Abuja poems on Hello Poetry

Valentine Mbagu Oct 2013

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.

I dedicate this Poem to my Country Nigeria On Her Independence Celebration.

Dada Olowo Eyo Jan 2015

THE ABUJA ACCORD.

So our grandfathers have gathered,
To pen resolve not to insult,
But barely had the ink dried,
Than a shocker left our jaws slackened!

Aida Oluwagbemiga Apr 2020

Love letters to Abuja, 2 girls and a Podcast

Down the street of where I grew up, residents here were quiet and simple and made homes.

One of these homes got transformed.

Rooms with a view, the views not of sky scrapers and greener pastures, it just means whenever you are at the Atelier, they could be in the middle of an exhibition.

I suppose it doesn't stay the same.

New meanings with every visit.

It keeps things interesting, and thus who knows what you will find.

On Thursday games are laid out, we play charades and I squeal with excitement over all the filmic clues.

3, faces makes this plot.

Retro Africa speaks for the movement of black arts and creatives.

Atelier welcomes you to a home outside of a home.

If you connected only through art and are starving for real sustenance, take a walk to the backyard.

That's where we have all been going.

We meet up at the Pavilion where the food is by 6pm,
When the sprinklers are on, I wanted to be closer to the water and smaller sounds so we drifted.

A plastic bench and our feet up, that smell of wet greens as the day fades away.

The type you don't relish but want to steal away.

So we talked, we talked about art.

Questions and meanings and being okay without answers,
Our words didn't drift into the night, I suppose.

I don't know that they did or our voices were carried with the wind.

Our laughter might have, they weren't constant but sturdy.

Thick, no accents but free.

A surprise sequence follows this change as we met the Mrs.
A few minutes later, we were back in the corner.

The Mrs. Goes to lie by her husband on the wet greens the sprinklers had been on, before she joined him.

He said trust me you want to be here,

It made me think, this was a place you wanted to share.

Only in its smallest forms in the smallests bits taking very little.

There are no embellishments this time.

Maybe simple never goes out of style, but before Monday, we were here on Saturday.

That day we drove through the city, cheap drinks from Ceddi and by the cadastral zone we stared through Central Park, cutting across River plate and overlooking the secret Garden where we met again for the first time, Lo almost a year ago to the day.

Like the beginning, before the art and different names and different careers or the general mechanized change which had ensued, which we hoped wasn't over-bearing.

One thing remained.

So I say, " I love Abuja, I wouldnt want to live anywhere else"
She nods in understanding, similar words had left her lips too many times before that day, that hour or in those moments.

Street lights shadows across, and a sense of a beginning.

Our city's charm being one of many things, but on that night, it was the feeling of a kindred spirit.

As one listens, the other affirms,

And what matters might be bigger than the voice which says it, so being able to sit to record a day was like everything else we liked.

(Signed: Aida Oluwagbemiga)

Safana Jul 2020

Abuja Girl

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

Females category in FCT

#president #senate #representative #minister #governor #chairman #councilor

Aida Oluwagbemiga Apr 2020

Love letters to Abuja, take a tour through Mexico

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.

Safana Nov 23

Abuja

A - Abuja
B - Best first city
U - Umbrella of the nation
J - Jewel in the Africa
A - And adorable to everyone

Otuogbodor Okeibunor Apr 2019

Nols...

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
— The End —

Umar Yogiza Jr Dec 2018

Untitled

children of death and settlement

by the tired, busy mouth
        of the evening;
where the only
        art is entering
you squat, bare
        in the corner of darkness
suffering and smiling;
        searching for the love
of another darkness
        there! i mistook you
for a lost shadow, for i let you go
let you go.

before now, i slept
        into the is same darkness
waiting to be ferry into tomorrow;
        thinking the large body
of retrospect past
        is immutable
but can't convince my pen
        that the only poetry in nigeria
is her present —messed-up
        by the same gone, ageless people
we revered, we have to let them go
        let them go.

into the red dark
        past nigeria, there
is a labyrinth tree
        whose ripe fruits are love
and poetry
        but was intentionally
neglected; we let it go, let it go.

looking through this tree
         i can see
into the future;
         above and beneath —
the ****** hatred
         of death and grave's
settlement, that we can't let it go, let it go.

gently —gently and gently
         i want to sink the deepest borehole
of poetry
        into this tasty period
where the only water is not
        only bullets; but
nepotism, tribalism
        neglecting naked reality
that brewed the wine that we can't let it go
let it go.

       the largest wound
in our hearts
       where the past bullets
pierced our comforts
        i want to heal it before i let it go, let it go.

i sauntered
        through this discomforting pain;
climbing through —
        the disagreements
betrayals, backbiting
        debaucheries and raw selfishness —
minds who don't want to let it go, let it go

i enter the past
        the way good poetry
entered the indolent
        through its untied roads and
whispering potholes
        with the hope
that not all nigerians are stupid
        through this silent
tired, busy mouth
        where the only poetry
is entering
        you must broad
your search;
        night is also an unemployed
graduate, wanting to let to go, let it go.

© umar yogiza jr
abuja, nigeria.

Emmanuel Phakathi Feb 2019

the soweto dancer. 2

he is having a adventure of a lifetime with every move he conjures
he is the soweto dancer
white supremacy on his throat and *****
he still moves
he's kept that secret space inside secret
no lynching of a thousand black bodies can untie his bond to his gas
he is of this earth
for he moves so seamlessly with it
he is the black dancer that has dazzled
time and time again
he is from brooklyn
ouaga
bahia
soweto
kingston
Marseilles
abuja
he is the black dancer
motion his breath
expression his concubine
juju his solemate
he is bojangles storyboard p pantsula
pantsula
pantsula

Safana May 2020

Zuma

Zuciya ta tayi kamar zuma
Kai zaki nata ya wuce ai zuma
Na dauka akai zani garin Zuma...
Na Abuja da Niger garin su Fatima

Amara Elijah Oct 15

Secrets

I've a secret to tell
Hold it dear to your heart
Tell it not in Port Harcourt
Nor breathe a word of it in Abuja
Whisper it not in Kaduna
Rumour it not in Enugu
Let it not be heard in Kano
Nor murmured in Warri
Neither say it in Jos
Nor howl it in Lagos

For there're ears in the walls of Ebonyi
Chameleons in Kogi
Spies in Bayelsa
Green snakes in the green grass of Abia
For there're preying eyes everywhere
...

To be cont'd... for the secret is yet to be told.