Whatever happened to the cicadas which once
disturbed our mid-day sun with their endless shrills;
Whatever happened to the talking parrots of the rainforest
and the hooting owl of the Savanna
and the cooing dove of *Okipu?
Whatever happened to the roaring lions prowling about;
Whatever happened to the elephant tetrarch of the jungle,
dreaded tree feller of the rainforest?
Whatever happened to the leopards
which once kept the python in check;
What, what, what?
Whatever happened to the sniffer dogs
which once kept off intruders from far-off land?
Whatever happened to the village cocks
which once crowed and crowed keeping
every villager awake all night?
Whatever happened to the hyena
which once wailed and wailed
and refused to be comforted?
O' whatever happened to the vicious serpent
and the poisonous rattle snake;
the village iguana whose appearance in the day
sent cold shivers down the spine of the whole village?
Whatever happened to the village cats
that constantly mewed and mewed?
Whatever happened to all those super-eruptive
volcanoes spewing skyward their molten lava
and magmas forcing up always the king's adrenalin?
Whatever happened to the diving hawks
which kept the chicks and the king in constant trepidation?
But where have all the roaring lions gone?
And where are the wandering leopards;
the singing canaries and the noisy weaver birds
and the talking parrots?
Where have the the crowing cocks gone,
the mewing cats, the rattle snakes
and the vicious cobras?
Where to have all the barking dogs disappeared;
the elephant king of the jungle, the wailing hyena
and the howling wolves?
And where are all the village town criers,
who do bear us ancestral messages?
Just where have they all gone;
Hibernating and anxiously waiting for the game to be shared?
But if they did not partake of the sharing,
will they ever cry out again?
And will the talking parrots, the chirping canaries
the hooting owls, the noisy weaver birds and the cicadas
ever keep us wide awake again in this morgue of a nation
And graveyard of a country?
Will they?
But will the town criers ever cry out again?

INVITATION TO TAKE A DEEP REFLECTION ON THE STATE OF THE NATION

Nigeria is currently in a lamentable state and making matters worse, there is no one to speak for her - the newsrooms are now full of political egrets; the fire has gone out of the pulpit; although there is a palpable evidence of deep religiosity through out the country; Nigerians, mournfully are a very greedy lot, over materialistic and very ungodly. Abound all over the nation are political pastors and imams who have deserted the vineyard and desecrated the holy grounds of worship for a mess of pottage with political officials. And as for the judiciary, it is full of vultures feeding on carcasses; the academia since the days of Gbadamosi Babangida has remained a mere cemetry and the conginitally greedy activists are always looking out for greener pasture. Whilst the leaders of the workers' unions have become complicit, Nigerian students walk about the place with broken tongues!

BABA: Bread and Butter Activism

Okipu: A distant farmland in Okpoma in the present Yala Local Government Council, where my father, Adamede Aduma Ogri used to farm.