A Publication of the Society of Young Nigerian Writers in honour of Mr. Anthony Ebika.
EXECUTIONERS
Now you shine your teethes
At the unbroken wailing of your victims
Whose pleas are nothing but rolling balls
Rebounding like vacuum’s echoes.
Executioners,
Must these necks be heavy laden
With snail shells that rings and dangles?
Or mud coated bodies to strip-dance
With whips and woof-sound mockeries?
Must these heads be heavy cumbered
With treasures find them tapping,
And stagger street to street like a drunken old man?
You hear these scorching cries like fire victims
Yet you hold the ropes tied to the waists
And drag it as it pleases your soul,
You daze them to dance to rhythm of sardonic children
Who hit komkom as they sing blissfully
Executioners,
How long shall you wrap change into cigarettes
That only exhales smoke from the nostrils?
How long must stars only leave the eyes of Men
Who tap with hands and not with a pen?
He who must fall grasses
Must slant the cutlass.
So I tell you,
Let the glittering gavel sound loud.
Benstowe Fubaraibi
IN AMNESTY WE TRUST
Away with the sins! Washed as snow,
More than just the forgiveness,
Nairas! In billions involved,
Everyone! The fake inclusive,
So long a claim of terrorism laid,
Throw the cash and forgiveness at them,
Yes, peace, definite peace will reign.
The mentality, pardon for sins to life,
In awe at times I stand,
At some points in tears, I wail,
To some, loved ones, babies lost,
To greed, selfishness and ignorance,
By some, repaying in vengeance.
At the creek, it's ours, our land, our oil,
The fact; my land all polluted and captured,
Yes! To repay them, I must kill and kidnap,
Vandalize, terrorize and demand a ransom,
It's my land, the nation must suffer.
For years, a way out, so impossible,
Yes, he is from the North, we, Niger Deltans,
We care not, he must have an ungovernable nation,
By force, we must be emancipated.
Then and then, my leaders, a way out found,
Dole out the Naira, hold not their freedom,
In amnesty, definitely we must trust.
Amnesty! The response and great applauds,
And for a while a sigh of relieve we heaved!
Just in time, a bomb blast in Abuja!
Olukanni Abel Olayinka
