As October 1 approaches, HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY……………………
I have enormous tracts of land and vast volumes of water, but cannot feed myself.
So I spend $1 billion to import rice and another $2 billion on milk.
I produce rice, but don’t eat it. I have millions of cows but no milk.
I am 53, please celebrate me.
I drive the best cars in the world but have no roads,
so I crush my best brains in the caverns,
craters and crevasses they crash into daily.
I am in unending mourning, please celebrate me.
My school has no teacher and my classroom has no roof.
I take lectures through windows and live with 15 others in one room.
All my professors have gone abroad, and the rest are awaiting visas.
I am a university graduate, but I am illiterate. I want a future, please celebrate me.
Preventable diseases send me to hospitals without doctors, medicines or power.
All the nurses have gone abroad and the rest are waiting to go also.
I have the highest maternal and infant mortality rates in the world;
and future generations are dying before me. I am hopeless, hapless and helpless,
please celebrate me.
For democracy’s sake I stood all day on Election Day.
But before I could ink my thumb, results had been broadcast.
When I dared to speak out, silence was enthroned by bullets.
My leaders are my oppressors, and my policemen are my terrors.
I am ruled by men in mufti, but I am not a democracy.
I have no verve, no vote, no voice, please celebrate me.
My youth have no past, present nor future.
So my sons in the North have become street urchins;
and his brothers in the South have become kidnappers.
My nephews die of thirst in the Sahara and his cousins drown in the Mediterranean.
My daughters walk the streets of Lagos , Abuja and Port Harcourt;
while her sisters parade the streets of Rome and Amsterdam .
I am grief-stricken, please celebrate me.
Pen-wielding bandits have raided everything in my vaults.
They walk the land with haughty strides and fly the skies with private planes
They have looted the future of generations unborn;
and have money they cannot spend in several lifetimes,
but their brothers die of starvation. I want a kit of kindness, please celebrate me.
I can produce anything, but import everything.
So my toothpick is made in China; my toothpaste is made in South Africa;
my salt is made in Ghana; my butter is made in Ireland;
my milk is made in Holland; my shoe is made in Italy;
my vegetable oil is made in Malaysia* my biscuit is made in Indonesia;
my chocolate is made in Turkey and my table water made in France.
My taste is far-flung and foreign, please celebrate me.
My land is dead because all the trees have been cut down;
flooding kills thousands yearly because the drainages are clogged;
my fishes are dead because the oil companies dump waste in my rivers;
my communities are vanishing into the huge yawns of gully erosion, and nothing is being done.
My very existence is uncertain and I am in the deepest depths of despondence, please celebrate me.
I have genuine leather but choose to eat it.
So I spend billions of dollars to import fake leather.
I have four refineries, but prefer to import fuel,
so I waste more billions to import petrol. I have no security in my country,
but send troops to keep peace in another man’s land.
I have hundreds of dams, but no water.
So I drink ‘pure’ water that roils my innards.
I need a vision, please celebrate me.
I have a million candidates craving to enter universities,
but my dungeons can only accommodate a tenth.
I have no power, but choose to flare gas,
so my people have learnt to see in the dark and stare at the glare of Unclad flares.
I am shrouded by darkness, please celebrate me.
For my golden jubilee,
I shall spend 16 billion naira to bash around the bonfires of the banal.
So what if the majority gaze at my possessed, frenzied dance;
drenched in silent tears, as probity is enslaved in democracy’s empty cellars?
I am profligacy personified, please celebrate me.
Why can I not simply reflect and ponder?
Does my complexion cloud the colour of my character?
Does my location limit the lengths my liberty?
Does the spirit of my conviction shackle my soul
Does my mien maim the mine of my mind?
And is failure worth celebrating?
I AM NIGERIAN, PLEASE CELEBRATE ME.

Looks like
Okra soup if
She crawl,
Speaking as
running soup
of a fresh
Sesame leaves,
Her customized
face is full, and
all spores are
filled,
Her days are
more than
a senator And,
she is a Minister's
age mate,
she is,
An eldest sister
of reps.
Feeling to have
a young fresh
boy
to have fun
together

The streets of Mexico, have plants and chairs to eat on.

The house of Mexico, "Casa Mexicana" has a chef who says the occasional hola to me whenever I see her, and the DJ plays any Mexican songs, from Mariachi bands no one here in Abuja really knows to songs from Coco, so all your dreams of Mexico become just more than feels.

If you take a deep dive for hidden gems then you might be lost for 5minutes, with all the pieces which makes the walls and fortifies this Museum gallery feel.


There's more to Casa Mexicana than this.

Almost everything on the menu is organic, so you sit to this coffee with warm milk, and the coffee is lighter, it's traditional and you can open all your caffeine inhibitions.

It tastes almost surreal.

I almost always go for the chicken wings which are well sauced and come with actual home made fries, no embellishments what's so ever, so it seems like what you made or your mum made, without the sweat or having to eat at home.

With deserts for your beating heart, you could lead with a slice of the triple milk Mexican cake.

In the dark we groove for light
Awaiting again the lion's roar
To awaken us from a stupor
A Maniac infuse to our culture
Mislearnig adventures incured by our search
Searching for light with the touch in hand
Searching within the endless tunnels of knowledge
Bellowing our rich forest and mangroves
Bastadizing the deep sea of life bestowment.
True and of a truth...!
Silence is a guide but we lost touch of the hunters skills
Skills that unwind the pantheon, crossed the hyaenea
And put paid to the antics of the Foxes
Our quest is  now an inquests
Following the foxes of  this sphere in a hide and seek dance
A salient dance of alienation between the Hunter and the antelope.
Will the lion ever roar again..?
Chinua Achebe, Kofi Awenora,Senghor, Bongo Mbeti,
Dennis Brutus, Alex La Guma, Anthol Fugar
Nelson Mandela, Cyprain Ekwensi,
Christopher Okigbo and now Gabriel Okara
....And other great lions
Living and dead whose roaring sounds
Cascades our spheres and beyond.
The great lioness;
Bessie Head,  Nardi Gordimar,Mariana Ba,
Mabel Segun, Amata Aido,, Doris Lessing
Helen Oviagere, Buchi Emecheta.....!
Your breast has not dried up yet
And your ******* still drips with milk of knowledge
Only we lack sulking skills to quesh the hunger and thirst
We cry for trivialities searching for food outside our barns and homesteads
We long and thirst for great sayings with Witt
Idioms with Music accomplishments to rummage deep into our marrow
Pickerng into our very being .....Healing!
We long for the roaring Lions
Seeking sounds to penetrate deep into our  persons
We long for true words and essences
Piercing through  the very depths of our soul

Written by
Otuogbodor Okeibunor  Abuja, Nigeria
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