USA Africa Dialogue Series - Stark Division of Nigerian Intelligentsia on Current State of Nation Demonstrated by Contrastive Poems by Niyi Osundare and Emmanuel Ogbeche

There was a time when most of the Nigerian  intelligentsia, particularly from the South, were united in their critique of the many military  dictatorships and troubled civilian  governments that ran the nation.

That unanimity changed dramatically with the build up to the 2015 election, driven by various forces, the hunger in the Muslim North for national leadership to return to the region, rage across the country in the belief in the government's culpability in the Boko Haram Islamic terrorist escalation,    the desperation of many  Nigerians across the nation for miraculous  transformation in the country's fortunes and the vision of political soldiers of fortune who saw a chance to fight their way to the seat of central power, unseating a Nigerian President through largely democratic means  for the first time in history.

The picture that has emerged after the dust settled is far from the picture painted by those who promised heaven and earth as a means to get to the central seat.

How does one cross from condemnatory criticism of the past government to criticism of the new government? How may a critic  of the new government  appreciate what may be of value in the  government while criticising what is bad about it?

The contrastive poems below demonstrate a current battle of interpretations for the soul of the nation.

Osundare is on the side of the government in supporting its recent controversial raid on judge's homes  in which the govt claimed its agents discovered huge amounts of bribe money, along with  accepting the govt's  claim  of the guilt of the judges.

Obiechina's stance is agst the government, referencing the controversial ownership of opulent properties in Dubai by Tukur Yusuf Buratai, Chief of Army Staff, in which he has been defended by the government,the massacre of hundreds of Shiites, their remains buried in a mass grave, by the same chief of army staff,  along with evidence of corruption by ministers in the government, , along with counter accusations by the accused judges of earlier efforts by a minister in the government to bribe them.
 

My Lord, Tell Me Where To Keep Your Bribe?

By Niyi Osundare

​M​

y Lord

   Please tell me where to keep your bribe?

Do I drop it in your venerable chambers

   Or carry the heavy booty to your immaculate mansion

 

Shall I bury it in the capacious water tank

    In your well laundered backyard

Or will it breathe better in the septic tank

     Since money can deodorize the smelliest crime

 

Shall I haul it up the attic

    Between the ceiling and your lofty roof

Or shall I conjure the walls to open up

    And swallow this sudden bounty from your honest labour

 

Shall I give a billion to each of your paramours

    The black, the light, the Fanta-yellow

They will surely know how to keep the loot

     In places too remote for the sniffing dog

 

Or shall I use the particulars

     Of your anonymous maidservants and manservants

With their names on overflowing bank accounts

     While they famish like ownerless dogs

 

Shall I haul it all to your village

     In the valley behind seven mountains

Where potholes swallow up the hugest jeep

     And Penury leaves a scar on every house

 

My Lord

     It will take the fastest machine

Many, many days to count this booty; and lucky bank bosses  

     May help themselves to a fraction of the loot

                     

My Lord

     Tell me where to keep your bribe?

 

 My Lord

     Tell me where to keep your bribe?

 

The "last hope of the common man"

     Has become the last bastion of the criminally rich

A terrible plague bestrides the land

     Besieged by rapacious judges and venal lawyers

 

Behind the antiquated wig

     And the slavish glove

The penguin gown and the obfuscating jargon

     Is a rot and riot whose stench is choking the land

 

Behind the rituals and roted rigmaroles

     Old antics connive with new tricks

Behind the prim-and-proper costumes of masquerades

      Corruption stands, naked, in its insolent impunity

 

For sale to the highest bidder

    Interlocutory and perpetual injunctions

Opulent criminals shop for pliant judges

     Protect the criminal, enshrine the crime

 

And Election Petition Tribunals

     Ah, bless those goldmines and bottomless booties!

Scoundrel vote-riggers romp to electoral victory

     All hail our buyable Bench and conniving Bar 

 

A million dollars in Their Lordship's bedroom

     A million euros in the parlor closet

Countless naira beneath the kitchen sink

     Our courts are fast running out of Ghana-must-go's*

 

The "Temple of Justice"

     Is broken in every brick

The roof is roundly perforated

     By termites of graft

 

My Lord

     Tell me where to keep your bribe?

 

Judges doze in the courtroom

     Having spent all night, counting money and various "gifts"

And the Chief Justice looks on with tired eyes

     As Corruption usurps his gavel.  

 

Crime pays in this country

     Corruption has its handsome rewards

Just one judgement sold to the richest bidder

     Will catapult Judge & Lawyer to the Billionaires' Club

 

The Law, they say, is an ass

     Sometimes fast, sometimes slow

But the Law in Nigeria is a vulture

     Fat on the cash-and-carry carrion of murdered Conscience

 

Won gb'ebi f'alare

     Won gb'are f'elebi**

They kill our trust in the common good

     These Monsters of Mammon in their garish gowns

 

Unhappy the land

     Where jobbers are judges

Where Impunity walks the streets

     Like a large, invincible Demon

 

Come Sunday, they troop to the church

     Friday, they mouth their mantra in pious mosques

But they pervert Justice all week long

     And dig us deeper into the hellish hole

 

Nigeria is a huge corpse

     With milling maggots on its wretched hulk

They prey every day, they prey every night

     For the endless decomposition of our common soul

 

My Most Honourable Lord

     Just tell me where to keep your bribe.

 

*   Large, extremely tough bags used for carrying heavy cash in Nigeria

 

** They declare the innocent guilty

   They pronounce the guilty innocent

By   Emmanuel Ogbeche

History has a record of writers that betrayed their calling. They never remembered to side with the people only with their paymasters.

To Niyi With Love
By EO
Prof. Niyi Ossundare like Brutus is a noble man
His exuberances are driven by pennies
When the people suffered
Niyi snored away
Because there was no bank notes.
When snake farms sprouted dollars
And mansions built in Dubai
Niyi's midnight lamp was dim.
When boots and guns trampled and boomed
Shi'ites in hundreds fell
Women, children and the frail
Our own Niyi tendered not
To the crimson road
Alas, Niyi wakes as his master bids
Not the layman without the crisp notes
Oh, Niyi is an honourable man
He sees that which he is permitted to see
Ministers do not sin, because they are sure
To tend to Niyi's farm.
Yes, Niyi is an honourable and noble man.

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