The Enyi Mba Enyi war song should have been put off. But no; we rushed it; we rolled that lyrics out in old world tapestry to clothe us. We wanted to run down coal-tarred roadways, in a stampede of angry men, chanting to bolster our eagerness to go to a war we were not ready to fight. —Don Okolo Gestation, as in conception and growth, is everything. Period. When birth occurs, and it is premature,...
In that same shallowness, The sewer dweller in Aso Rock believes he has the knife and the roasted yam tuber to feed her people. This impoverished, morally bankrupt monarch of the savannah is ready to slice away: Therefore, one can only eat when one receives a slice of yam from him. ― Don Okolo IF YOU HAVE TEARS, PREPARE TO SHED THEM NOW. (Shakespeare) This is a lamentation…a requiem of sorts regarding the most painful,...
“All local beauties were off the menu. He had those when he was a regular soldier. Now that his taste buds had graduated from the banal to the high-end exquisite, the man wanted something supple and foreign” ──Don Okolo Leave Cardinal Jim Rex Lawson alone. This is not about him. He was great man, and a great musician to boot. My mind is one million light years away from him. He was the crooner-in-Chief…the quintessence...
As I write, the wild beasts are in the house, our house, your House; according to their kinsman, to ‘do business’. How could a race of people known for their resolute prowess of Africa’s wildest outposts, people who beg for a living, have the wherewithal to do business? Dear God: I hope you will find the time to read this. I have been wanting to write you over these years, but the story about your...
This will be the absolute last time I will be drawn to the travails of the Nigerian polity. Oh well, that is not exactly true: I am talking as a father to a wayward daughter whose exertions on life are deplorable. He would swear he was done and would come back for the GA-zillionth time to render one more treatise on the virtue of ethics and morality. (I may have to revisit this issue sooner...
“Dear John, You Have Left Me With No Choice” Ten thousand men, and it could be more were determined to liberate France on D-Day. Those soldiers that survived the carnage could have said a couple of Our Fathers and maybe, just maybe, another couple of Hail Marys…that is, if they had any love for the Mother of God. The Germans themselves were lying in decapitating waste in their vast beach dug-out, in the thousands, as...
Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa: Through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault. Catholics! Catholics…they never cease to amaze me. You should know, I am a dyed-in-the-wool Catholic and wouldn’t trade this faith for another. Glad we have that out of the way. Somewhere at the beginning of Mass, those lines appear in a faith recital to absolve everyone in attendance of sins they might have committed. As a result,...
And what if you get a golden chance to pick a country you would rather be born into… This could arguably be the most eagerly awaited question most would have had no problem answering, if God had asked them to pick any one of the countries in the cold temperate regions, or one in the tropics they would rather be born into. He would allow you to see the properties…as in the color schemes, boots,...
Writers aren’t born…they are self-made. Creative writers are therefore nurtured and cultured by self. Most writers I know carry a portable/digital recorder back in the days of yore. Today, it is in their hands. They carry it around all day, drive and text on it, and text some more even as the Professor is standing before them, wafting poetic. They sleep with this modern day contraption, and only record those moments with pure disdain for...
So, the Finance Minister rallied a crowd of reporters and declared we had been fleeced by fire…that seven hundred billion Naira went up in smoke because a dingy little office complex where an accountant practiced his iniquities and decadent morality was scorched. How could we contain ourselves and sleep till dawn, while our golden flute in damp and dew lay forsaken and forlorn? Classic? Well it is. Vintage? Of course, it is. The words belong...
