Nigeria My Motherland

Josef Ogbonna

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Josef Ogbonna

Friday 30 June 2023

The Hypocrisy of Life and Death

The living to themselves gossip attract,
but at death eulogies mitigate lies.
Love and care from he who breathes is withdrawn,
but his slumber does attract parties.

Fake mourners with feigned tears in burials act.
They rip off and use the grieving as pawns;
Their loss is their gain, their tears their laughter.
To fill their stomachs, they sob and flatter,
as they to misery dance, from dusk till dawn.

Whilst alive, at my deeds everyone frowns.
But at death, I am a departed 'saint'
whose sepulcher you spray with costly paint.

If you must celebrate me, do so now.
Do not in reverence to my casket bow.
Visit me now in my ramshackle house,
sharply rebuke me if you have a grouse.
Do as much you can to show you love me,
do not when I sleep go on bended knee.
Never belatedly show your respect
by attending my funeral in retrospect.

Josef Ogbonna

Friday 30 June 2023

Nigeria's Flawed 2023 Polls

Well, so they tell us-
the political gladiators and
heavy weights. That in permanent
servitude we must remain.

They create a void in our stomachs,
which they momentarily fill with
what they carted away from us.
Just for their self will and whims
for another leap year's tenure to
be entrenched.

They widen the capacity for evil
of the canines they have intentionally
starved.
For a bone's morsel, the canines
viciously their draconian orders
execute.
Just for their masters' sit-tight
bid to be guaranteed.

Restrained with the servile chains
of their desperate overlords, they bark
ravenously at the oppressed,
who have come to liberate themselves
at polling units.
Each time the unworthy is by the
ballot box overthrown, the ravenous
canines at the hands of feeble
patriots gnaw.

A pound of flesh they take
from the down-trodden kingmakers,
to usurp the power they have
in good governance vested.

The umpire with filthy lucre gratified,
raises the hand of the fraudulently
triumphant political Brahmin,
who for another leap year's tenure
subjugates his dalits with utter
deprivation; ASUU strikes, poor infrastructure,
incessant power cuts, poor health delivery,
persistent insecurity, unemployment
and the cancerous bad governance.

With fat cheeks and stiff neck
that is well sunken into a robust torso,
he regularly raises the sides of an
African attire of elitist renown,
set once more to amass more spoils
of political office for a privileged
family dynasty.

Josef Ogbonna

Saturday 16 July 2022

The Nigerian Politician

Bloated belly, swollen cheeks,
and a sunken stiff neck on robust torso.
Yet well fitted in flowing apparels;
falling and being raised frequently
from side to side.
Obscene opulence is your delight,
your prestige and your pride;
amassed unlawfully by the pen,
ever wet for your deception
and thievery.
The flight of your spoils of office
enlarge the shopping Malls and treasure houses
of the Occident,
leaving your covetous people
deprived of earning power.
To arms they take at boredom's peak,
whilst your virgins and maidens go a-whoring.
Still, you in your sinister acts of re-election,
widen their capacity for Evil, just to have
your sit-tight bid guaranteed you.

Josef Ogbonna

Saturday 14 May 2022

Wole Soyinka

Africa's venerated literary
icon with words of eloquence
esoteric to the blind.
Distinguished in letters
for ages infinite.
Unparalleled in intellect,
and a gadfly of constructive
dissenting views.
Soyinka,
You are indeed a priceless
asset to the black race.
The wise grey-haired doyen
of literary geniuses,
whose ingenuity is in a century
once seen,
and in a Millennium, ten times.

Josef Ogbonna

Friday 6 May 2022

Leah Sharibu the unsung heroine

Intrepid damsel,
a heroine unsung.
A willing martyr
with courage
unrivalled.
Unransomed captive
with a ransom
infinite.
She gladly faces
death with eternity
in view.
Like her lover before her,
she chooses to be
a sacrificial lamb
to the slaughter.
Leah Sharibu,
the heroine unsung.
She that chose to mortify
her passions
for timeless paradise.
Hardly daunted by
Kalashnikovs and
thunderous explosives,
she inherits a world
deemed abstract by
unfaithful adherents.

Josef Ogbonna

Friday 6 May 2022

Akunna the Osu goddess

Sweet Akunna of the forbidden caste,
with breasts erect and succulent to taste.
She has marble eyes that blossom by day,
and ivory teeth worth a millennium's pay.
Her rear curves dangle to her feets' rhythm,
for the gaze of rivals deep in schism.
Her moist lips have their natural redness,
as bright in colour as a crimson dress.
Her body's landscape is soft with fragrance
of love and sweetness in sheer abundance.
She has long, smooth and fine pillars for legs,
for which every man dreams daily and begs.
In rejection she rules the rain forest
as the queen of misfits, but still the best.
An outcast with beauty that subjugates
all free born women yearning at the gates
of the gods for such unique endowments
which are natural without ornaments.

Josef Ogbonna

Friday 6 May 2022

The Cry of a wounded Nigerian

Nigeria my beloved home is under siege:
A death trap I see in her third mainland bridge.
The crying blood of the slain in the North-east
overwhelms vicious politicians with guilt.
Humans with hearts of beasts ravage her North-west,
outgunning her corrupt weakened armed forces.
Catacombs of mass graves quantify losses
incurred from incessant farmers-herders clash.
Darkness looms as stupendous amounts of cash
are cast in an energy sector like trash.
Her healing centres are no more than health morgues,
and her institutions breed intellectual dogs.
Her oligarchs of the six zones unify
to plunder, rape and line their pockets with filth.
With peanuts they entice poverty stricken
youths, just to have their sit-tight bids guaranteed them.
Indulgences from the gullible gratify
custodians of faith endowed with seducing lips.
My beloved Nigeria has failed to hearken
to the values of the elders before them.
With priorities misplaced, we go seeking
for stereotyped reputations in our trips
to foreign climes for filthy lucre to acquire.
Good Lord! When will values my mother-land require?

Josef Ogbonna

Friday 6 May 2022

Weep not Nigeria

Weep not Nigeria,
for justice is in the offing.
Weep not Nigeria,
for your cries resonate and ring.
Weep not Nigeria,
It's time for your African spring.
Weep not Nigeria,
none shall usurp your role as king.
Weep not Nigeria,
for soon in ecstasy you'll sing.
Weep not Nigeria,
for to towering heights you'll cling.
Weep not Nigeria,
and soar atop the eagle's wing.
Weep not Nigeria,
for your patience will gladness bring.
Weep not Nigeria,
it's time to sing the ding dong song.
Weep not Nigeria,
for your misery will not be long.
Weep not Nigeria,
for you are numbered with the strong.

Josef Ogbonna

Friday 6 May 2022

Nigeria the sleeping giant

Wake up Nigeria whilst it is still day.
Your darkness thickens in the hot summer sun.
Wake up Nigeria from your spectators' fun.
Like a titan to the slaughter, your way
to financial hades might be certain.
Awake, or your future is uncertain.
Your teeming youth population languish
in persistent erosive social crimes.
Awake Nigeria from pain and anguish.
Your tragedies exceed your countless births.
Awake Nigeria, for these many deaths
reveal a corrupt weakened armed forces.
Awake Nigeria from your great slumber.
Your rank in the black world has been usurped.
Awake Nigeria, reclaim your number
one position by treading those courses
once trod, and never again to be stopped.
Awake Nigeria and discern the times.
Cease for good to be black gold dependent.

Josef Ogbonna

Friday 6 May 2022

Nigeria My Motherland

Nigeria our great and beloved motherland,
where multitudes of tribes unitedly stand.
Our land of hope by two rivers divided,
with lush vegetation by nature provided.

Nigeria our home of people resilient.
A land of great icons in works diligent.
We hail thee our great and revered black nation,
our land of human dignity and redemption.

God arise and take your place as sovereign Lord.
Enthrone Thyself in Nigeria's seat of power.
Make her edicts and laws Thy eternal word.
Let justice prevail in her courts by the hour.

Our flag will peace and industry symbolize,
whilst our history will always immortalize
the deeds and sacrifices of our heroes past.
Help us Lord to serve our beloved land with zest.

Nigeria the blessed will pervasive peace know,
even when the threats of tumults seem to flow.
Her crops and yields will neighbouring countries nourish,
from her fields that inexhaustibly flourish.