The rise of a giant

Days of obscurity and fear pioneered the tender cause,
Days of low tones and hush voices lingered in the air,
Days of despise and refutation persisted,
Days of humiliation and persecution ensued,
Days of seemingly endless tribulations stood still,

The pride of kinship and tribe paramount,
The fear of being stripped of power held awhile heightened,
The disdain of a kinsman turn around intensifies,

In trifles the weak and the lame moved away,
In great anticipation they sought asylum,
In a heated bout of debate they escaped the claws of the villains in great Abyssinia,
In harmony they were let to reside therein the foreign land,

Days pass by and the inspiration permitted a public declaration,
Days grew slowly into months and opposition intensified,
Days can be intriguing when kinsmen be compelled to camp outside their city’s gates,
Like the pain form a king cobra’s fang, the hearts of the oppressed hurt awhile,

Death took away the jewel of the desert at these trying times,
Dear and near she was to the leader of this young course,
Dire anguish and pain transcends the fulcrum of the tender struggle,

Great news came from kinsmen afar,
Glad tidings and pleasant pledges abound,
Geared to help tribal feuds desist and lead the united souls to light,

Thereafter, wars, battles and sabotages became the norm,
The young lion curb has now grown strong with a beautiful mane,
The tempo denotes a state as thus; sometimes they won sometimes they lost,

Patience and unshaken faith the young and fragile state held onto as a survival recipe,
People trooping in from near and afar,
Pledging allegiance to a just and transparent course,
Paradigm shift from slave to master unveiled,
Plunging the proud and the pompous into the ditch of regrets,

Like the pipers tune tempo the loyal were drawn to gather,
Like a large hive of bees an army thus commandeth,
Like a roaring storm they marched towards the cradle,
Like a baby’s bed, their once forsaken hometown is the cradle,
The root of the virgin religion they march to conquer,

Ten thousand man March to render, a once fierce enemy asunder,
The glorious march struck awe into the hearts of the oppressors,
The expectation for vengeance? Was snuggled by a faith so compassionate,
The show of mercy and empathy engulfed the conquest,

Humility and praise to God transcends the city,
Victory and great heart contentment was the order,
The little lion curb then weak and frail, now strong and fearsome has thus come to conquer,
The rise of a giant once a midget,
The dream once suppressed a secret has now come to be real,
Arise! Arise! Arise the giant!, because victory is yours now to ponder.

Muhammad tijjani nakande , a freelance writer, a neo pan African can be reached online at www.muhammadnakandesworld.blogspot.com or email him at memzycool@yahoo.com

MOTHER

Blessed is the womb that bore the being,
Blessed is your smile that brightens my day,
Blessed is the burden that took you nine months to bear,
Blessed is your effort through my growing and trying days,

Those days I felt I knew all that life was about,
Those days you tried to caution me and I shun,
Those times I protested and detested as you warn,
Those times I was peer driven and adrenalin influenced,

Sometimes you cried in silence for a reckless youth,
Sometimes you prayed and waited, patience and faith you held onto,
Sometimes you can’t help but wonder, when I will ever be stable,

When I played and fell you washed my wounds,
When I fell sick and weak you were always by my side,
When my grades fall you told me I could do better,
When you said all I should do is believe and be determined, I knew my dreams would come through one day,

You gave me a shoulder to cry on and a push when I was afraid,
You stood by me in my times of trial and seemingly endless tribulations,
You believed in me when the world lost faith in me,
You always helped me see the bright side of my problems,
You are the star that brightens a dark night,
You are the silver lining behind my darkest tunnel,
You fed my tender mouth as a toddler and you support me until I could learn to walk on my feet,

If only I knew what I know today,
If only I could turn back the hands of time momma,
If only I could wipe your tears away, all those times I caused you pain,
If only I could give the whole world to see you smile,
If only I had listened to you then, mother, I am lost without you,

Today I look back at it all and I say to myself, “what if”?
Today, the whole world is not enough exchange for a minute without you,
All I want to say to you mother is “there are no words or wealth that can pay you back,
All I need to say to momma is, “my intent is to show you that I understand,
All I want to say to you mother is “you are appreciated”.

This poem is dedicated to my dear mother.
Muhammad Tijjani Nakande, a freelance writer, a neo pan African can be reached online at www.muhammadnakandesworld.blogspot.com or email him at memzycool@yahoo.com

Kano!!

Our home town is well known all over the federation and beyond to vote and choose our leadership based on what we believe is right,
We massively voted Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau into office in 2003 and later on back into office in 2007 even though he was faced by an incumbent ten times stronger.
We vote people into office as ordinary voters like you and i willing to see change in the administration of our great state!
We vote because we weigh the pros and the cons, the dos and the don’ts, the Ya Kamata’s!
We vote because we use our intellects to determine who will turn out to be a good leader.
Today we find ourselves in an academic environment, and therefore we ought to emulate and demonstrate what we practice back at home, a true democracy indeed!!,
As students of knowledge in a prestigious university like Unimaid, I think it will be an abuse to our intelligence for a person to come and sell a political candidate to us and we fail to ask them the reason why we should vote his or her candidate.
A ruthless cabal of so called politicians have infested our midst with a dirty type of politics that tends to honor electoral fraud and convincing people to vote blindly and aimlessly,
We are not stupid, are we? We are a people with a history of political uprightness since the times of the great Mallam Aminu Kano of blessed memory,
I will personally feel stupid and dumb if you tell me to vote a particular candidate and I don’t ask you to give me reasons why I should vote them,
We all are living witnesses to the end story of electoral fraud and trying to impose thyself on the throne of leadership by all means necessary, it is no secret; it trails you all the way!!,
So dear congress members, let us shun voting with fake I.D’s, indigene form, electoral violence, Zabe cikin Duhu Da jahilchi and above all Zaben Tumun Dare.
“An Daina Ninke mu, mun daina zabe cikin jahilchi, sai an bamu hujjar zaben da zamu yi, kuma mun san Allah ne kadai yake bada mulki ga wanda ya so kuma lokacin da ya so”.
Finally, the issue of godfatherism is a burning and recurrent issue in Nigeria and our student union politics awhile, nobody is going to dictate to us what and who we are supposed vote for,
The new style godfathers have infested the minds of the young union members so much so that this cadre of future leaders are totally convinced that politics is synonymous with hypocrisy, that student unionism is synonymous with self aggrandizement and opens a window to political begging.
Therefore, we should please open our eyes and vote our prospectus leaders based on reason and logic as intellectuals and not based on first come issues or baseless godfather’s orientation.
Therefore I say Ask them why? Tell them to Give you reason why you should vote?
Thank you for reading my piece and God bless.
Muhammad Tijjani Nakande, a freelance writer, a neon pan African, can be reached at www.muhammadnakandesworld.blogspot.com or email him at memzycool@yahoo.com

LIFE

The first cry of a baby says it has arrived,
The first words uttered says it can learn,
The first words of “mama” brings delight to thy mum,
The first steps taken makes mama feel like an Egyptian queen,
The days transcend into months and hope rises high,
The survival of the little infant tells a story,
The story line which I narrate as thus;
The world we live in is like a toddler’s clay toy,
This moment it is shaped like a cup and the next it is out of shape,
The world is like a beautiful old lady, a beautiful work of nature overtime,
Since I was a young lad growing,
And now I am a young man glowing,
I have never seen this world changing,
The people that lived are part of history,
The people alive are a part to contemporize,
The folks yet unborn are part of destiny,
The people come and go as a herd through a perch,
Some touch lives and they are honored,
Some sit tight in corners while others make their mark,
Others end lives and they are remembered as tyrants,
The wise, the rich, the royal all live their footprints on the sands of time,
The man that grew out of a baby is now old and feeble, too weak and frail to quibble,
The bible says “what goes around, comes around”,
The basic rules of life remain the same overtime though,
No matter how serious you take life,
You will never get out of it alive,
The inevitable comes calling! Come! , come! Death beckons, come Home to your Lord!,
This day remains the most detested by man so much a times taken off guard,
The truth and irony about this life remains that, we all die in the end somehow.
Muhammad Tijjani Nakande, a freelance writer, a neo pan African can be reached online at www.muhammadnakandesworld.blogspot.com or email him at memzycool@yahoo.com

Things we do for love.

Some things we do for humanity,
Some we do for country.
Some things we do for prestige,
Some for the reputation,
Sometimes we hurt and shun,
Sometimes we smile and shine,
Sometimes we look past some wrongs,
So much that we appear spotless to thyself,
Sober and sullen we slumber in thoughts,
So when the raging fire of love comes to hurt,
Some pain we soak alone,
Some pain we sore the seeds,
Some things we do for friends,
Some things we do for family, family in solitaire,
Sometimes we seek solitary engagement,
So much so that we soldier to not to soak in tears,
Some things we do for the sake of mates,
Some things we do for love,
Sometimes a mix of joy and sorrow, the blessings come to pass,
So long as we do some things for love?
Solace we seek as everlasting passion surmounts.
Muhammad Tijjani Nakande, a freelance writer, a neo pan African can be reached online at www.muhammadnakandesworld.blogspot.com or email him at memzycool@yahoo.com

A national president indeed!

“Ance wai juma’ar da zata yi kyau tun daga laraba ake gane ta”
Hausa proverb.
The above proverb clearly summarizes what I intend to address. It is an old Hausa- Fulani tradition that a young boy be given a piece of land to farm on so as to be tested on how much of maturity he has attained and to be able to determine whether or not it is time to give him a bigger parcel of land and subsequently graduate him to fend for himself.
It has come to my notice that the students playing the almighty national body politics and their allies have their own priorities heavily misplaced. Common sense demands a review of an intending candidate through those people over which the person in question has governed, if the subjects are happy with the performance of the outgoing; fine and good, at least this is how people like Barrack Obama were recommended and sold to the American public.
We at the local chapter down in Unimaid were suffering under a tyrannical and oppressive regime that has no respect for the views of the majority, a leadership with no screws in them, a leadership that is proud and arrogant always claiming to be king makers, a leadership that abuses public office to personal gains and gratification, a leadership that offers its helpless subjects substandard services and materials, a leadership that eulogizes vote and electoral frauds and practices in the name of “Toronto”, a leadership that is yet to finish answering our queries , a leadership that is full of self praising in the name of Achievement! Achievement! Achievement!, a leadership full of noise and yet, some disgruntled clique of disillusioned so called politicians chose for us such a leadership as president. What a president indeed!
We intend to fight injustices and unfair marginalization till our dying days, and we feel this choice of leadership is so unfair to the forthcoming generation, our children yet unborn because the incumbent is not a moral role model. And we would like to bring to Mr. presidents notice that a We Want To Say back in school!.
If I jubilate with this leadership, it would be hypocritical, I just want to say that it is very unfortunate that as intellectually minded as Kano students are perceived, how could they have scooped so low as to choose such a leadership, I challenge us to save the next generation from doom because history has a funny way of repeating itself and we are living witnesses of the excesses of your supposed leader.
Let us come together and reason rationally, come to our senses and throw away sentiments, N.A.K.S.S will be here long after we are gone and posterity will never forgive us if we jeopardize the future structure of our union. I am but a plain Warner unto us all. Thank you for reading my piece and God bless.
Muhammad Tijjani Nakande, a freelance writer, a neo pan African, wrote in from the university of Maiduguri Nigeria, you can reach him online at www.muhammadnakandesworld.blogspot.com or email him at memzycool@yahoo.com

The last time Nigeria had a real president

It should be evident to note by now that any leader anywhere in the world that does not dance to the Euro-American tune is labeled by CNN and BBC as abusing human rights and violating seemingly countless Geneva conventions and breaching sanction agreements .
As long as a leader does not tango with the western power blocs, he is either a tyrant or a dictator. Look around you and see, the Venezuela, Iran, Uganda, Sudan, Liberia, Zaire, Guinea and Cuba to mention but a few.
It should be observed that if a supposed leader is socialist by economic outlook, a psycho-media war is declared upon the administration so much that its subjects begin to believe what they are constantly told by the media. It is funny how global opinions are formed by CNN and BBC this days. The way governments and societies are to be run is being dished out by the western media and we are subconsciously being programmed to do as we see on TV. We are living witnesses to the IDI AMIN saga, two Hollywood blockbusters succeeded each other to finally discredit him as a man eater, a sex maniac and a brutal murderer.
All the African leaders that directly or indirectly said “Africa is the only continent we have and therefore we should be left alone to solve our problems ourselves”, have become the victims of western character assassination and blackmail.
“…For the International Community, we ask that you suspend judgment while we grapple with the onerous task of nation building, reconciliation and repairs …Nigeria is the only country we have. We must, therefore, solve our problems ourselves”...
Late general Sani Abacha November 1993 speech.
To the myopic mind being plagued by the western media stereotyping and some ethnic sections of Nigeria especially the June 12 people, your sense of reason might be clouded at the mention of this African hero. However, it is clearly evident to see that poverty, depilated roads and inadequate infrastructure combined killed more people during the fourth republic than the late general supposed bullet wounds. It is a tradition in any struggling country willing to rise to prominence that some countrymen be sent forth to the great beyond to make room for growth and development, it is no secret, history has it in store from Moses down to George bush. We saw the political demise of a former minister for justice, we saw the mysterious plane crash of some seven 7 generals, we saw another mystery in Macchidos death and his allies, we saw a failed attempt at late Wada Nas of blessed memory to mention but a few.
The over ten billion dollars meant for the power sector was never accounted for. If I ruled and carried out some secret deals and I am still alive, in fact I have a stooge in place, then how on earth do you expect me to be labeled the fourth must corrupt head of state by transparency international? Halliburton is an American investment with a colorless form, I mean nobody questions its audacity.
The vendetta carried out against the late general, his family, and his allies coupled with the fact that he said no to Euro-American economic interest and said yes to Korea-Arab-China economic romance is an indicator of how personal prejudices were employed to suffocate vision 2010.
The petroleum special trust fund P.T.F is an establishment with no rival yet. Funded by revenues from an increase in the price of oil, was established in 1995. Under the leadership of former military leader Muhammad Buhari, the trust fund used its resources of almost 100 billion naira (roughly $1 billion) to repair roads and support education. In our higher institutions of learning we are living witnesses to how only P.T.F buses convey us to excursions and field trips conveniently, how we still have access to remains of P.T.F low price edition text and note books with paper quality that only MacMillan England could rival, in our teaching hospitals we see P.T.F buses still conveying patients, drugs in our hospitals were given for free, maternal health care was also free, bed sheets and mattresses , wheel chairs, tarred roads on our high ways that stood the test of time and are still trod are all courtesy of a supposed tyrannical regime and the list goes on and on… I mean eleven 11 years after its demise!!.
Against all expectations, Nigeria continued to maintain reasonable macroeconomic stability. Inflation remained at modest levels, the exchange rate was stable, and the budget deficit appeared under control.
The petroleum development trust fund P.T.D.F, is some crooked arrangement I cannot seem to feel its impact as a commoner and to understand where on earth it is headed towards. It is evident that it built and refurbished a number of departments nationwide, it dolls out scholarships to the children of the high and mighty e.t.c, if it touched the commoner, it would have become common knowledge and to God I would have said it here and now. What a pathetic substitute for our beloved P.T.F!!.
Within a span of three 3 years the P.T.F had achieved virtually what a whole civilian administration of eight 8 years failed to halve.
It is an irony how a country that wants to industrialize has almost everything from matches to toilet rolls being imported into its enclaves. We import rice, sugar, wheat, cars, soap, torch lights, bikes e.t.c and yet “Nigeria is going to be among the twenty most industrialized nations come the year 2020”!!, the millennium development goal seeks to cripple Nigeria under people that dance to the tunes of the Euro-Americans who control the world bank and the international monetary fund I.M.F. the said stashed monies in a Swiss account could be said to be chicken change compared to the living generals eight 8 years of random sampling.
They say it is good you open up, be tolerant, import from us, give us the foreign exchange, we will give you a temporary U.N seat, we will give you human right e.t.c. and yet there is no country on earth that developed without industry, and that was what the late general simply said, “ give us a chance to solve our problems ourselves” stamped his feet and meant it, that we should be left to learn to manufacture and produce and not be dependent on importation and thus the U.N sanctions that threatened our survival and the turmoil that characterized the generals exit. History has it that any nation about to take off into affluent perpetuity must endure hard times meant to absorb sanction shocks and strengthen the weakling economy.
Nigerians are very impatient people who are always expecting a miracle. Change never did come to any nation in history without some sacrificial lambs and Nigeria is no exception. To change is to persevere and sacrifice and only a few Nigerians are willing to do just that.
The Korean Indian auto works K.I.A, were in the dream pipeline of the late general to come down to Nigeria and manufacture cars with Nigerian raw material and labor, thus generating employment and jerking per capita in terms of foreign exchange [driving tokumbo cars would have since become a thing of the past]. The Peugeot assembly of Nigeria PAN was under a final warning by the late general to start manufacturing cars in Nigeria with Nigerian raw materials and labor or pack up and leave the country [thanks to ten 10 years of democracy now, the only thing Nigerian in their cars now is the water in the radiator].
The Indian company that later partnered with a Korean company to produce KIA cars was built alongside Ajaokuta steel company of Nigeria, and yet I ask you!, where is Ajaokuta steel coy today? [that is ten 10 years of democracy].
I have but touched upon but a few of the late generals foresightedness, patriotism and Africanism and challenge any one to please give Nigeria a detailed explanation behind the scraping of P.T.F, and I gallantly put the trust fund against all this ten years of saying ay!! And neigh!!.
I hope that if sentiments are kept aside and rational reasoning employed, I must have started winning some converts for the late general by now. It’s nothing personal, it’s strictly intellectual.
Thus, the last time Nigeria had a real president was 1993-1998, the late general Sani Abacha of blessed memory, may his soul rest in peace, amen.

Muhammad Tijjani Nakande, a freelance writer, a neo pan African, you can reach him online at muhammadnakandesworld.blogspot.com or email him at memzycool@yahoo.com