LAGOS!!!

LAGOS! I never thought to find out its true meaning but I want to believe it’s the Devil’s foot stool. An Alabama city in its own right, every inch of it is laced with unmitigated frustration and a shameless display of the intrinsic wickedness humanity has got to offer.

Lagos has always been known to swallow its victims whole, like a boa it constricts and slowly drains the life force of its prey. Forged by nature’s cunning art, it plays host to “same mad men” who have the needles of their mental meters skipping intermittently between the borderlines of normalcy and grose absurdity, they move and act in a Jekyll and Hyde manner. The city thus prides itself in the richest collection of low lives and raving lunatics.

Not many know why Lagos is darkest at nightfall, I do, it was designed to blanket the eyes to the moral decay that swells in rank at unholy hours, and it overpowers the terrain. In the dark wouldn’t see the hop heads and uncaring junkies on the prowl for a quick fix; It is the darkness that saves you the sight of a congregation consisting vagabonds and half naked whores in their midlife crisis; that darkness hides gigolos who have lost their moral compass and are on a journey to nowhere; pimps who exploit their embattled compatriots; Assassins and bloodthirsty robbers; ritualists and crooked politicians. In the darkness you couldn’t see the blood sucking vampires that fly the night sky seeking the flesh of the Godless.

However, I love Lagos and I respect its resilience. I adore the way it manages its own, it has contained and still contains so much, but has yet remained. Lagos will outlive its troubles, it will see them come and go but will refuse to be destroyed.

Every man must learn to be like Lagos, taking in all the bullshit life brings with it and still finding a will to live. PEACE.

A DEAD MAN'S LULLABY: DEDICATED TO THOSE GONE, GOING AND SOON TO BE GONE.

Sleep on, oh silent one! for you have earned the right to sleep in peace.

you came, you saw, shook your head, wiped your tears and departed, for the overpowering presence of evil in this world crushes the will as well as the spirit.

Sleep on in the embrace of immortality and let the nostalgia of your mortality be your grave enemy.

Sleep on, for life is even worse than you left it , humans are still partly human and more beast, they wonder the earth as vultures who feed off the flesh of their own kind.

The poor and weak are still being stripped of  human dignity and hope still remains the only comforter of the hopeless. Ignorance, diseases and famine still ravage  third world nations like plagues and the western world has found embracing insanity a new sport in which gay rights and bestiality jointly take the gold medal. The general atmosphere has been infused with something strong, something so corrosive that it has gradually washed away the once strong moral fabric of the human society and numbed mortal consciousness to unbelievable absurdity.

The vile still eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of violence, the drums of war are ever rolling and the hands that beat them, ever stronger. He that forged the sword of destruction worketh night and day without sleep or slumber; with the skill of a master craftsman, he that smooth the anvil did beat confusion into fine steel, ready to bring damnation to the children of fools.

Sleep on, oh silent one! for the kingdom of light and darkness are at an unending struggle for unwary souls. Mosques, churches, temples and shrines have quadrupled in number and welfaring charlatans have fattened their pockets by creating more false gods so that they may prey upon the fears of the faithless. They go on the prowl for weak minded bigots.

Sleep on, for the politicians have become more crooked and desperate, they have perfected the art of deceit and wear dishonesty like an apparel of fine linen. we have come to an era where the deceived  willingly sign up for deceit, for two can play the game of lies but the loser suffers the bitterness of hard bondage.

Men have come to despise knowledge, the schools happened, and "common sense" became "not so common". We have began to see who we are through the eyes of the blind and our story is now told by the dumb. Culture and identity is lost and self deceit has become the bridge between the "haves" and the "have nots". The Brazilian hair is the bridge between African lady and the Western lady, while the heat of Miami Florida is the bridge between a pale skin and a dark one.

I do not know where u are oh dead one, are u far beyond the pearly gates or are you roaming the bowels of hell?

Do u wake up to the sweet smell of saints and angels or is it the cry of embattled dissidents that jug your consciousness?

Is your head adorned by the promised crown  of stars or is it the burning fury of a fiery whip that scars your bonny backside?

Are you in peace or is your soul grimly tormented? Whatever the case may be, do sleep on, for your work here is done.

MY ALLEGORY OF THE CRIPPLED COCKROACH

Yesterday a strange fellow limped casually into the four cornered territory where like it i crawl out from every morning to find my future. it was a rather diffident chap, each step from this five and a half legged little monster we all love to hate was informed by an impending knowledge of a likely and sudden death by crushing.

I watched this irritating little gimp with a sense of curiosity as it meandered its way to a heap of loose junk which i has carefully stacked at the corner of  the cubicle where i lay my head. The junk, which had been gathered were tell tale signs of a room which had been left unkept for weeks.

That vermin is a cockroach, this one had five good legs with a sixth as crooked as a politician. Irritating to the sight, it was an icon for utter disgust.
My first instinct was to put the rascal out of its limping misery and end the whole drama but on second thought i took a pause, i was awed by its will to survive, it reminded me of the rose that grew from the concrete but it further reminded me of something even more disturbing, what was it? Yes, the average Nigerian youth.

In a great way the life of the typical Nigerian youth is no different from the life of a cockroach. Lets highlight a few intrinsic characteristics common to both species.

1. Environment: by its very nature a cockroach thrives in a filthy and disorganized environment, a clean and organized setting is an abomination to the nature of a cockroach. Present day Nigeria is characterized by chaos, corruption and unmanageable disorderliness which give  typical Nigerian youths their very nature, even when they leave the shores of the country they tend to create a replica of the Nigerian rot in their new environment, this probably helps them feel more at home. The result is the shameful stories we read every now and then about Nigerians abroad.

2. Scavenging: this is a roaches appeal, just as they rummage through the junk of an unkept vicinity, Nigerian youths scavenge through the junks of life for objects of little or no substance to their immediate person. They want the latest phones, diamond studded champaign bottles, Brazilian hair worth hundred of thousands, and many other crap of ephemeral value. When these shadows are faded, the real things are often nothing to write about.

3. Lack of any sincere futuristic plan or vision: its a "grab and tear" mentality with these two species, unlike the ant  these two are not big on preserving things, for instant gratification is there ultimate goal. To understand this, we can conduct a little experiment.

• Step 1. Place an advert for vacancy on a position (any position), for maximum result make the position sound big. You would have at least 500 youths turn up.
• Step 2. Pick at random 200 youths and tell them to return at a particular time.
• Step 3. when they are all gathered at a given time, give them a single center sheet of a full scape notebook and leave them for the next 15mins.
• Result: You would come back to find the sheet in at least 4 different pieces, such that one person would have his first name in on one piece while his surname will be on another.

Reason: same as why Nigerians will prefer to get battered and have their clothes torn in the process of getting a bus than have a single line for smooth access. Its a "grab and tear" mentality.

4. Back door, corner and window syndrome: it is a known fact that the cockroach hates the front door. similarly, the Nigerian youth shares such strange quality, its only in Nigeria you find human beings who want to get into a bus through its boot.

5. Blind and unguarded courage towards acts of negativity: the cockroach is imbued suicidal courage which is often kamikaze to it, the reward for its destructive nature is death. The Nigerian youth is also imbued with a similar courage toward disastrous acts that mortgage their future for short time glory, acts like, cultism, yahoo plus, aristo plus, vandalization of pipelines and many other grotesque and picaresque pattern of behaviour.

6. Survival and Resilience: I would commend the survival instincts of a cockroach, very resilient in nature, it is about the only creature on the planet that has the ability to survive a nuclear disaster. In the same way I salute the tenacity of the Nigerian youth, given little or no opportunity they always manage to seize happiness for themselves regardless of the sorry state of whereever they are, the ability to suffer and smile in situations where youths from other parts of the world develop nervous breakdown and even go on to commit suicide is a strong point.

The truth of the matter is, I doubt if there would ever be a total change of mentality, but i know as times drift by and generations of societal misfits continue to wash away like sand against tide, there would be a conscious re awakening of human dignity in the young Nigerian heart. When this is done, only there and then would we begin to think as human beings or at worst, ants.

WORD ON THE STREETS: A STREET DISCIPLE’S PERSPECTIVE (PART 1)

The streets is a double-edged sword that bears witness to shattered lives and success stories alike, giving life by day and stealing souls by nightfall, both bread and thorns does  it bring forth for its disciples. It is a testimony to the fact “that which gives life can take it”.  Stone cold and ruthless, the streets has no love, there are no hand outs, no welfare packages, when you are there its just you, your guts and your God (if he hasn’t deserted you).

It is the streets that make you realize that race should be classified along lines of character and not colour. The streets play host to all shade of personalities, there you would find hop heads on the prowl for marijuana, crack fiends looking for a quick fix, criminally insane minds, corporate beggars, street wise vagabonds, flamboyant pimps, desperate whores, frustrated gigolos and other examples of low lives who go about looking for weak minded individuals the way lions go around looking for weak antelopes. There is hardly an alter boy in sight, except for the Jehovah’s Witness though, they have been trying to sweep the streets clean of garbage since 1931 but the garbage just keeps turning up.

On the streets you also find men of great strength and intelligence, cerebral minds with a burning desire to rise above mediocrity, men who have sworn never to confuse motion with accomplishment. On the streets is where you would find real men who have no desire to pencil-push their way to 35years of meritorious service which has fattened the pocket of some royal jerk with no scruples. These are men with brass balls who have decided to take their destiny into there hands and take their chances in the wild.

Only lazy peeps have five senses, the streets force you to develop a sixth, seventh, probably an eighth sense. These extra senses are vital for survival because it’s kill or be killed. The streets is teacher extraordinaire, no theories just practicals, it is a school of hard knock and its students are the most realistic human beings alive not to add the sharpest minds you can find. God gave us salvation, our parents taught us virtue and instilled strong moral fiber, the schools took our money in exchange for nothing, but it was the streets that taught us to dream and live the dream.

On the streets what you get is yours, no man plays God with your life, no man determines when you eat, shit or sleep, or what you wear and how you wear it, all that is determined by what you think of yourself and how you feel. However loyalty is priceless, always remember that many before you have work the fields and become masters of the game, humble yourself and consort with them, you may learn a thing or two.

On the whole, the streets welcome men who are prepared to take risks, but is highly unforgiving to stupid decisions. Only men prepared to leave their comfort zone and seize their destinies can eat of its fruit. When you are on the streets expect no mercy, always be three Cleo’s ahead of the game or you would find hunger an ever present companion, the school’s do not teach you how to survive that, the streets do. Sitting behind a desk does not teach you how to take your destiny into your hands, but it sure teaches you how to live another man’s dream.

When you are on the streets your shoes may have more holes than a rabbit warren, ladies will desert you, friends would become scarce, family may forget you, enemies would laugh at you, never mind, you don’t need them, they are mere shadows that have faded away, what you need are the real things...TO BE CONTINUED

THE REBIRTH

I am a child of the rising sun, awakened by rays of Gold and the sweet breath of hope, I am renewed with a purpose and an unending vision.
Like an eagle, I soar high against the raging wind of despair and great adversity.
Like a pheonix my greatness is awakened from the ashes of my defeat and my faith journey into the unknown with a promise of celestial glory and immortality at the end of my fleshly existence.