₦airaland Forum

noskyboy:
hmmm, nice piece, @mod. Front page plsssssssss!

Yea

I want to write...
I want to write, but I am uncertain about the subject;
Should I write about the faceless enemies of my country’s progress
Or our victory against life's numerous battles?
But the enemies are faceless
And the victory countless, only to be numbered by the enemies triumph.
Should I write about the obscurity of the various enterprise that made our days tedious and at night kept sleep away from our eyes
Or about the passion with which we surmounted the surge of the obstinate tides?
But our days became happy
Our nights tranquil
And the tide made fine sailors of the uncalm sea.
Should I write about our double standard society that criticize abortion and snide pregnant teenagers, oblivious of the fact that the two phenomenon are mutually exclusive,
But the mentored and wise unlike the callow and naive have always avoided the dilemma.
Same society that sneers at public office holders that are not luxurious and complain about politicians that are notorious,
But in time nature will find a balance as it always does.
Should I write about the divide and conquer mind control mechanism that has left many bereaved and boundaries of differences a killing field?
But only in utopia exists a community without dispute.
Should I write about Religion, the opium of the masses, business of the pastors and enterprise of the priests?
But good cannot be defined without bad; in order to exist real there must be fake.
I still want to write...
O.b.i.zy

I have seen a people beaten and battered
I have seen a people maimed and maltreated
I have seen a people subdued and slandered
And
I have seen a people rise above misery and woe
I have seen a people blossom amidst hardship untold
I have seen a people wax stronger as time unfolds
Still
I have seen a people paint a lush future from the sweat of hard work and labour
I have seen a people thrive in every land their feet touches
I have seen a land of brave men and women of valour
I have seen a people surmounting all the sentiment and slushes
I have seen a land of resilient Heroes and Heroines who under extreme conditions just let out style and flavour.

All my life living as a true Nigerian with the green-white-green blood flowing through my veins, arteries and heart,
Like river Niger and Benue flowing with shimmering waves during the rainless seasons and in March.
It flows with the strenght of a million charioteers even when there are no chariots,
It flows with the strength and pride of the eagle and the dignity and speed of the horse.
It flows up rocky hills and through fatile valleys giving rise to the ever beautiful Coctus spectabillis.
A true Nigerian I am, and my heart is the coat of arm.

Vessi: In MJ's voice.
Have you seen my childhood?

...show me

MY CHILDHOOD
…a fraction of memories from back then;
I had an extremely happy childhood albeit the toys and coloured screen television was not really present but there was love and affection, care and protection, amity and connection, friends and foes, big dreams and set goals, above all there was an invaluable family of two resilient Parents, four warm Sisters and two dynamic Brothers. With all this, what more can one ask for? I was the last of this phenomenal Family of nine, being the last child added a lot of flavour to my childhood, I enjoyed a little more protection and attention from my Parents who never hesitated to replace the pamper with a hard spank whenever it got to my head.
On the other side of the door knob was the best neighbourhood ever; the streets of Rukubaroad, a conventional Nigerian neighbourhood located in Jos Plateau state (...just so you'll know, am JOSTIFIED!!!).The streets of Rukubaroad had a lot of unique and interesting personalities that made the street always filled with fun and entertainment. My house was a few blocks away from the popular 'filling laka' football field, so I obviously never missed out on the fun.
The streets of rukubaroad was as diverse as any neighbourhood could be, it had families from at least 20 Nigerian ethnic groups and it also had families with different religious beliefs, It was a neighbourhood where Mustapha and Martin were best friends as boys, played football together and exchanged toys.
Infant Jesus primary School was another interesting aspect of my childhood, although most of the memories are now blur but the perpetual bully and wanton slaps from Otene Ogiri who use to be the biggest boy in primary four still remain indelible. I could remember third term holidays being the most anticipated days of my childhood life, could still remember the almost 24hours of uninterrupted play with my childhood friends; Oma, Inalegu, Oni, Eboli, Ligang, Lucky (R.I.P), Chukwuemeka, Nanpido, Martin, Mustapha, John, Ugochukwu, Aboy, Cyril and a whole lot of others, although by early 2000 most of the families of my friends relocated but memories of the long hours we played together never left my head.
I often reminisce over the very eventful days of dashing out of the house just after breakfast to meet my ever available army of friends(...as a bad guy that I was back then, I use to role with more dawgs than cops at a man haunt) then we will commence our always fun filled routine of play which mostly started by going to 'filling laka' to watch the morning football training while using the spare balls to play 'center ball' behind the field, after the 'balling' we will proceed to scouting our neighborhoods for used aluminium containers or used zincs which we straightened and made to shapes of cars. We would then drive (by pulling with a rope) this our improvised toy cars around our neighbourhood in tandem, little did we know that our creativity was envied by those who owned actual toy cars. On some occasions after the morning training we would play the crown cock football, first we would visit a beer parlour which was by the road side to gather crown cocks which we used as players, then we'll search for radio tapes, collect the rollers to use as balls, find a suitable hall way to use as pitch and the game began.
There was a certain evening I and Eboli where playing the crown cock football in the corridor of my house so as to put an end to the argument of who the best was and to my greatest disappointment he won me(the self acclaimed champ...lol),out of hurting pride I accused him of cheating and I insisted that we repeated the game, he agreed, we played again and he won again, I couldn't stand his jubilation and before I knew it, my fist was attacking him without my permission, we exchanged a couple of blows that evening, before morning the next day we 'balling' together like nothing ever happened.
As children back then, we often spent most of our afternoons playing 'Baram', the 'Baram' was made by cutting old and unwanted slippers into 2 or 3 circular shapes of the same diameter and sewing them together using a thread. The game was played using sticks that were a bit curved at the end by as many players as available, the players were evenly distributed on either side of the line which was in the middle of the field. The 'Baram' game began when one player from either side of the line roles the 'Baram' slow and steady towards the players on the other side and any of the players on the other side uses his stick to hit the approaching Baram sending it back to where it was coming from, the whole process is repeated until the 'Baram' comes to rest on either side of the line giving the other players a point, This game could go on for hours until we all got exhausted.
Evenings in rukubaroad was mostly time for home videos, we would migrate in our numbers to their Oma's living room as they were among the few who had a video player back then, after watching about two to three movies(actor and bose ish...u know as e dey be),night will fall and it was time to go home and that's when the ultimate search for my slipper will begin, probably because some smooth operators whose slipper where dead and gone has seized the opportunity of the dark environment to exchange theirs with the newest slipper around. After being a victim of missing slipper a couple of times I wised up and started wearing my slipper on my elbow each time we wanted to go in and watch movies. After the slipper searching episode that's when I will realize that since sun rise I have not stepped my foot at home and most definitely what my Mum use to call 'salary' was waiting for me at home, not only because I had been out of the house all day but because after a long day of rounding the neighbourhood on foot, baram playing ,somersaulting on all the available hips of sand I will be looking like a brother to harmattan, consequently I will always develop cold feet while approaching home. On my arrival my Mum will grant me the privilege of choosing which cane and how many strokes I want for my salary, needless to say it was like choosing between the devil and the deep blue sea, after receiving the day's salary, I’ll take my bath after being forced to, eat my usually sumptuous meal, then head to the sitting room to be forced to watch 9 o'clock news by my Dad (...that's why I always hated NTA).
The days cookie usually crumble after my habitual falling asleep in the sitting room while watching the stupid network news and magically waking up on the bed the next morning.
Obviously my childhood was awesome but like everyone else, I fell into the trap of growing up, I had to start doing a lot of things by myself, I even had to start doing house chores and running unending errands for my elder ones (...remember I had 6 of them, so the errands were really unending), it became a crime for me to go out and play all because I was grown.
Apparently, life grew complex and I grew competent...and am still growing!

O.b.i.ZEAL…

First timer...


THE JOY I MET

2nd of January 2014, the phrase that filled the air was 'happy new year' it came from my neighbours and colleagues at work some of which I took out time to wish same and occasionally just muffled 'thank you' to those who I knew just said the 'happy new year' for formality, I got to work late that day and found out that most of the occupants Bupia plaza were still enjoying the new year break except for David the barber, x-ella the music producer and that annoying Roty-kunzults ltd secretary all of whom have never been to the plaza earlier than me for as long as I could remember. Not as if I just decided to go to work late on the first working day of the year, but it was either my alarm wanted to stage me by not ringing or it was the hangover that deafened my ears, I found myself awake and still lying lazily on the bed by 8:58am faced with a dilemma; I either had to start looking for panadol to calm the disorganized orchestras banging in my head or start performing a magic that awill get me to &&&& plaza before 8am, which was impossible. After a nanosecond of thinking I scrambled to my feet and I was at bupia plaza by 10:02am, about 2 hours late!
After I dusted and cleaned my confines, I was ready to attend to the customers who came in after very long intervals, the day was a bit uneventful to my advantage, I had time to think about how I happened to consume that large quantity of -OH functional group knowing fully well that the next day was a working day. I was still lost in wondering contemplation when I heard a pleasant female voice said ''hello'' I looked up and the face I saw rang a bell, not until she said she was looking for Michael(my colleague) I thought she was one of the girls from the previous day.
She narrated that she gave Michael a work to do for Her the week before and He told Her it was going to be ready by Monday (30th of Dec.) ,but due to some reasons best known to her she was not able to make it on Monday so She had come to see if she could get it, I explained to her that Michael's shift starts by 3pm and she had to wait for about 2 hours since it was just pass 1, she agreed to wait, probably because the work she gave Michael to do for her was more important than the things she kept saying she needed to do at home. She had this gorgeous smile which complimented her fair face and the long dark hair that stylishly flowed down her shoulders, I offered her a chair after She called my attention to the fact that my eyes where soon going to bore holes on her face. She sat on the chair which was slightly to my right and began to wait for Michael while scrolling through her phone, normally I would have started a discussion which will end with ''can I have your number?'' But on this occasion I had a big problem or so I thought, My problem was not remembering what happened the previous day, couldn’t remember how and when I got home, and why I slept with my shoes, wrist watch and trousers on, I was just about to pick up my phone and call Odogu to know if he could give me any clue as to how the previous day ended when I heard the lady whose name I later learnt was Joy said ''...so is this how boring this place gets during festive seasons?'' (if only she knew the kind of thinking that was going on in my head) I raised my head to look to her direction and said with a forced smile''...yea,it might be boring for you but it’s not boring inside my head''
She giggled and told me how it was nice of me not letting my mind be the idle mind that would become the devils workshop, obviously she didn't understand and I didn't bother to explain, it kept the conversation going. After our about 2 hours of chatting which was cut short when Michael arrived, it dawned on me that what I thought was a problem to me was not worthy to be called a problem compared to what she had faced and was facing.
She started by telling me how she was happy for me that my looks and accent didn't tell that I was from the eastern part of the country, she talked about how dubious and aggressive some igbo peepz can be and I couldn't agree less because of my upper iweka experience. She told that she was born and brought up in Jos and only left Jos to Benin in February of 2011 when she got admitted into Uniben to study Law and She had been in Benin ever since, that she just came back around Nov. 2013.
I couldn't help but wonder what she was doing in Benin during all the breaks between semesters and especially the ASUU strike, then my curiosity led me to ask her why She had spend such a long time in Benin without coming to Jos to see Her folks, that was when she told me what I didn't expect Her to tell someone she just met barely 2 hours ago, She told me that she messed up, that she made a very careless mistake in her first year, I was expecting the mistake to be a couple of carry overs or worst an extra year but I had to swallow back my heart and catch my breath when She told me She got pregnant towards the end of Her first year.
I was disturbed not because I have never seen an undergraduate get pregnant but because this particular undergraduate I was planning to chyke who I was sure was not more than 20 years of age had a 10 months old boy child at home.
She narrated to me her Ordeal, how she was pregnant for nine months without any of her family members knowing, coming up with excuses for not coming home for 3 years, She further told me about how sure she was that She was going to die but had a hard time choosing which means of death was best for her, she was either to let the stigma kill her or high blood pressure from too much thinking or even just let her Dad do the killing it manually or better still do it herself. Although she didn't spare me the details of how she was able to cater for the child, herself and her school at the same time but one can only imagine what she went through.
When she left after collecting her completed work from Michael, I thought about how she had gone through the whole stuff and still retained that brilliant smile and beauty that lit up the whole room, that was when I saw the truth in the saying that ''those who smile more have experienced the most pain''.
...the conversation didn't end with 'can I have your number', but it ended with me knowing that
'Nobody has it easy, everybody has issues, you never know what people are going through so pause before you start judging, criticizing and mocking others, everybody is fighting their own unique war'