gene, it is not in the DNA. You can decide or choose to be poor if you like. You are to sail your own ship, be your own captain and never give up the quest and the hassle to be out there. Pilot your own airplane and when it crashes, you hold yourself responsible. Even as I type these words; my spirit still reminds me of my own state. The devil still mocks me because of my own condition but one thing I know is that I will scale through.

What happened to me this January changed my mentality. It made me realized that there is nothing like justice here in Nigeria once you are poor. Only the poor fights for themselves, a rich man cannot fight a poor man’s battle rather he would extort from the little you have. When my phone was stolen on the 23rd of January and the same person that stolen my phone used it to withdrew ninety sonething thousand naira I had in my account. I wanted to run mad but God was closer to me. The only person that understood me more that day was my Publisher because I was in his office when I checked my account balance with a friend’s phone because I just retrieved my SIM. He was able to calm me down. The next day I ran to my bank and I explained everything. The only thing the customer care told me was that the Bank has no business with me since the transaction has passed forty eight hours. He said the Bank believed that it was me that made the transactions. He printed my account statement and gave it to

me. I glanced through the four pages booklet; I saw the name of the guy and the account number he transferred the money to. He transferred the money to a Zenith Bank and his name was boldly written on the statement of Account. I ran to Police station first to make a report. The woman I met there said I have to pay after writing my statement. She wasn’t bothered about the money lost; she was bothered about her own money. After much argument, she said she was going to introduce me to the person that would handle my case. I waited for like four hours before the messiah came. And she equally told me that police can’t do anything without me paying. She said she would collect the statement I have written and I should go and look for money.

Angrily, I left the police statement and went home. The next day I went to Zenith Bank with the hope that I would get at least one information about the person. When I got there, the woman I met at the customer care told me to return to my bank that they suppose to write to them. This was how I was going and coming from Police station to Guarantee Trust Bank to Zenith Bank and back to the police station for a whole two weeks, nothing happened. I lost a trip to calabar for a job; I missed the one in Port Harcourt just because of the contacts in the phone. One day I went to my bank and shouted on top of my voice that I wanted to meet the manager but no hope came by but I met one SARS man who promised to help but after the day I paid him ten thousand from the money I borrowed from my younger brother, he disappeared and his two lines went dead. When my mother called, I explained everything to her, she said I should let go and that was how I left the money after three weeks of hoping, borrowing and tears and hunger. You see, there is no justice here except the one you created.

There is no security here except when a poor man is arrested. Rich men can beat all the securities here to go away with their crimes but poor men can’t because of these same securities. It’s a crime to be poor here and a poor man here is a dead man.

© John Chizoba Vincent
#LiquidWords.

QUESTIONING THE ILLUSION OF SOME MADE-IN-HEAVEN-WEDDINGS IN NIGERIA

Ladies, it is good to have a made-in-heaven-wedding, it is good to have that talk-of-the-town-wedding; the wedding that the story and its pictures appear on newspapers, magazines and gets everyone in town talking about it after that day. It is very wonderful for you to have those extraordinary wedding pictures by that super photographer, to appear on the national dailies, and you have them on the cover page of many magazines. Wouldn’t it be a great and mouth watery experience? Yes, it is great to have everybody talking about how extravagant your wedding was and how they were able to feel great and exceptional in your wedding but, why would you want to push your man into debt? You know in your heart of heart that he is not Dangote’s son and you are not Adeleke’s Daughter and he is not capable to handle what you dream of. Why would you want to push him into trouble? Would you want your husband to become poor after the wedding? You know he is not Adenuga and you are not Bill Gate’s Daughter! How would you feel after your wedding and your husband begins to run here and there to borrow money to pay back his debt or to borrow money so that you two can eat? Would you be happy to see him run from pillar to post because of the debt he incurred during your wedding? Yes, people will come, talk about the wedding, the grooving, enjoyment and all that but what matters is life after the wedding.

Your honeymoon may last for some weeks or some months in America, Dubai, and Paris or in Canada but after that, what next? What would you do when there is no food at home to eat? What would you do when people that your husband borrowed money from to make the wedding outstanding starts coming to disturb your peace? Moreover, it is not compulsory that people must talk about your wedding. Just have it in mind, whether you spent two billion naira in your wedding or you spend a hundred thousand in your wedding people must see one bad aspect of it.

Remember, wedding is just for a day and marriage is for a life time when everybody who came to your wedding is no more and you are left with your wife to cater for her then you may understand the whole scenarios. Your father and your mother will always come once or twice in a month or sometimes they don’t come at all, you have started building your own family and nobody cares what you make of it. Money won’t come rushing to you after the said wedding and you must work harder to provide and to feed your newly wedded wife and same people will be expecting to visit back after nine months for another celebration. What will your life and that of your new wife be after these nine months?

This Made-in-heaven wedding always gets the newly wedded couple into trouble and debt. It is always good to avoid it. It is always advisable to avoid unnecessary expenses during your wedding planning. It is better to work and plan with the budget at hand than to borrow money and end up running here and there trying to see how you could pay the money back. No woman should be in a position to force her man to do a wedding beyond his budget, you shouldn’t force him to organize what he may end up regretting or the both of you will end up regretting as husband and wife. And men, don’t listen to that woman that wants you to go above your budget or above what the two of you have budgeted for your wedding. If she thinks you are not up to her standard, perhaps she should check the next man next door. Marriage is not by force and expensive wedding should not be a tool to qualify how a man will take care of his wife.

Sometimes ago, a man in my compound wanted to get married. He wasn’t that rich a man; in fact, he owed the landlord for two years. For complete two years he was not able to pay his house rent, everybody in the compound knew that he was going through tough and hard times. Each time the landlord came around for his money, he would either give him one excuse or the other. Sometimes, he would run away from the house to avoid the landlord’s troubles. The landlord got tired of him. He could not come any more because of him. He had served him quit notice on several occasions and this man refused to pay him or pack away. He had threatened to pack all his properties outside to no avail. The day of his wedding, the hall was filled with people. It was a made-in-heaven-wedding, every one of us were surprised that he could spend such amount of money in a wedding when he still owes the landlord for two years.

Many dignitaries came around. Assorted food were available, serve yourself; eat whatsoever you want. The landlord was invited for the reception and we saw how surprised he was sitting down among us. After the wedding, the said man travelled to Dubai for his Honeymoon. When he came back from his honeymoon, it was the same compound he came back to. It doesn’t take time for the landlord to send for him. He was served quit notice which we later learnt that he came pleading with the landlord to give him more time to pay his bills but we all knew he was broke and he can’t pay the money. Some months later, he was dragged out of the compound after many court cases.

There is nothing wrong planning a made-in-heaven-wedding when the money is there but it becomes so wrong when after the wedding, you end up having nothing left for you and your husband to live on. You become broke and poorer. The gift collected might not be measured to the money spent. There is nothing wrong with making your bride feel like a queen on her special day but don’t do it if you don’t have the budget at hand. Don’t please anybody to displease yourself. Even those friends whom you wanted to show off to won’t be there when the fight will break out in the house. Handle things cleverly and manly.
The aftermath of things is what actually matters not what is in before us.

People are watching and the same people that advised you when you were planning the wedding to do it in a special way will still be the same people that will abuse you when after the wedding and you don’t have anything to take care of your wife; they would still be the same people that will make mockery of you on how tattered your wife is and how you were not taking care of her like a wife. The problem remains that you can’t please everyone, whether you wed your wife in a kiosk, people will talk about it; whether you wed her in a world class hotel or hall; people will still talk about it, even if it happens to be in an Airplane or in an aisle of gold and silver, people would see one good or bad thing to talk about. And no matter how you plan your wedding, on that day, people will still complain of not eating your wedding Rice and Chicken while others would eat to their satisfaction. The point here is that don’t engage yourself in an unnecessary expenses that would render you koboless after your wedding ceremony.

Furthermore, this issue of ladies convincing a man to do it this way or that way going against his will or plan is wrong. You have to know your man’s opinions on some certain things especially finances. Those things he may think is not necessary, try to listen to him. Don’t mount pressure on him to do it because Amaka did it in her wedding day. Even if you have the money to do it, I think you should reserve the money for other issues that might arise after the wedding. There are many issues that will arise after the wedding and you can’t escape it. I could remember one of my uncles borrowed a huge amount of money to do his wedding about five years ago. He wanted to make it ‘special’, a world class wedding and traditional marriage. He bought three hefty cows, bought unnecessary things that were not in the list that his in-laws gave to him. My mother cautioned him, people cautioned him but the man who is in love to please people, you cannot hold him back from what he has in mind to do. The wedding came and gone, those people he borrowed money from began to come one after the other. His businesses were not moving as he wanted. Hunger came and heavy rain began to fall in his house. There wasn’t a day that one man won’t come to make noise in our compound. At the end of the day, the so called wife left him when she realized that it was all pretense; the man she thought that had money was just a shadow of himself.

On a lighter note, why spend your life savings in the name of wedding that will last just for a day? Why put your life in jeopardy? Why create a false identity? There is no problem if the money is there to be spent; there is no problem if there are enough people to sponsor this mega Made-In-heaven-wedding. There is no problem if there’s money and enough supporters out there. There is no reason for love! You can’t show her how much you love her by lavishing cash on your wedding day; what if the money wasn’t there? Would she still love you? What if this money wasn’t there and you are wedding her in local church or hall; would she still be there? Remember those people that came for your wedding ceremony won’t be there in your marriage, spend less and plan for your union. The youths should be careful of this, don’t live above your income, and learn from other people’s mistakes even from your father’s experiences.

Question many things; question how it happened and why it happened. Planning a wedding is not a day thing but no matter what, don’t plan above your budget and don’t let any lady to convince you to do so just to show how much you love her. What is ahead is greater than what we see now. What matters is what you do after your wedding, after that proclamation in the church; after that vote of thanks when everyone else is leaving the wedding hall and your wife is either sitting or standing behind you, hugging excitedly those that came to celebrate with her.

©John Chizoba Vincent
#LiquidWords

WHEN JIDE BADMUS WRITES…

When Jide Badmus writes poems, he writes poems that grip you like a vice. When he writes, the prison walls are broken and hearts are amended like the sun rising from the East in a beautiful morning to enlighten the earth of its beauty. He is an exceptional poet from others with wit and gut so powerful and enormous and vast that one begins to wonder how he is able to cook up some of his lines. He is out of this world! He is a poet that brings the mind and the soul and the body together in a very erotica manner that makes you wonder how he is able to bring his words in agreement to each other mesmerizing the mind in a sensational and pleasurable understanding. He writes to create an atmosphere of love, hatred, rejection, hope, historic pleasure, discrimination and mostly, of dreams and faith of the coming of age. Hope don’t die in his pen, erotic love resurrects at the mention of his poems.

He gives you reasons to write and sip from what you have written like a hot coffee, like tasty liquid words; holding water, fire and determination. Jide is that one poet that holds history between his biro and his finger without getting discouraged. His words are magical holding this generation of writers to mind of their own. One bad thing about him is that his writings are spiced up with ingredients that leave you helpless and hopeless journeying gently word to word. His poems have a way of giving you expectation and the optimistic reasons to want more of its juice.

However, he is a very dynamic writer evolving and spinning from time to time, building and developing many approaches of making the work of poetry enticing to the eyes and also to the mind. His poems may not be as long as the third mainland bridge in Lagos but his lines are priceless and meaningfully crafted. To remain, to stay now and forever without sagging out of its juicy content, a mind buster line perfectionist, he rides effortlessly with a determined instinct and insight so rare to come by. Jide is a man of many colours---Erotica, satirical and sensational poetry. I describe him as a man of many spirits. He understands what writing is. He knows how to capture the mind of his readers and take them to a near heavens and paradise that can sustain their ability to imagine what he has in mind. A clever, thundering, tantalizing and extreme keen ride with Jide’ poetry takes you to ecstasy and under the world of creativity and return you to yourself with different approaches to everything you have read. He writes with passion flowing within him courageously.

When he writes, cracked fences are repaired and deteriorated emotions and feelings are healed. Children find home for knowledge in his poetry and the Elites are left smiling journeying though each of his lines. He is genuine with words, a kind hearted man of the people holding reveries of the African side of poetry. He has the subtle power and prowess of many well woven works of his own, nothing seems to be missing in his writings; nothing seems to come in separation of his lines, they meet in a favourable route and cross paths vigorously. In his verses, dexterity and dynamism are two element of clarity they rely on. He is full of surprises, he writes with clarity so rare to find among others. He writes with guided principles, policies, certitude and forthrightness without forgetting the issue at stake or compromising with his lay down principles. I can’t remember who made which suggestions but I couldn’t have been myself if I didn’t write down how creative Jide Badmus is to this generation of writers.

He captures innocence, dance of seduction and outsmarts soaring Eagle embraces. He understands his ability to tell stories to individual’ minds, those minds like ours and those who have been here before us. He understands the fierce pleasure and enthralling atmosphere of change and he has chosen to write poems that would last for ages. A close look at some of his poems will make you understand that he don’t just write for praises and accolades or awards, he writes them just like his muse brings them to him. He takes his time; he takes his imaginative thinking to write those poems. Writers will understand what it means to create lines and make them follow effortlessly in the mind of the readers. Not every writer out there understands this; one thing is to write and the other is to carry your readers alone with you because if you cannot carry your readers along as you proceed line by line they won’t find your work fascinating and appealing. Jide Badmus is one of those poets I know that carry their readers along with them. He first holds his readers in mind and make sure he walks with them without losing any of them. You see the reason why when he wrote about Coffee and so many poets on facebook followed him. They wrote their own version of Coffee. It was fun to all, had it been that that poem was not understood by those poets who wrote their own version, they wouldn’t have written theirs.
Meanwhile, he just doesn’t write but he does that on purpose, a purpose which many who follow him would understand reading through his thoughts. He writes a coming of age poems, he writes today’s verse and that of yesterday; a poem that stays even when everything is gone. He has a unique style of writing, his own unique style not from anyone else. His uniqueness involves brevity, wit and understanding of his readers. Maybe I’ll call him grand master because he is well committed to the well-being and development of every word of art, lines and stanza of his poems. When Jide Badmus writes, he engages your mind with what to think and reminisce of until he writes another.


© John Chizoba Vincent
#LiquidWords

LETTERS: TO A GREAT PERSONALITY, IFEANYI BERNARD

I won’t forget you in a hurry; I won’t. I will hold rivers for you. You have been a brother, a friend, a colleague, a teacher and motivator. You have been helpful to me in many ways in my writing career. You are selfless and kind and enduring. I am not writing this just to praise you, this is from my heart. You are a saviour to some of my write ups. I could remember in 2018 in Vivid Verses precisely when I posted an Article of which I can’t remember its title now, some guys attacked. They abused me of how my article was filled with errors. I could have stopped writing then because the attack made me felt like I wasn’t good enough.

I was lost in words to reply them because their critique wasn’t constructive but destructive, you came to my rescue. You slide into my thought and into my inbox and told me how brave it was to have written such an Article and promised to assist me in editing some of them if chanced. Then, I wasn’t sure I could do that again. I thought I wasn’t good enough to write, I thought I could not be better than I was yesterday because the critics were on me tearing down many ounces of my prowess. Sometimes those who does not critique constructively don’t really know how it hurts attacking someone, they don’t know how long it takes a writer to think out some things and craft it on the surface of a paper; some on black ink and some blue ink and others, red ink. They don’t understand those things take time. It is good to critique because it is from there that a writer knows his errors and his strong point. It is good to critique to elevate a writer’s creativity but when critiquing, it should be done constructively. There are ways you approach some things which may be insultive but when taking in a good approach the writer may not know.

I will always keep this in memory even as we all drive directly into making our art and voices heard somewhere better than where we are. I told them that my father’s house on the other side of the street no long breed ghosts of weakness; I will always pick a printed note from the soul of my writings to create tomorrow. I won’t taste weakness again; I won’t taste how the fierce hands of weakness could bring down a giant. You are a great personality, you are a man of many colours, a great personality who has taught many how to hold a pen and how to be themselves and how to face the sun and look into its eyes without fear. You may not know this but it is real. It is the truth, many know about it. later, we would be at the cliff holding our souls in the mind of the earth celebrating how great we made each other to be.

Later, we would be the first set of people holding the spirit of our forefathers and holding fast the great alluring faith of being who we are in the eyes of the world. We won’t hold grudges; we won’t let our smile collide with a fierce demon looking out for our fall. Think of holding that dreams, hold unto that spirit; there are many people who will hold down Rivers and oceans for your sake. Remember, life is too short but it becomes much longer base on those who you made smile each passing day, some you re-created in their struggles and made them see reasons to live above their fears. It is not easy to keep memories in the hole of mediocrity; it is not real to keep bouncing down on the testimonies that betray our uncertainties. Worries might come; the uncertainties of the world may hold us back against what we look forward to achieving but with grin of perfection we march forward to achieving them.

Peace is what we all need In life; peace to our lives, peace to our family and peace to the society and the world at large. Because any family that has no peace has no unity and progress. You will remember how Aba made us independent, you will remember how the hustle and hassle has been, a brother against a brother, a sister against a sister, a king against a king, mother against a daughter. We listen more to the fake prophets, they once told us about how our fathers are after our lives and we made our fathers our enemies. Sometimes I wonder how a mother or a father goes against his son; to kill him. Aba was the place my memories started; it did not start in Lagos where every man is on his own like the snake. Later, I would be telling you how Lagos taught me how to forget my old self and go on with a new me. I would be writing them on the glittering walls of heaven and earth how it all began to take shape after the first hallucination of being me.

You remember the consequences of failing in Igbo land. You know in Igbo land that we are all being looked up by our parents to make that dreams happen. To achieve those things they could not achieved when they were much younger. They pushed to the sun for us to get through those parts of their dreams they were not able to fulfill. If you are the first you would understand better what I’m talking about. I have promised myself many years ago never to live or place my life base on people’s expectation of me. I have learnt to be myself and push the derail train of life myself. How funny it is to hold down one’s life dreaming and someone out there re-channelling your steps? I am of the opinion that we have to work and pray and love; we have to love those things seen and those unseen hoping to behold the ray of the sun to our very heart. Keep being you, Ifeanyi.

Furthermore, do not be deceived by what is seen around you. Every tree shall one day crack on it stem. We must station ourselves to that greatness ahead of us. We must pray for the good fortunes to rest on our struggles. We are not perfect in many ways because we are children of breast milk but we must strive for the perfection of mankind. We must raise the standard. We must go extra miles to achieve those things we have in our mind. Mind you, when progress start to emerge, not everybody will like you. Not everybody you called friends will look in to your eyes and congratulate you. Love is far-fetched from this part of the world where greed and selfishness is the order of the day but, be of good courage, you are born for greatness among your peers.

But on a matter of fact, I admire you from afar. I admire your courage and spirit in the act of the art. I could remember our first meeting at costain under the umbrella of Wordaholic; you picked me up to officially open the program with prayer. I was skeptical at first being a shy guy. I wanted to reject that but on the other hand I grabbed the mic and prayed. I still have these tiny memories in my mind. Later you would be calling me to render a poem just like every other spoken word artistes did. I still remember everything that happened that night. I could still remember the first time we shook hand together. I still remembered you added me in poetry court what’sapp group and that was how we started. You are loved from here, brother.

I really appreciate those calls; I really appreciate them. They were like a medicine into my vein. I must tell you the truth that I never expected it coming, I never saw it coming but it came anyway. Thanks for being a brother. Thanks for being a friend. Thanks for being a colleague. Thanks for being there and making me learn that life could be in twos: white and black, sadness and happiness, life and death; no man is an island of knowledge. Later, I would be telling my children about you, I would be telling them how you stood behind me in days of troubles. Just smile if you really want to; it is true from my heart.

For me to spend my time in this deadest time of the night to write this letter to you shows that I have you in mind and my archive have your name on it. Be of great cheer for tomorrow when your children shall see this, they would know that their father is a great man of great valour. They would learn how selfless their father is. How he abandoned many of hos dreams to help another achieve theirs. On a lighter note, Remember we will still sit together someday to have a drink and cheer to the brightest days of our life and we’ll let this boyish laughter to show how happy we are.
This is coming from a pen that must not be frustrated.

© John Chizoba Vincent
#LiquidWords

LETTERS: TO AN EXCEPTIONAL YOUTH LEADER AND GREAT THINKER, SOUL’E RHYMEZ

I will hate myself if I fail to acknowledge your impact in my life. You stood to defend my art when the storm came. You came to my inbox some years back, 2016 precisely to tell me to keep writing when they said I wasn’t good enough to be a writer. I wanted to give up writing then but your words encouraged me and I was able to find my ground again. You were among the few people here who stood by me and attacked my attackers. And there is no way my success story would be complete without your name on one of the pages. You are a star if you don’t know about that, just know it today. You colours and glows in many ways; many may not like you because you think beyond what they think about or rather you are better than them because no one would likely pull anything below him rather he will always aim at those things above him. One of those things I learnt from you over these years is to think beyond what the normal people are thinking, to think differently; out of the box.
There are many theories and principles which you have propagated and they are helping many young people out there. There are many lives you have touched through your articles and online lectures and one of those people is me. There are many people you have really helped to channel their footsteps to where they suppose to be, you guided them through your words to a certain level to achieving their dreams. Many people will fight you whenever you try to change their long time beliefs; it is a saying that when a new saying gets to the land of common men, they lose their senses. I see the fight as nothing because people won’t fight anyone that is not saying the truth, once you are uprooting the truth and fact about a particular people or things; you certainly see people that would go against you.
Moreover, it is one of our duties as writers to write purposefully, to keep writing things the way we’ve seen it. Not everyone will like what we have written, not everybody would attest to the fact within our write ups, some will while some won’t but we must not be disturbed by those who don’t really like what we’ve written. Remember you thought me this, maybe you might have forgotten about it. You wrote to me that I should keep writing and thriving and striving to achieve the intended goals I have in mind that if everybody likes my work; that the work is as good as being useless. I learnt that from you and now, the voice is getting ticker and braver. Your words are gold to those who see beyond the black ink used in writing them. You are beyond what they thought you are. Keep flourishing, keep blossoming and remember, there are many people who look up to you daily and there are many people out there that must follow you day and night, come rain, come sun. I am not ashamed to call you a friend, I am not ashamed to know you, I am not ashamed to call you an exceptional leader of our time neither am I ashamed to call you great thinker of our time. my heart beat for you, my spirit seek for your kind of your person. Never give up on your quest for a newer world where everyone is sole responsible for himself, where everyone is guilty of himself; where everyone is bothered about how to lift others so that living would be a sweet adventure.
We may not have seen many years agony except that day you invited me in your office for a meeting. It was fun meeting you. It was a life changing encounter with you but I’ll love to keep that for another day. Another day we would sit together in high places to tell the audience how we came about our good fortunes. How we break through struggles and worthless hate to be where are. We will tell them how many hurdles we have to pass to achieve our goals. I envisioned a great man each time I behold your face. Indeed I see a man of great passion. I see a man that has vision for the coming generation. I see a man that will lead the youths to a home of peace. I see a man that is selfless and humble though his arrogant attitude is to some extent. I see peace each time I see your face. Keep moving man for the world needs a great thinker like you. Later, I would be telling the world about you as I have started scribing your name on the marble of greatness. The history will recognize you. One good thing about humanity is that you rise raising others.
Meanwhile, I must tell you that I am afraid of those people I know than those people I don’t know because those you know will hurt you dearly than those you don’t know. Those you don’t know will be afraid of you, coming closer would be a difficult tasks to them. I will urge you to keep doing what you know how to do best. Keep pushing and pray that one day, your voice will be reckoned somewhere in the world and by some people who value knowledge and wisdom. Brother, we are moving; I think you understand what I meant by that. I was supposed to tell you about my affairs, about the consequences of heartbreak and the issue with beauty and those fragments that are hidden behind it, but I won’t tell you this here but promise to let you know about it later when we see face to face. i have promised myself that I will train children not genders. I will look after my boys and my girls; I’ll build a nation of greatness holding onto love. You know that having and knowing is a different thing entirely? You know that… I won’t be lock away in self-pity when tomorrow comes; when those children of symbols shall be asking why, how, what happened, when, then, I will have the gut to tell them how I was able to build myself in motion and drive from a man like you. I’m still learning. I’m still getting better. I have not gotten to my final destination and we all know that. I have to work harder in dreams and aspiration to hold down many things for the purpose of having and loving.

As for marriage, I think we have many things to talk about in that course because you have many things I need from you. You have many things that I need and this would not skip me at this moment. The tiny memories holding the fiber of my emotions are home again and I think holding the gutless embryo of goodness is the key to let go of uncertainties. We will overcome this terrain; we will open up this chapter of seriousness and face the opportunity of loving. We’ll not surrender faithfully to happen to life and time and chances. I don’t know how to start remembering many things right now, I don’t think remembering them would make a difference from what I have already said. Keep the fire burning, keep the fire brewing in and out of bodies for tomorrow will smile on you and leave a note to posterity and honestly; you are evergreen in thought and actions. Never relent, never give up trying to push that which you know, try not to look back, even when you decide to look back, let it be for a reason that is helpful to those that look up to you and to the world.
I thank God for the day I sent you a friend request here on facebook and the day it was accepted. Thank you for adding me in SRAF. I learnt a lot from that Group. I learnt the act of confidence, the act of being me. The act of knowing my worth and what I should stand in life. I am very grateful for those times we had lectures and those times we had discourse and many other times we talked about life and the rudiments of life and it consequences. I know you to be a happy man trying to impact that happiness in many people who still believe in you. Keep working brother, keep dreaming, keep writing; and never give colic of their desires into consideration. Live and let’s live. This is my token, a token of my thought; a token of my imperfection, a token of my kindness, have it, save it until that day when we’ll see each other on faintly lit room grinning in good fortunes. This is my dream that we all live long to see what tomorrow will bring forth to our struggles and hassle and we must live to live again and again and again.
This is from a pen refusing to be frustrated.


© John Chizoba Vincent
#LiquidWords.

LETTERS: TO A GREAT WOMAN OF HONOUR, Ogwiji Ehi

Dear Ehis, it is a great opportunity to me to tell you that you are a great writer of this generation. You are good with what you do; building words together like castle of knowledge, breaking walls with words, giving freedom and hope with words. Keep up with the good work. And nights like this one we don't sleep, we let sleep rests on the mouth of our keyboard then we type to appreciate those in mind.

Yesterday, I decided to go through my archive and the first name I saw looking at me was your name, a great name indeed for a great woman like you. I may not know the meaning of the name but I know they are representative of something beautiful, something precious and something spectacular about Africa, about Tradition, about Culture of our people and people to come. Meanwhile, I have asked couple of people about the said name but I think I have not gotten a reasonable answer to that. Maybe you might be of help to tell me its meaning after reading this letter. You know Africans in their ways don’t only give a name but they give out a name that will stand in test of time. They give names that represent them in many ways. A name that means a lot to our culture, a name that resonates and keep the tradition and custom of our people. Thinking about your name sometimes, I can swear it is loaded with revelations of who you are and what you stand for as a person. Yes, African names are much like the smell of a particular soup which by merely perceiving it from afar one can decrypt the true condition of the soup or rather what the soup might look like and the type of soup it is, that is how and what African names are. They are laden with meanings and Revelations of who we are.

Your mother must have been killed with joy at the sight of the gift of a beautiful baby girl like you: ebony black, pretty and most of all the smile that you came with at the sight of your mother’s dimples, or even both your mother’s or your father’s when he came to look into your eyes at the hospital or when the nurses called him into the hospital to show you to him. The smile you let out that day might indeed generate a lot of glees in the world of your parents. Have you ever think of that day that your mother held you on her palms with smiles so real and named you Ehis? Have you ever think of that day that you were born and the joy seen in your mother’s face as she smiled watching people came to see you? Have you ever think of the joy it brought to your parents even now whenever they see you? Whatever, you will agree with me that an African child’s name is a lake of his tales or the circumstances surrounding his or her birth. How else do I explain this thought or rather imagining from miles away, the happiness in your parents’ home when you were born to them?

Of this beauty; we were born for a reason other than those ones we know. Beholding this fact that humans are the curator of their own destinies remain the honest judgment in the angle of my thoughts. We are who we are through those reservoirs of our dignities.
We’re watching you, great one. You may not understand the lives you’ve touched; you may not know that many people are standing behind your smile and your laughter to create more and more pleasant world for their generations. Later, they would say they came, they saw and conquered their fear through the reality you created among them. You are indeed a child of symbol, birthed in the house of symbols, of a coral beauty and ebony smile holding down the fragments of the world.
A times I wonder what it meant to be you, I wonder what drives you as a person and what keeps you going and the kind of books that inspires you in this world where many ghost seek for an uncommon hope to lay down their fears and wickedness. You’ve so far painted a world of freedom to many writers out there. You’ve indeed created a path to many whose mind are restless to change the world. However, the history has your names on it. You have created paths for your kind of person, a person whose pen drives thousands of emotion into braveness. Even if they have not seen it, I have seen and witnessed it from many of those works you shared with us here on the virtual space. I have witnessed the going and coming of age of your creativity through what you have written. It is said that a writer hardly differentiates his or her personality from his or her writings but to tell you the truth, I don’t believe that. There are many hidden symbols in a writer’s life which he or she do not portray in his writing, it is said you are what you write. This, I have seen in many of what you shared with us. Keep the fire burning, keep the hope on and never subject yourself to the mere personality that many have subjected their life to. There is hope when we hold on to what we do, there is hope to this art and act; there is hope holding onto to those things we are made to be. Even if money is not coming from it now, I believe that it will surely come when we keep doing it. Even if friends mock us now like they did to me sometimes ago, we’ll keep writing because we are born writers hoping to change the world for good.
I may not know your personal opinion about our country home. I may not know what and how you have written about her but I’ll urge you to create more room to know how this side of the world drains our dreams out from their source. We should not forget her in our dealings. Listen to the heartbeat of this home and endeavor to tell the generation to come how to overcome so many situations here. Although their own challenge may be different from ours but we have to give them guidelines on how to survive here; we may likely not write on the same theme as writers but we should always consider the matter at stake. We should always consider our home and what it is made of, we should write to correct and to educate and to manage and to build; we should always write with purpose. I know you to be a great writer of a great repute, we look up to you, we, in many times bank on your brevity and inspirations but, we shouldn’t forget home because a man whose home is on fire does not go after the rats.

Furthermore, let’s paint the atmosphere with love from above holding onto honesty and drive which will sustain the next generation of writers. I have been eager to meet you, I have been eager to sit one day with you to talk about our country home, to talk about our culture and tradition and custom but distance has been the enemy. Distance has been the foe that stands between us. When our way shall cross path someday, I will be telling you how good you are and how reserved I have imagined you to be. The warmth your words have made my heart to be, your words keep resounding and awakening the human in me. Although you may not understand this but they are true words, they are real and factual.

Concerning the issues of the heart, I won’t go in to it because it does not please many people when a stranger like me talks about love and marriage to them. But in all, let there be a distinguish pattern through which it is seen. We should always differentiate between lust from the men to love and also Obsessions. When Martins Deep wrote a poem to you, I saw your reaction to it. I saw and read how the statement made you feel. It may be an honour for me to tell you that the man in question does not feel anything else than to appreciate the kind of person you are. I told you earlier that many people out there really look up to you. I have had an opportunity to discuss you with some people on facebook and they told me how great you are and how they long to meet you in person and that is what we all really need as writers. When we touch lives, we should be happy for those we’ve touched their lives. When they plan on meeting us, if the opportunity comes, we shouldn’t deny it from them. We shouldn’t in any way.

When suffragette’s women make case against the overbearing nature of men, they always make the mistake of mixing gender injustices with wickedness in their way of judging or analyzing it which is not supposed to be so. While all gender injustices can be called wickedness, not every wickedness is gender injustice I think you know that. Now, I don’t really know your opinion about man and woman, about feminism and their war against men or rather in what they believe in. Unfortunately, many of our delusional feminists appear not to know where a case falls under the category of gender imbalance or the wickedness of a spouse. No matter how we snake our roots into our skin, nature will still have to take it shape in a way we won’t really understand.

I would have wanted to write more, to ask you about your studies, to ask you about friends, loved ones and family and relatives but I think I have to stop here to give you the freedom to think on what I have written. To give you the freedom to remain who you are. Keep being you and not anyone else.

© John Chizoba Vincent
#LiquidWords

LETTERS: LETTER TO GOD

Dear God,

We’ve been friends even as my mother conceived me. You told her that you love me. You told her that everything that concerns me touches you in the heart. You told her that you knew me even before she conceived me. You said to her: that my expectation shall not be cut off by any man or any woman. You said to her, that you are my pillar and my fortress and my strong tower and nothing is too hard for you to do for me. I know you as you knew me right from the beginning of time immemorial. Then, why has the mountain failed to move? Why is the pillar holding the world shaking? Why is the world basking on my weaknesses? Why has evil triumph over me? Where are you? Where is your will? Why are your ears too far from my words? Why don't you command this sickness out of the way? Why have they tormented us this far like we have no father above? Why free the Devil to use us like he wants? Why? Why? I ran to mother in the deadly hours of the night, I saw her in supplication to no one else but you.

I saw that Chinedu was still sick. I saw tears in the face of Father, father whose mighty hands built the church cathedral. I could remember when he said that you told him to give all his best and he gathered some of his brothers and sisters and sold the whole lands he inherited from his father. He gave the proceeds to the church of God according to the prophecy. He called it a seed, yes, he called it a seed to God and we all believed him because he believed in you. He was mocked by all but he waited. He waited for you to answer him but you were far, far from him. maybe the time has not come, maybe, he might be lucky if he waits a little longer. You were not there to rescue him when sickness came. You were not there to rescue him when he had an accident. You should have averted the accident to somewhere else because he pays his tithe and gives his offering. Father’s favourite line from the holy Book says that:

“…And you will devour the devourer and the cankerworms…”

That was the lines we grew up hearing him quote each time he was counting his tithe and whenever he paid his tithe. You were not there to heal his second daughter Chikamso. She died in pains of Cancer and was buried while you watched from heaven.

Meanwhile, father trusted in you. You said that those that trusted in you will never be put to shame but he did. Look at mother in supplication every now and then. She had made the kitchen her home. The kitchen where the memories of Chikamso started, the kitchen where she first collapsed, the kitchen where Kambili died; the kitchen where her dog was poisoned; the kitchen where she birthed Mary, her memories started right here in the kitchen not in the bedroom but here where seeking for freedom is the deadliest thing that ever happened to mankind. Nothing is worth anything to a dead man, not even his money. It is how boys were raped and we could not see God come to their rescue in the midst of many deadly torments and torture. It is how girls were abused and we could not lay hands on the mercy of God rather his words came before the sun of the day to hurt us fiercely on our craving skins. It is how we were taking into exile and the spirit of God was nowhere to be found. It is how our brothers and sisters were killed on the gory land called Nigeria. We could not find God in their midst yet, we believed that he is ever present to us.

Mother is still in the kitchen, father is still holding on tears just like what the society told him that a man must not cry because he is a man, that a man must not show his weaknesses because he is a man. God, now that Mary is no more here to sing of how great you are, our mouths are ceased of praises. How could you have allowed Mary to leave us here alone? How could you have allowed her to journey alone in the void places holding no one by her side? Who would then sing in this morning devotion? Who would then raise a song of praises to you without holding back his tears? We are all dying, and we must all die if Mary did not return home. Maybe death is the safest place to lay down ourselves till eternity. Her smiling portrait rests on the heart of every one of us, capped with a lonely empty feeling. How could you’ve allowed death to snatch her away from us? How could you have allowed her the freedom to paradise without first consulting her? You further made her pass through pains and sorrow before you took her away. Why?

Now, who will go to church with her Bible to worship you? Who will then clap hands like her in the church if she did not return? Is Cruelty served in your plate? You took her down so bitterly with no complain; agony randomly blue ticked all her texts. She endured the pains and wished for the best but the best never came to her. Even when the world within her was at rest, no favors, and no gains, just a troublesome quest, but wait, why do we run to you after being frightened? Why do we forget you’re the same God that cares nothing about us in this side of the world? Why do we pray if not for it to be answered? The Demons use us here like we were some rolls of paper, like we were a blunt meant to be finished but make sure their feelings were satisfied, they use us like a peddler, only when they need us.

Should I tell papa to go to the altar and take back the money he sowed as a seed for the wellbeing of Mary? Should I tell mother to stop fasting or to go to church and request for her car that she sowed as an offering for Mary’s recovery? Anyways, you are still God with or without those things and us. You are still there as God and no one can question your authority as they rightly said. But, I am bringing this to you that Satan is not at rest and you should not be at rest also. If Mary after all she had done in the house of God could die then life itself is meaningless to every human being. Having this thought all day long makes me think of losing myself to the wind. It makes me want to rest myself in the vacuum of lonely days till the trumpet will sound for Christ to come to our rescue if possible. Tomorrow sounds good and poisonous defining the art through which we were made. Tomorrow is a school of thought with the definition of unknown and you know you made it so. If only we could number our days here on earth; man will be better than he is now. If only tomorrow is known to us, man would learn how to manage himself to the fullest but tomorrow is unknown.

Papa has being on a wheel chair for the past fifteen years. He had an accident doing your work. Sister Amaka has not given birth for the past ten years and she is among the pastors in the church. She counseled a sister who wanted to abort her child yesterday. Later today, she heard that the same sister has ended up aborting the child. I know your time is the best but she is being mocked by people she is better than. They looked straight into her eyes and mock her aggressively. Even those she called sons and daughters in the Lord mock her also. We were told that the devil locked up her womb because she is a Christian. Is that so? Where are you, God?

Brother Ezeugo lost his job last year because he was caught preaching the gospel to one of his coworkers. We all know that these are temptations to show your supremacy over all things but you are still God with or without all these temptations. And now Ogba is suffering of pile…! I know you know about this but, when will all this end? Should we switch places and find peace somewhere else? Should we tell them that you are no longer God? Should we continue to plead that we may be called humans? No!

Yesterday, I was in the church again and the man of God spoke about heaven and hell. He taught us about paradise on earth and an ensnaring hell fire for sinners. He said there is a Hell fire waiting for all sinners, those who disobeyed God. I was surprise hearing this again. I was astonished of how a lovely father would punish his children in the lake of fire because of disobedient. I was wondering why but I could not get an answer to the question. I wonder how you will feel seeing your children that you created burn and scream for help from the fire. Would you just close your eyes and ears for us to burn till eternity or would you quash the fire when you have mercy on us or would you just allow us to perish? If so, why did you create us, for you to burn us like that?
When Mary was alive, she was a chorister. Later, she was ordained as a pastor and she was up and doing. She did all that she could to put smiles on people’s faces. She won many souls to the kingdom and was called mother Theresa of our generation. She built many foundations where the motherless and the orphans could be taken care of but after all, she died as a no body.

She died just like a fowl. She asked that I suck her memories away; she asked that I be her eyes, so i began from the beginning of her making until she gave up the ghost— i touched her like feathers on the wings of a seabird on the day she gave up as a human. She floated and ached in my bones but I asked for peace but it was far away from me. Peace which no one could give but only you. I shivered and woke in her skin, i nibbled into her nipples but all was lifeless to the core. I and her mother and her father moaned looking at her face lying on the bed. Her spirit taught us how to run, to disallow little demons from telling us how her vagina looks like. I think you know all of this. I know you know them all, God. Life has taught us to wear the cloths of our fathers and that of misery — "riches are never available” that was what misery told us. Life said that we should be scarce; we cannot cut our heart for a river flowing with dismissal. Life is a docile, a door less room where everything escape at will. Life is a misery only known to it by itself.

Let’s learn how to plant our lips only on our mouth day and night so that we could suck out mother and her mother’s dirge and her father's mother elegy before the black goats go into the dark night to look for yams to misuse. Let’s turn our hands into a song from which your mouth ache again and again at your inabilities. We are all humans learning to throw ourselves to the world like our kites dangling to wind songs without holding anything as a common desire to hurt others of their misfortunes. In the terrain of blue skies, we will become tired humans learning to empty our wisdoms through the names of the grave but before then, let’s knit to our father's names to look for why our prayers take time to be answered and why we die and where we could find death. How do you think you carve the name of death after you die? On the sand towers? On the bridge of hope or on the bodies of the skies?

God, do you know I gave myself big eyes and big dreams and big faiths and big distance and bigger height just like the Egyptian’s pyramid? Do you know that when time becomes darkness we must beat with torchlight? I may not likely tell you that I am not asking, you know I have being asking and waiting for the answer; no Raven remain in the sky to convey my messages to you, none. I seek the boldness of the wind to take my pleas to you so that life will not make me feel like a fatherless when you are still alive. Just in case I misstep, just in case I no longer dream; just in case I may think of losing it all, just us in separate worlds dancing in the wind.

It is how I and father and mother and the remaining brothers of mine took the stairs in our lives with bowties of everyday barriers because the songs of human are a case in the courtyard of perpetuity. There are stories in the eyes of those boys who went and never came back to this world. There are somehow prices in the eyes of those women and men who are murdered every day in our streets? There are untold tales in the mouths of those our brothers and sisters who were killed by terrorist groups and herdsmen! There are many stories, dear God. Why were they brought to this world in the first place? Why are we here? To drink, produce and die?

Flinging mangoes against the window netting and making the electric wires hit each other and spark bright orange flames, is how men and women are lured into brokenness, because each time day breaks, it reminds men to work harder and toil more than the veins in their bodies because sweating is how a man poses and take pictures to remind himself of how he started. This is how our stories are told anywhere where the world is said to be round and flat. Every day, the human race is scrunched up with the noses at the smell of bloody fresh meat and musty dried fish and their heads are lowered from the bees that buzzed in thick clouds over the sheds of the honey sellers. This is what you made us to be, it is how we became skeleton in our memories and talking to a father who made us became somehow rowdy and sometimes we scream and curse and clap our hands knowing very well that those pastors that were said are called by God told us to do so. It is how men and women became thirsty on the tongues of sweet neglects. Like one time, a boy and a girl were raped like a moth-eaten blouse slipping off from a woman's shoulder just how every day explains how tailored the tears of a boy child and a girl child, a man and a woman become once its drops from their eyes and you were nowhere to be found to rescue them not even their fellow human came to rescue them.

You walked on oceans, i stretched into my body into your eyes, we both wanted to see what it really meant to be called a God; one small, one big. To course through the skin of a sky or float into the windpipe of yesterday when we were still blood and water will have us thinking like we once existed here. Tell me, is there really Hellfire? Is there really ghost? Is there really spirit? Is there really Satan? How did the fight of the growing gods broke out in heaven? Who were the judges, Angels? I am confused here just like everyone else. The African traders are home now, all wailing of their lost sons and daughters whom they will never see again. The street has ceased to accommodate us, it’s deserted. What are our offenses? They said human blood had redesigned their bodies. Tell me, why do you allow much blood to spill all over the place? And those who were killed without their knowledge of it, will they still go to hell fire to be burned?. Your skin our iris, is a monument, is a collection of fire of anguish to burn us all till eternity. We burn, you gnash like a father watching his children dying silently. This is not what every book called a lover's God should contain.

They said it is not everything I find here that looks like you but you created them all. They said you are white or Pink or what have you, who does Africans look like, Ape? But you created us in your Image isn’t it? I am confused here! Totally confuse but it is a mystery why we are here.

Remember, Ogba is still sick of pile. Yesterday, a prophetess laid hand on him to be healed and gave him holy water to drink but he is still hoping for healing. Remember he must not die on the 4th of May. He must not die just like Mary died. You have to bless him and make him the light you promised. He has to bring his family to the lime light, he has to.

I may not be able to share kola nut with you as it is being done in the heart of Igbo men when they gather to deliberate on the issue hurting them. I may not be able to render some praises to you at this moment because of the urgency tailored for my voice to be hearkened.

Maybe we’ll switch places and find peace somewhere without the gospel or maybe we hold the gospel waiting for that glorious day of the coming or the last day between death and life.

© John Chizoba Vincent
#LiquidWords

LETTERS: TO OLA. W. HALIM WHOSE HEART IS A PYRAMID OF LOVE

Sometimes the only way I could be able to relate my experiences is telling them like tales. The other times I found joy looking at the sun grin with alluring smile from the sky. I’m an observer, a listener and sometimes can be overwhelmed by the goings in this ever busy world. I have been studying your art and act from afar. I know you even If you don’t know little or more about me. You are to me what salt is to soup and what it is also to everything edible. Remember, there are many dreams we must live to conquer and those ones that we must hand over to our children when we are hundred plus for them to go after it. Happiness happens in everything that our eyes watch but holding to the fact that we are here for each other, we must write to channel our good fortunes to a place where heroes are made.

I have watched the sun in many days and weeks and months. I have watched it in its gloomy days and joyful days just like humans taking turns to face their own warrant of hardship and struggles. You can’t imagine holding the ray of the sun, looking at its face boldly without any atom of fear. You face the sun bravely and look into its eyes. You listen to your body giving out these strange feelings. You listen to your heart beat singing a lullaby to a nearby friend. Sometimes you don’t care anymore, sometimes you care. You don’t care anymore what people say about you, you stop running away from your body; you stop seeing yourself as not being equal to others because of what the society has propagated on a particular subject. How bold it is to accept yourself just like you are; you accepted your personality, you love yourself and damn the consequences it bring to you? Even when people say you don’t belong here, you stand firm to look into their eyes and tell them that you’re sure you belong there.

You see, there are times I failed myself, I became afraid of accepting myself the very way I am but your words came calling. Your words encouraged and amended my heart. They are gold to whosoever that beholds them. They are stream of knowledge to those who come across them. We march on trying to pick up from where destiny dropped us. We keep running from here to there, we keep running out of ourselves not to find hope but to confide in an unknown places, unknown dreams, and unknown land where nothing is seen as anything. I have a dream that someday we won’t run again. We will dream together on the bank of the oceans, we will sail along the path of redemption. We will sail through the eyes of destiny.

I love your fight for acceptance. I love your fight against the hate on albinism. The fight to be called one among all. Albinism is not a disease, it is not in any way a crime to be one among all and so therefore, the discrimination should stop. Albinos are just humans, they are not evil; they are not devils, they are not mistakes. No one begged to be created albino and therefore, the discrimination should stop. We should stop telling the black goat to go to the dark to look for the grasses. In principal understanding of life and the policies guiding the so called nature, humans are created to bend and be erected again. I wish I could testify how lovely the skin of albinos are. I wish I could gently tell honestly how their skin give me joy of the beauty of creation, how blacks, pinks and whites were created among the albinos.

I think generally we should accept everyone just the way they are. Accept the rich as well as the poor, the whites, the pinks, and the blacks. Never discriminate anyone because we are all created by same God.
Ola, I love your spirit accepting yourself or colour just as it is without allowing the illusion of the world to overshadow you like the funnels of hell. You should be a voice out there to others to speak out for those who have no voice to speak for themselves as Albinos. I must commend your efforts, I have read couple of your articles on Albinos and I think I love them. They are something that will stand in years to come.

Furthermore, let no one deceive you, you are loved just the way you are. I admire you from afar. Remember we promised to see each other in 2018 during the Ake Festival but we could not. I was thinking of hugging you on that day, I had in mind that i will hold you tight to my bosom and allow your heartbeat tell me a long story of how courageous you are. I know how it feels and what it means be rejected by those who supposed to hold you dearly in their bosom. I know and understand how it feels to be discriminated or rather people taking turn to look at you in the street and even someone coming to touch you and some; shouting “Oyibo pepper” in the street. I have done that when I was much younger. I have once told an albino that he was not fit to be among us. I watched him went away in tears. I watched him stood in the middle of the street looking at us played hide and seek. Later, I learnt it in the hard way that it is not good to put shame on the face of those whom you suppose to care for. Yesterday, I shouted at my little niece, Chiyelum, for laughing at one who could not really see very well under the sun.
I still have to appreciate you for my book “For Boys of Tomorrow”. Your words were appealing. They were satisfying. When Micheal Ace sent me the first Draft and I saw your name on the foreword, I was glad that someone like you could go through my work. It was an honour; it was an honour having your name on my first offering to poetry. I really appreciate you for who you are.

Notwithstanding, I still have your hug here. I will keep it till we meet where we’ll sit together to drink wine and cheer up for a greater future. You are one in a million.

Meanwhile, how is Granny and those around you? Hope you are doing very great and I hope that this government is in many ways favouring you in your career. I hope you've been good imparting spiritual knowledge to those boys and girls put in your care. I must tell you that I admire your courage and bravery to trade in that lane. I have being there once, I was once a teacher and I know what it means to stand in front of student teaching them what they should know. I know the exceptional attraction, standing heart to heart with students from different background and having them tell you what they think is right and what they think is wrong. The joy teaching brings is something one can’t really explain. The other day, I met one of my students on the way. He ran to me and hugged me very tight, our body and heart beating simultaneously as we held each other. He was now a big boy. We had drinks together and he told me how my words have really helped him in the university. I have met quiet a lot of them and we had great time together measuring those days I caned them and those times they made me got mad at them. I could remember that one of them, a lady, called me some times ago and told me that she wanted to see me.

And we met in one eatery where we had nice time together. One wonderful thing about teaching is that those children will never forget you no matter how long it takes. We must not keep running out from ourselves, we must fight and fight hard from the rising of the sun to the setting of the sun; we must fight on.

I won’t forget those calls you put through to me in my dying state; I won’t. You know rubbing shoulders together sometimes brings love and friendship. Thanks for making me feel important. Thanks for taking out your time to call me and, thanks for teaching me that life is as easy as making friends, I really appreciate. On that day of appreciation, this too will come. This too shall be remembered and we will share drink together on high places where dignitaries shall hold us both in high esteem. We will let out a smile and tell our children how it all began from Facebook to that Platform where we would see ourselves. We’ll soon be the next rated, the next writers on the block holding rivers, kindling fires, holding waters and the vital part of humanity. We will be called Children of Symbols birthed in the house of courage. We won’t miss it; we won’t because we have come to stay among the brave men. I love you and let this spirit and words remain fresh in your memory till we see to give out that boyish smile that we are known for. Just keep it in mind that we aren’t stones; boys are not stones but have feelings and emotion like our counterpart, the girls.

I am of the opinion that you keep blossoming like the flowers in the garden and don’t give up no matter what is after you; the flowers still bloom in war.

This is from a heart refusing to be frustrated!

© John Chizoba Vincent
#LiquidWords

LETTERS: TO A SOUL SISTER, ESTHER KALU

Someday, we will sit together to talk about Nkporo. To talk about her maidens, the dusty road that colours the zinc along Etitiama and Elughu road whenever it is Christmas season, we will talk about the mountains and the hills; the rivers and the streams that surround her borders. We will look each other in the eyes and expand our imagination to her clay huts which symbolized unity despite her cultural and traditional diversity. If it is going to be the safest approach of our safety, we’ll dive into her bodies and channel our visions into building a new world of our own like the castle of meridian. You know you are her charming princess.

Meanwhile, we will look into our eyes and tell each other how we loved our former days. We’ll talk about the urge of growing up there; we’ll talk about the pains, the tears, the laughter and the fun of growing up into our bodies, into our spirit and recall that we are still our self in the same bodies that have been our abode. We’ll talk and talk until we have nothing to talk about; until we miss the absence of our longings. Until we embrace the honour of understanding the fact that we are the Selfie of that land where dreams grow taller than it owner. We will have to revive our spirit and tell many of how that land shielded us through the hardship of many unforeseen circumstances. I know you may not really know what to talk about but that day, I shall become the talker while you remain the listener. I will look into your eyes to search for home, Nkporo, and clutch my integrity between my emotions and feelings. I will search on your temple to rediscover the dreams left to be seen.

In your smile shall I hold together the eight villages to tell them that a princess like you actually was born in that same land that guided her children before the Iboms. You know what it means to separate dreams and reality from each other; you know what it takes to lay down all what you have to choose a soul that beat from your clan. You know what the future tells of you. We may not be too perfect to tell ourselves to ourselves of how love could be in the hands of novice. Thousands realities are home, the laughter is tabled before the sun of Amadioha until we relocate where the beginning begins will never meet the end…

Do you remember the way to that ancient city? Do you remember that your beads are planted on that soil? Maybe you’ve become foreigner to her, maybe you’ve never tasted her joy, maybe you’ve not really know her as a mother. Maybe you are yet to drive yourself into a saviour before the very eyes of our mothers. But how could you tell of someone you never knew? How could you describe someone you’ve never met? How could you write of a home lost in your wisdom? Searching- Recovery- Breaking in bound and chains eager to tell a home like ours that sustaining emotions and feelings is basic rule of holding one’s life. This is a broken spirit holding the veil and the falcon of legendary. Remember someday, you will be telling your children that you were born somewhere in the East where warriors are breed. You shall be telling them how you visited that land with a heart full of hope and drive. Of marriage; you shall be telling your children, children of the sun; how you made it through many snowy wishes to be here in this journey of loneliness.

Do you remember your smile; it’s lured with admonishment and courage. A smile reminding the universe that the world is for women, courageous women like you. Someday you’ll be telling them of this letter from me. A letter written without knowing you in person except for your voice that echoes with laughter each time I get to hear it from the other side of the phone, a voice that breaks walls and erect dreams. I think you shall be telling them our meeting someday, how glorious it was to see your face and hold your hands and walk down to a vacuum of transparent alley. Of a dream and understand shall we testify truly of a home like ours where dreams never fail. Nkporo is the home.

However, whenever I drove through the cities in my body, I try to find home through your voice but deep, deep inside me is a formless and disordered estate of gloom and utter darkness holding the fortress of the passion to which we know each other. I will make you a light, a source of inspiration and moment of encouragement. I know rightly that faithfulness is the fate through which life rove in the reveries of who we are. I stand, I move towards the string of heart locating a safe empty place where its light is like glittering snow and where home has been found amid a myriad of houses left in shambles of its old self. Remember, to dream is like holding a basket full of water to a forest of one tree. Remember, to call a woman’s spirit a drive is like driving a mad man with a dream into the market to tell of his dreams. My body is no longer what it was before the war, It has become a little house of broken gates, of broken brass, of broken steel, of broken testimony where rubbish sneaks in. Stack by stack life placed its troubles upon our head, we became the nail while those soldiers became hammers driving us deep into brooding and gloomy worlds. A thawing and breaching soul You’ve got through days and days of searching for ways to cleanse the mind of you that seek for a better days. I now believe in miracle, a miracle to come and those that are yet to come. Here I paused my heart, I paused my motions to let you command; to let you into the mind of me when necessary.

Mother told me to find love where there is love. Mother said love could be found in any angle having the smiles of angels. I am yet to see where the needle eyes are. A demi-goddess you are. A brave heart, maybe our eyes are too shy to interlock. Maybe our minds are naked to see the inner most of our being. When tomorrow comes, we will go to the east to let the sun register our names among her people.

Your belief; Men don't cry, so you shuttered and bottled up to the brim wells of taunting trouble you feel within. Men do cry too, when those tears hurting them surface; they find a way to let it go and make amendment to it. Maybe you won’t know of this. Maybe you won’t know that love also make them cry with hope that they might find where love exists. Only if you understood this wisdom; Men cry too, Wells of waters streak down their cheeks and they pour out their souls without stanching them, maybe they do this in the dark or maybe some does this in public. Yes, they do and require comforting shoulders. Friends once told me that whenever I’m stuck in a dirty muddy mayhem I should call out for help. They said I should let another ears hear of my voice. Maybe they will give me a voice also or maybe they will give me a comforting shoulder to lean on.

“Call out! Hands shall reach out to help you”. They admonished

I am so grateful that I know you. I am so grateful that I'm yet to meet you in life. You know life could be a journey of two; One for the love and the other for the happy memories we shared together smiling to each. Even when we have not smiled to each other physically but we did that heart to heart. We were boys and girls bearing our fathers' names, looking for how to create names for ourselves. After our fathers and mothers are no more. You know how it is bearing a name that you never knew when it was christened. You know what it means leaning on the shoulder of someone you never met before, thinking and hallucinating on their behalf. We knew not the way through this ancient terrain; we wandered off and drifted away into the wilderness because our spirits were afraid of what might happen. We knew how to get lost at night under bridges where our emotions refused to accept defeat. We created maps on our empty bodies; we created the route to where we could get enough time to think of life. We were cruel enough not to delineate maps for ourselves that we may use through this rollercoaster ride to get to our destination. You know what it means to get enough air in your lungs to fuel your bladder? You know what it is taking your time smiling to yourself when you remember a face you’ve not met but seen on a portrait created by your imagination?

Yesterday I asked a supposed 'sage' how to look a girl in the eyes. How he did it the last time we met. He babbled and shrugged me off. You know we are still driving through this tumultuous route; many boys are still driving through this route without a leader. Who will lead us? Who will tell us the stories of how our forefather spoke to women and looked into their eyes? I wish our elderly male Will become a voice and sunlit to carry us on their wings and tell us tales of how they survived looking into the eyes of women without getting numb and coy on this shore.

On a lighter note, how is studies and family? I hope you are doing very well? Never mind my naughtiness; it comes in many shapes on darker night like this one. We allow our fingers to run freely on the PC keyboard without thinking much of feelings and emotions. Smile. Laugh. Be sober if you want. Dance if your legs could carry your body at this moment but never think of any string attached to this letter. Keep the smile alive till it luminous light covers the earth, till it finds a home, till it find a lover and a friend; till you find words to pronounce strange words from your lips without feeling ashamed or shy of saying them.

© John Chizoba Vincent
#LiquidWords

LETTERS: TO MICHEAL ACE WHOSE WORDS BREAK CHAINS AND GIVE FREEDOM

You’ve always been the man of the people. You’ve always been there firmly to correct the societal vices troubling the creative minds especially poets and their poetries. You never let many things go unattended. Even those people who throw confusion into our art sometimes run away but you are always there like a brother and a father dishing out ways and means through which we can get things done in a very special way. When some said they don’t know you, I do know you and sometimes I begin to admire this new image of yours as a beholder of self-will like the lizard who fell down from the high Iroko tree and he felt entitled to praise himself if nobody else did.
Soul brother, it is the curse of the snake, yes, it is their curse, if the entire snake lived together in one place, who would approach them? Who will look into their eyes? Who will dare go close to their domain? But they all live every one unto himself and so fall easy prey to man. This is the problem with us, with art, with Poets; with creativity from this side of the world. A big lump caught me in the throat the last time I watched poets exchanging words on facebook. They threw words at each other and these are those whom we look up to; our mentors. But they failed us. It is human to fight, but those who build must first deny themselves of many pleasure.

Our people have a saying that a debt may become mouldy but it never gets rot. I have you in mine, brother. I have you here in my heart like those times I lay on the bed and think of Ivara throughout the dark fearful night. It is like that and like that for every one of us holding ourselves into lines and verses for those that are to come. It is not easy to be a man on this side of the world where we see blood and smiling skulls everywhere looking at us. Those skulls on the other side of the street telling us how colourful and cruel our home country is, those excited skulls reminding us to empty our being into a miserable land called Nigeria. But, we must survive. We must bank our strength on the altar of love and honesty for; with love we shall conquer all things.

We are the men of soul. When there is a big tree, the small ones climb on its back to reach the sun. We are here not for our making and when the day of departure comes, we won’t know about it. A man may go to Australia, become a doctor or an engineer, but it does not change his blood, the blood in his veins and artilleries. It may seem like a bird that flies off the earth and still lands on an Ant-hill. We still have it on the ground. Keep keeping on. Keep making us proud. Keep telling us that writers can actually organize a better award ceremony like The Grammy Award, like the BET, like the Oscar award, like the Soundcity Award, like the Channel O award, like the MTV base Award; like the HipTV Award. I believe in your dreams that writers can be better than this. writers in Nigeria shall one day be celebrated not only on list that shows their names only but on a ground breaking platform where plaques and money shall be given. I believe that through hard work and unity, we’ll make it to that point. A man of great sense does not go hunting little bush rodents when his age mates are after big games, we will get there although it will take time but we’ll surely get to our zenith. We should always make room for others no matter what and this, you’ve being doing. Keep keeping on. Remember, we are men of songs; we measure out our laughter and smiles through the pleasure in our dancing steps.
On a lighter note, though this is a letter directing to your bravery and courage upholding the man in us, respect to the same custom will mandate that we exchange greetings and know how we two are faring with life in our beloved country before dipping into the intention of the letter. Find a place in your heart to accept my tardy blessings on your nominations and list on different sites. How about father and mother? And siblings? Thinking about how you might feel now reading this on the screen of your phone, I can swear it is laden with revelations of how beautiful you let out those smiles on your face glow and radiate.

Yes, Africans are brave warriors and you are one of the sons of these warriors. Similarly, like your forefathers, you are a son of Chinua Achebe, a son of Wole Soyinka, the son of Niyi Osundare, the Son of Phunso Oris, the son of your father and that of your mother – the son of your lovers and those who allowed their face to beam with laughter whenever they see you coming, whatever, you will agree with me that an African man must fall in love and that love remain the reservoir of his stories or his memories to relate to his children when tomorrow comes. How else do I explain sharing my feeling of greatness with you, from miles away without seeing you and how you look like except through picture pixels, the happiness in your new look makes me believe that we have a longer journey through the face of poetry.

In searching for answers in memories of our past and looking at places where we’ve been to and people that are caught up in recent measures of lives that defined our country in the past. Dotun, you have written yourself and others into freedom, your first offering, the second offering and the third offering into the world of creativity has established you into a god of your own self. These offerings will wake us up someday into the world as you’ve seen it. you’ve taken us into rooms that stink of sorrow, into rooms that have many ghosts of our ancestors and into a rooms that has death itself, you’ve given us body of maps to some many destinies that are extraordinary as they are haunting and howling to see a new world to come, you’ve deliberately coated reality as you’ve seen it with beauty and ashes and gullible men and women searching for a better home. May we always remember that I’ll always have you in my heart till the end of time.

I think my mouth is running too much .I think I shouldn’t spare time in telling you the purpose of this letter. Few weeks ago, you have being in my mind. You created a bound in my heart; I think I should remind you that “Boys Are Not Stones” Anthology which you published under My Aceworld Publication has gathered momentum. I think I should let you know that I really appreciate your effort and the time you put into to make our dreams a reality. I acknowledge everything. I appreciate everything. Though this letter is coming very late to you but pardon my inability to send this when I suppose to send it. I just want to let you know that you are loved and you belong here in my heart. Thanks for everything you’ve done for us from the beginning till the end. We care about you and your well-being.
I love everything you are doing. I love the driving spirit you put in your art. We may not have seen other, maybe because fate has not brought us together or maybe we are shy to ourselves or maybe we avoid meeting each other or maybe; distance is the barrier but I admire you from this distance; from this distance between us. Like a brother, like a mentor, like a senior partner, like a self will personality; like a man of the people, like a god of whom you are, I admire you so much. Have it in mind that when tomorrow comes, your names shall be among those names that shall be on the first list of names on history pages. He that fights for a never-to-do-well friend has nothing to show for it except a head covered in earth and grime. I believe in you, you have a dream. I believe in your arts and I believe in the man you are becoming and that is why I’ll always fight for you. I’ll always remember to remember that we started this race together and when I get to the other part I will wait and wait until you come and when you get there before me, I’m sure you will also wait for me. if we get there together, we will embrace each other and tell the wind how sweet it is to see each other.
Michael, every wave that comes back from surf brings a memory and an affections of mother and her children, sister and her brothers, father and his concubines, brother and his lovers, and; of herself mostly before it return to where it was made. Remember that in the long run, it goes back with the loneliness in her mouth of those she visited leaving them hopeless and needless of someone to talk to. Mother taught us that the best thing to do is to start music from her palms and forget those ones that father played last before he died. I know that you won’t remember where you are now and what you’re doing right now. I don’t know if you won’t say my name holding your tears. I know you don’t even know how my face looks like. I know you won’t even miss me. Do you? (Smiles) Is home still home? I think the mistake was that we never keep to time even when it watches over us. Father told me before his death that home is at the mouth of the ocean. He said that her mother’s daughter once sat and watched as a revelation was lost with the tide. Father said he told her that tomorrow she would be fine but she was never fine until her death. Tomorrow, these words of mine may just sink in the belly of your thought, i may just wake and squiggle to remove it and keep it safe. I am that boy your imagination said was turning into the image of a moon in the eyes of the night. This’s the boy holding and writing for his friend, a broke letter, a letter of lost and confusion and thank giving, he fitted himself in a bottle and thought of a better means of plucking out or separating your mind from the other mind that wishes you bad. And let tides, like memories, carry me away if this letter is not from my heart to you.

I may not have seen through your wonderful soul or be answerable to the call of your heart but this is the line where love letters crossed path, and I’m holding and giving out a beautiful smile to you and to those that are to come, I am leaving a line, a line where friendship is like a proverb spoken with a Kola nut in the mouth. May we always remember that life itself is a journey in which two shoulders must rub each other perfectly well to remain in sane. I may not have written to you about love, marriage, or studies but I know that God has been the pillar to which you have been standing on.
Till the day we shall meet to laugh like never before I’m still that boy you know from the street of Aba. A boy whose pen has refused to be frustrated, may we always remember.

© John Chizoba Vincent
#LiquidWords.

Once you get inside early in the night and no one is there to with you in the dark, you will see ghosts comingg for you.

What's yours?

OUR SCHOOL SYSTEM FAILED SOME OF US

One of those places that our school system has failed us is that It never taught us how to manage our finance. Our financial intellience is one of those things that our glamourous curriculum compilers had failed to include in our school syllabus. We were believed to be ominscient in financial matters. We have so many unemployed graduates out there under the scorching hands of the sun, they are desperately miserable because the school system never taught them how to manage their finance. They were never taught how to make ideas become ventures that could pay them in the nearest future when properly managed. They were never taught how to monetize their ideas to opportunity or rather how to identify money yielding opportunities. The school system failed to teach that idea rules the World and how to manage our Talent to prepare us for the future. Notwithstanding, the school system has caused many havoc in the mind of many youths out there, it has in many ways brainwashed them and their craving parents. The greatest wrong of the school system is churning out more employees in the labour market than entrepreneurs.

The school system never taught us the difference between spending money on liabilities and on assets. We were not taught that anything that takes money out from us are known as liabilities and those that brings money into our pocket are assets. Even if we were taught; it was never praticalised by these mouth watery lecturers. How can a lecturer or a professor of finance who taught you financial accounting or finance accomplished these few things: few awards, three bedroom bungalow, one in the village and the other in city and one SRV car, and pension? How would students look at him, a successful finance professor or a failed finance professor?

School won't teach you that reality requires that you do more of those things that brings money into your pocket than those that takes money out from your pocket. They won't teach you that. The system has conditioned our mind on how to work for others for the rest of our life without thinking of one idea that could turn our life around.

Blame the system for making you believe that those teachers or your parents whom you look up to had never failed in one way or the other in their life. And this has many effect in the life of our young ones now, they are being humiliated by the lecturers and their parents because they didn't meet up with their grades or rather they had carry over in some borrowed courses in School. They humilate them, makes them feels worthless because of one subject or the other. Some of the lecturers torment them in the name of giving them mark. Some of them feel humiliated or desperate whenever they fail and they are bashed by their parents or lecturers or the society. Remember, failure is to be avoided not feared. Failure is part of life. you can't escape it.

It may likely be said that many graduates have wasted four to five years of their life pursuing everybody's definition of success, blame the school system for that. Some graduates out there are one of the problems of the society. They are not problem solvers, but problem givers. Some graduates out there are lost constituting nuisance in the streets of our country home. Blame the school system for their misery because it taught them that school certificates will give them the good life and that dream job once they have good grades.

We have many parents who forced their children to live their own dreams, they forced their children to go to school and study Sociology because they once had that dream of studying sociology but they could not because the school system failed them woefully. Some of our parents dreamt of becoming a pilot but they could not because the school system gave them law. They believed that what they taught as a lecturer in school is best for their children to study. On the long run, they end up reaping the fruit of their children's bitterness. Education never taught us that we are all responsible for our own life.

It is important to understand that going to school could get you a good, mouth watery job, but it is more important to also have it in mind that the value of education far outweighs just getting a good paying job after graduation. The getting-a-good-job syndrome after school should be something we shouldn't have at the back of mind. Most of us went to school for degrees, not for the joy of learning and the joy abound in acquiring knowledge that school gives. Many went to school to get good grades, many went to school because they needed to please their parents, many went to school because they want to be relevant in the society with their school certificates; and others, because everyone out does. But the truth of the matter is that, with the failed school system in our beloved country, you are only left to make a choice of why you want to go to school and what you want to do with your life after school.

The choice is yours and no one else. Make deliberate effort to change the way you see or what they taught you in school. See beyond those things you learnt in those four walls.

In conclusion, I can say that the vendors and harm of this failed system of our precious school system depends on how we use it to achieve out goals in life. It is better to use the very best aspects of this system we find ourselves while working on improving it to suits us. This way, it will help us pave the way to a happy future full of new perspectives and and conveniences while leaning on the goodies that come with Western Education.


©John Chizoba Vincent
#LiquidWords

THE REALITY OF LIFE IS BEYOND THE FOUR WALLS OF SCHOOL.

If I have to start all over again, I will blame the government with it corrupts system of who-do-you-know before a graduate can get a good job for himself. I'll points my accusing hand towards the private organisations for demanding unreasonable years of experience from fresh graduates before they can be employed. I will blame all of them, yes, because I don't see the reason why they would demand ten years of experience from a fresh graduate! How would he gain that if not from somewhere? This is disheartening and frustrating to hear or see our graduates pass through this all day long. The demands are getting too serious, many are tired of waiting at home for their calls. Many graduates have committed suicide because of this. How could a country be this weak and frustrating? When is this nightmare going to end?

I will still blame the teachers that told us that great job opportunities await us if we study very hard to get good grades in school. I'll blame the lecturers for tormenting us with old formula, theories, principles that are not applicable in this contemporary time. We'll keep living this life of blaming the failed systems of our education and blaming others for the faulty of our dreams if we don't really take action from this phase and understand that the reality of life is beyond the four walls of school system. Life is beyond what they taught us in school. Good grades can not give us good life or a successful life but digging deeper into the idea that comes out from us can. Why would having a degree makes you lose sense of the things you can do? Why would going to school makes you a dependant of Certificates printed on paper?

It's not he that came out first in class or he that graduated with First Class upper that succeeds, but he that translates his knowledge and his gifting into a resourceful venture despites the challenges life gives to him or her. Nothing is new under the sun but we can as well translates those old things into new things that could be of help to us all. The school system wouldn't teach you this.

The present school system does not encourage talent development in her wards. There is no part of the curriculum that makes room for this both in our primary, secondary and tertiary institutions. We are being bounded by those old theories that was brought up by men of great will who once brainstorm bravely to conquer the world. Life is beyond these theories. The school limits the building of your abilities and Potentials, there are no such programs in our schools where special attention is given to these abilities you have within you, you have to fight it yourself and gain it yourself when you discovered the man in you.

Many of us has ended up cursing everything that the school system represents when our desire of good grades could not give us those dream jobs that our teachers lied to us that we'll get when we come out with good grades. Many years of hunting for the unseen jobs has made us all to question the need for this called education if after all the pains and sacrifices we end up parading the whole streets of Nigeria scouting for jobs which never existed. you believe me that sometimes you die of regret by believing those things that your lecturers in school promised you. It is not their fault, the reality of life is far beyond those lies they told in our schools.

We should be able to define the reason we go to school so that the essence of going to school won't be determined by good grades, getting a mouth watery jobs, fulfilling those dreams our parents could not achieve, getting those certificates that our friends or family acquired. We should try to know and understand the reason why we should go to school and what we are going there to do. The world has changed drastically. Things are no longer the way they used to be but the school system has not change in our country, they still imbibled in those misleading lies of yesterday. The present school system has failed to recognize the uniqueness of each individual abilities, gift, talent, passion, movation, inspiration, potentials, and capabilities and how these qualities could shape the choice each individual make to determine his or her future.

Ignorance of the true meaning of education has caused more problem than it solves. Watch what you tell the youngsters that look up to you for advice. Let them know that the reality of Life is beyond the four walls of the school system.


©John Chizoba Vincent
#LiquidWords.

QUESTIONING THE ILLUSION OF BURYING THE DEAD IN SOME PART OF NIGERIA


Why do people spend much money during funerals? Why do we honour people more when they are dead than when they were alive? We build houses, we re-paint the old house, we repair the Zinc, we build more rooms and repair the damaged toilet and do some other things where as when this gentle man and woman was alive, you could not afford to give him/her one naira to buy drug to get himself or herself treated. On that day when he/she is dead, you kill the fattest cow, you gather the whole bags of rice in Nigeria, you make the whole village bubble in joy of things to eat and those to drink. What happen to this money when this man or woman was alive? Why don't you collect this loan to treat him/her? Why don't you create an oportunitunity to celebrate him/her? What kind of honour do you want to give him/her in the grave? We are all hypocrites!

I grew up seeing things. Things that made me want to lose myself into the ocean of thought. Things that left me in dire need of someone to talk to. Things that were abnormal when weigh from left to right and back and forth. There are those I think of changing and those I think I would never change and those things I am fighting desperately to change.

I grew up in a city where every year or every December period, people gather their deads to be buried in the village or nearby where they deem it fit for them to be buried. Some were buried in Aba Cemetery while others were taken to the village to be buried.

Then in Aba, everywhere is being covered by funeral posters from October to November. Those who want to bury their dead ones in December and those who wants to bury theirs by Easter start posting the posters around January or February just to create awareness to family members and friends and relations. It is more like the politicians who made a law in the country to avoid people pasting posters on walls of the cities and end up posting their election posters during their campaigns.

I grew up seeing posters everywhere in the cities of Abia state and its environs. I grew up trying to understand why it was like that but no one was there to explain to me. Some of these posters read "Gone so soon" "painful Exist" Transition to glory" "Glorious Home call" and so many write ups. I grew up learning that the only time family members, those you've not seen for a thousand years, come home was only when someone very important died in the family and his or her funeral is fixed by Christmas period or Easter.

My village decided to give time for this burials/funeral. Sometimes it could be from 20th of December to 29th and more than that. Then, other dates could be for Weddings and other ceremonies so that those that came to the village during Christmas to rest would still have time to rest. Although, in Nkporo kind of settings, there is nobody travelling to the Village during Christmas period to rest, you either have one family meeting to attend, or funeral /burial ceremonies , weddings or other things like that that engage you through out this period. You don't go to the village during Christmas period to rest, you go there to exhaust yourself the more. That is how it goes. As a result of this, many don't travel or fix their ceremonies during Christmas period because, it is full of ceremonies, things become more expensive, the roads become too busy and many more things happen during this festive period.


It's a good thing to pay the last respect to the dead, it is good to honour them but if you did not honour them while they were alive, why honour them in death? Why spend much money and time organising how they will be committed to mother earth? Is this not insanity? I have gone to a burial ceremony where a man was buried with a car and chains of gold but when he was alive he never driven any car as such. He never wore any chain of gold on his neck, no, he never did. Some of us are hypocrites!

I have gone to a burial also where the woman was buried with a golden casket. There were up to fifteen canopies all over the place. Seven cows were killed. Her children came from home and abroad to bury her but when this woman was alive and was admitted in the hospital, I could remember that money was the issue for her treatment because her first son visited our family for money, it was lack of money that killed her. It was heartbreaking when I travelled down to the village for her burial to see how things went. Where did this money for this luxurious burial come from?

We are all victims of this, there are those people we never raised a pin for until when they are dead, you'll start looking for how to honour them. You borrow money here and there in the name of paying your last respect! Why don't you love or show them love when they were alive? There are those people out there that we never cared about, we never visited, we never showed mercy but when they are dead, we go extra mile to make sure we honour them or give them a befitting burial, those things they never had when they were alive. Are you not a hypocrite?

Love people and show them that you love them that is the best part of humanity. that us the best part of being a human! Love me when I'm alive not in death.


©John Chizoba Vincent
#LiquidWords.

BLAME THE SCHOOL SYSTEM FOR THOSE LIES OUR TEACHERS TOLD US

Blame the school system for those lies our teachers told us in the classroom. Good grades are not what life needs, in reality, good grades sometimes don't take you up there but they condition your mind to one man's idea. Blame the school system for teaching us how to manage other people's thoughts, it never taught us how to think but how to manage and hold on to the thoughts, principles, formula and theories of some men before us.

why don't you sit down one day and question all these principles and formula and theories you were taught in the school?

The school system told our teachers to tell us that in order for us to be successful in life, we'll need good grades that will get us a good and secured job in the nearest future not ideas that will create jobs for us. Blame the school system for those lies our teachers told in the classroom and leave those lies to discover who you are. The reality of Life is beyond good grades and what so ever your teacher taught you in school, the school system caused them to lie. Blame the school system for lack of equipments needed in the school to teach us and the dubious lecturers employed to lecture you. They are the reason why most graduates are not employable in the labour market. The school did not prepare them to be employable. The school system failed to teach us that organisations are not looking for job seekers; but they are looking for problem solvers. School system told us that the smart ones are those with good grades but reality taught us that the smart ones are those with smart currency called idea. Blame your parents because they failed to tell you that the school is only but one phase in many phases of life.

Those who school tagged brilllant and intelligent are those who repeat book definition of terms, principles, citations, formula in answering questions in exams and class test while those who challenge and question convensional learning by defining those terms in their own ways and according to their understanding are panalized righteously. Some of our lecturers actually made us to answer their questions in exams word to word. You are not allowed to think outside the box, you are meant to think within the box where they once thought yesterday. You becomes a traitor when you question their authority, when you think deeper than what the conventional school has in store for you. It's unfortunate that we spend more of our time in school learning to cram theories, principles, Formulas, most of which are no longer in use or no longer applicable in our day to day living than sharpening our industrious mind for those things which are applicable these modern days.

Blame the school system for those lies our parents hold so dear to their heart. We are not leaders of tomorrow. We aren't leaders of tomorrow because those old men are still in power. The school failed to teach us that it is no longer how hard you work but how valuable your ideas are to your immediate environment/society. More gold are mined in the mind than they are mined in the mines. Develop your mind in a special way to solve problems. Build yourself, sharpen your sense of belonging, go for your dreams and aspirations. Don't condition your mind only in what the school system has taught you. Education does not guarantee success, it is only the best legacy you can give to yourself. But it is not a gateway to success, you still have to build yourself up to date.

Teach yourself that school is someone's idea and shouldn't determine your own success in life. Remind yourself that whatsoever you are taught in school is also someone's brain child. It was someone's idea some years back. Why torment yourself these days with it? Why judge yourself with good grades written with blue Biro which could be erased?

Go and learn how to read and write but don't cage yourself in the process of doing that. Create your own idea. Build your own empire. Bill Gate wasn't a graduate, but he excel in his own idea. The cloth you wears everyday is someone's brain child, the book you read is someone's idea, the television you watch is someone's idea. Idea rules the world not good grades. You have to think. Think and think again and think again and again and again. School won't teach you how to think but you teach yourself. Remember, the idea you have today won't only create job for you but it will create jobs for others and more generation to come.

Most of the world's biggest wealth is in the hands of those who are not graduate of any institutions but they are great today because they had an idea yesterday. The problem of studying hard to get a chance of getting a good paying job syndrome has undervalued the essence of education in our beloved country. since we have many graduates from our institutions who could not get good job with their so called university grades, the younger generation will be reluctant to go to the same school to bang up themselves for four years in pains and harsh hands of evil lecturers and madness of every three month strike. Let education expose you and show you what the world is, what the world is all about, what it has in stock for you. Let education be your map of exposure.

Blame the school system for those lies our teachers told us in the classroom.


©John Chizoba Vincent
#LiquidWords

IF TOMORROW NEVER COMES

Tell mother how much I love her. Tell father that he is the best father the world has ever produced. He is a lion, a brave heart, a new wave of greatness in an African heart. Tell little Uche that his smile would last forever in my heart. We can't answers to many things of life but we must trying to understand one thing about life, that life is good when it's accompanied by money and good things.

Tell Nneka that when Ebele died, her mother moved her bed to the place of silence. Kambili took her place. Her doll returned to the bedroom, it was not difficult telling grandma how she looks every morning because she made the kitchen her home. She robbed charcoal all over her body to mourn Ebele. At the burial ground, Uncle Williams came, David was there, Godwin danced the forbidden song, Zelie sounded the drum of mourning, Zoba cried herself out in tears of losing someone like Ebele. It was Njide that covered the grave... we stitched our heart together, knitted our blood veins into clothes of broken memories. Her dog keeps barking in the night, maybe she saw Ebele's ghost touring the Walls of the room. We all thought it was learning to live with the fact that Ebele is gone. we wanted flowers for Chrismas while death wants Ebele.

Tell Amaka that her father was the major reason we parted ways. in the stars above freedom and love, we shattered ourselves in stories without pages, we learnt to release ourselves into poetry without imageries larger than life itself. We opened the box of wisdom and knowledge to question life and it's dexisterity identities and colours which stand as part of paintings to the heart. I heard Mother was the last breathe upon which father tabled the lyrics of his spiritual gifts into embers of nudity. In sunshine and rainbows of the whiskey lullabies of music in her pains, let the rooms in my heart grow fonder into the spirit of today and tomorrow. Tell Ifeoma that her attitude towards me was the reason why we could not make the journey into marriage-hood, we were better than we were yesterday. Better than today. I will gather the photograph, the music player, the flowers, the watches, and the bangles, bracelets, the letter she inscribed everyday on the walls of her room and on the table of her heart to the river of doom.

Sometimes, I leave myself in the arms of those brothers and sisters who no longer live on my lips. I learn to save my life on the hands of miseries because that is the safest place to throw up your burden against the illusion of the bridal peace holding the lying mouth of the world. Check the portrait of my mother and you will see me there holding your smile like a pope with the secrement. Surfaced somewhere in my head,
In a photograph where silence cleaves to its walls and edges and colours, I look out for the genesis of your life.

If tomorrow never comes and graves still exist in the mirror of our life and grieves are suspended on the sky, I'll hold down the rain for my ancestral home, for my hometown, Nkporo, for my people and for those children to come. I leave flowers on the river bank, flowers for the sun and the moon... a new wave of a sudden move. Help me get the chance of getting hurt again in the curves of who you are. Nkporo is not all for you, Nkporo is the land where love rule. These are our enemies, the wind, water, room, silence, photographs & language are the ways i lived these long. my door lies far above the cliff - Boys have found bliss at the other side; I am a boy learning to empty myself to the wickedness of this world, I'm not a stone.


Yesterday, grandma visited. She wore a lurking smile concealing the traces of our home. She broke a smile to the broken house, to the wounds of a raped womb
and to the bruises of a tampered heart. She smelt the hibiscus by the side of our shrine. She poured the remaining oil by the dried frond beside the kitchen. She knew what it takes to be a mother, a father also and a sister. She stood tall for the boys like us. She said I should tell those boys that they are not stones. And for a second, i could feel the wind of her words fill the voids in my soul.
She saw the trees behind my windows danced to the beats of my heart. If tomorrow never comes, this is what you tell my children that I was never a weak man and before now, I heard the birds sing my emptiness a lullaby.
You think the dead really go away? No, they don't but they guide the light to eternity.
They are here, they're there, over your head and on your forehead. They are everything you see, hear, eat, drink, touch and feel
When the night comes in folds of their memories. But mother never told of all these things, I am waiting for tomorrow when I will deliver this to your lips to tell my people but if tomorrow never comes I am still here waiting for you to know yourself.


©John Chizoba Vincent
#LiquidWords

selfwife:
Very nice piece until I read that line 'smelly white men' your daddy did not teach you to be a racist Sir.

Did I use that world at all?


Smelly white men?


He didn't teach me how to be a recist, dear. He taught me how to be a human being like others.

WEARING MY FATHER'S THOUGHTS ABOUT TRADITION AND CULTURE OF MY PEOPLE.

Growing up, I saw no shrine in my father's compound. I saw no native doctor or any thing fetish in our family compound in Nkporo. But the worst of it all was that I didn't see him in the church until his death in 2004. He was never a Christian or a Muslim or a pagan but he worshipped the Supreme God above. What I saw him doing sometimes was that whenever one of his children came back to see him at home in Aba, they usually bought him seaman Dry Gin. He would open it, pour small into a cup and pour on the wrinkled ground to bless his ancestors' names and commending their ancestral spirits to bless that son that paid him a homage. It was just a libation and that's all. He broke kola nuts together with his kinsmen in Nkporo and we all saw him blessing his "chi" for given him long life whenever a visitor from Nkporo came to visit him in Aba with a bottle of Schnapps. Then, although we never agreed to each other until his death, I would always sit far from him watching him do all these things. He was full of himself. He believed in the Supreme God above who is "Chineke", "Obasibinigwe" he believed in him as the giver of life and his guidance and protector.

He was proud of where he came from, Nkporo. I learnt of Nkporo cultures from him before I beheld the land. I could remember he told us that we would be taken to the Agbala for the "Ipu Agbala" so that we would belong to the caste system. Someone like me disagreed with him. I could remember he taught us that a man never forgets his root. He said the only thing that keeps a man going is knowing where he is coming from and where he would be buried when he dies. Each time I hold Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, I see my father in there. I compared him with Ezeugo and Ezeulu. They have similarities, they share many things in common.

I had a father that was passionate about traidtions and cultures of Nkporo people and the igbos generally. I had a father that could decorate his Lips with laughter whenever he talks about the traditions and cultures of Nkporo land. He never went to a church during his time on earth but he had some Jehovah witnesses that do come to our house to minister to him. Later, I came to realise that he was never condemned by these people like other Pentecostal churches does. He was never told to abandon whatsoever he believed in to follow Jesus christ but he was told how this Jesus Christ loved him and each time he was told that we always see his face full of smiles. I had a father who showed us the way of the African traditional religion if not directly but he did that indirectly to me particularly. I met him at old age, a scare that still hurt me now and would continue to hurt me forever because then, I disliked him because of the many wives he had to himself and many children he gave birth to and was not able to give them a reasonable life. I disliked him for not given us the life he ought have given us. Sorry, if I'm getting you scared. We never agreed with each other until his death. Even that morning when everyone of them were wailing and hitting themselves on the ground, a tear never dropped from my eyes. Then, he used to tell us how the gods guided them throughout the Civil War. How they gathered in a cave to hid themselves from the Nigerian Army. He planted a long lasting tradition and cultures in my heart, I don't know of others. I could remember the first time he called me to give his visitors drink from a bottle of Dry Gin, I could remember how he shouted at me for using the wrong hand to hold the cup and the bottle of the Seaman Schnapps.

I remembered it all. I could remember after his death I went to the eldest of my step brothers to ask him of our linage, our root. I could remember how he laughed at me because then I have never made some research on that. He didn't tell me that, even the name of our family that I asked him of. I ran out of the family house ashamed.

I narrated the above tale for you to understand that there is nothing too deadly about these traditions and cultures that our forefathers practised then. African traditional Religion and cultures are not deadly. We still need to go back to our roots. Let's go back to where it all started. There wasn't war and death like it is now when those traditions and cultures were being practised. The white man traditional religion came with all these. They came with Bible on the right hand and gun on the left hand side to kill us all. Some came with Quran on their right hand and dagger and gun on their left hand.

Now we celebrate Helloween and so many things from them. We celebrate their own feelings and emotions together with our tattered self. Those masks they took from us are still in use by them, they told us that those masks are deadly but it is still in use by them. What happened in Wakanda is the true definition of what they have done to African nations. If a son does not ask what killed his father on his journey to the stream, same thing may kill him on his way to the stream.

What happens to the new Yam festival in some villages in igbo land? Is it also deadly like others? What happens to the masquerade festival we all ran to the village square to watch when we were younger? What happens to the moonlight tales, the sounding of the ikoro? What happens to teaching our children how to greet an elderly man and woman when they meet them on the way? What happens to breaking of kola nuts among the seasoned deities? What is happening to our ancestral Homes, my igbo brothers? What is happening to our language and cultures and traditional religion ? Do we allow it to go into extinction? Do we allow that as a nation? Every where is smelling white men, yes, every where!

From Enugwu to Enugu, from Oka, to Awka, we modernised everything for them to penetrate into our land. What is happening to our culture and traditional religion in Igbo land? Those shrines destroyed by these missionaries are not as deadly as the religions they brought to us. We had burnt offering in the old testament, we had people having their own shrine where they worship the gods they believe in. With research I have carried out recently, 85% of African traditional religion are not as deadly as they termed it just as theirs which has claimed many innocent people.

People are being burnt in churches like chicken daily. People are being slaughtered in the mosque every day. What happens to African traditional religion? What happens to Igbo mythology? Why is it not taught in our schools in Nigeria and Africa? Everything was running well then, we had no religious fanatics like we have now. We have no religious kidnappers. What ever that happened to our Igbo traditional religion is the only sorrow holding us down... let's go back to where it all began. Let's go back to our chi, the only thing that matters to us as a people, the only thing that hold us together as a nation.

WHAT HAPPENS TO OUR TRADITIONAL RELIGION AND CULTURE IN IGBO LAND?

©John Chizoba Vincent
#LiquidWords.