This Is Not Another Story. By O. b. i

I strolled into the office at about some few minutes past 7AM and decided to get some rest before I began my daily routine. Rest was usually scrolling through Instagram videos, catching up on trends on Twitter and Nairaland and sometimes reading crazy answers on Quora. My colleague, the feisty Lisa also came in early, and as usual she was multitasking; pressing phone, applying her makeup and doing an awful rendition of Johnny Drill’s Shine.

She suddenly went mute and made a grimace in the middle of the foundation of the building she was going to transform her face into, she stared into her phone hard with so much concentration. After a few seconds, she muttered “Thank you lord”. I tried to figure out what was capable of infusing so much shock and evoking praise at the same time, I came up with nothing, so I gave in to my curiosity.

“What’s that?” I asked, tilting towards her work station and trying not to seem too concerned.

She turned the screen of her phone to me; she was apparently on WhatsApp going through Pastor Matthew’s story. The story had an Image of a lifeless boy, not more than 10 years old lying on the floor, his eyes were widely opened, bulging out of his skull as if to say his eyelids were not enough to cover them. His rib cage protruded, one could count his 12 ribs and see the hollow in his belly from a distance. His slim legs were curled awkwardly with his right leg on top of his left, forming a cross like shape. I was sure he stopped living before he died, but I couldn’t tell what killed him; was it the freezing pavement he was laying on or the emptiness in his belly or the disappointment he must have felt for the society? I imagined his last moments lying helplessly on the pavement, staring at anything that crossed his view, not for the love of the sight but for lack of strength to move his head or even blink his eyes to chase the flies perching on his pupils. The picture had a caption that read ‘This could be you, but you are alive and well this morning, don’t forget to give God the praise’. The caption had a ‘high five’ emoji which we have converted to praying hands. After a few seconds of staring at the image and the caption, I was filled with a short-lived sadness which was immediately replaced by anger. “This is so wrong” I blurted out.

She looked at me, unsure of what I meant. I knew she didn’t get it, I had to spell it out to her.

“Another man’s misfortune shouldn't be the reason for your praise, it’s wrong for anyone anywhere anytime to use such a picture in blackmailing people into praising God. This image if anything, is supposed to engender questions and rebellion against any system that makes people, especially children go through such horror. If any god intends to put people through this because it was not praised or reverenced as your pastor wants me to believe, then your pastor and his god need to …”

Maybe I never had that discussion, maybe I just saw that WhatsApp story and it haunted me for the rest of my day. I see this often, sometimes it’s not a dead child on a pavement, sometimes it’s a terrible accident, a failed business or a random unfortunate event… Another man’s misfortune should never be the reason for your praise.

This One is For Nonso.

He literally is my DayOne, he has always got my back, right from the days when my peanut biscuit will fall on the ground and he will hurriedly pick up and go and discard it outside "tufiakwa! I can't let my brother eat what the devil have kissed "...that was love right there, to the primary school days when he will help me with my assignment on our way to school on Monday mornings, he used to be my personal trainer, all those fights prepared me for the streetz of rukuba road, but there was one day the shit got real; I thought it was one of those days when I will throw the first jab and make the loudest noise then ‘they’ will come and separate us, and scold him, this particular day I threw the first punch as usual and shouted as loud as my voice allowed me, but nobody came through, nobody, for like the next 15 minutes black and blue was the colour, it took the timely intervention of David from the next compound to rescue yours truly (forever grateful boss). That was the day I started suspecting that this guy was probably my elder brother, but many years later on that solemn Friday afternoon in St. Murumba college, I would confirm that. The guy entered my class, was in Jss 2 that year, he was in SS2, he told everybody to go out, leaving just the both of us inside the class room, I thought it was going to be the normal 'touch me and I will tell' we had at home, I even had a smirk on, "Obinna kneel down" he said, and before I could voice whatever diss that was in my mind, the skin belt he had on his waist was on my back! And my knees were on the ground, it was automatic. There was no 'play' in his eyes, the belt went up again and again, "Nonso I am your brother o!" I had to remind the guy. It took Mark's plea to save my ass, and that was the day I let go. The next morning I woke up a new creature, I went to him while he was still asleep, woke him up, and said "Brother Nonso good morning" .He is definitely my elder brother and more; my confidant, my partner, my teacher...the guy thought me a lot of things, including how to resist peer pressure but Im sure I never learnt that one. He thought me how to be loyal to friends even if they are crazy like Nanpan Malo, mehn, thats one hommie y’all need to know about, but this is not for the son of Malo, this one is for Nonso. I learnt from him too, how to withstand heart break, you will learn that from every Arsenal. Well this is not for Arsenal and how they will have to wait for next season, this is for Nonso .And for all those Girls… "This your brother is fine o" me that is toasting you nko? hope that rubbish have stopped in 2018.
#8thWonder
Happy birthday

I Hope To Tell. By O.b.i

I will tell you a story, but it does not start with once upon a time because those times have left us, when taking a life was not as easy, not because you have to spend days sharpening your lance and more days knotting your bow but because you have to spend months convincing your conscience on why you have to snatch the ground from underneath another man's feet, on why his wife should gnash her teeth and why his children should weep. By the time you have a reason, it is another season and your bow has gone loose again.

Those times have left us when we knew about handshakes before we ever knew about fist, and when we knew fist, it was up in the air in the solidarity of brotherhood in opposition to the brutality of servitude.

Those times when we first saw the friend in a stranger and never saw the enemy, when a smile was the greatest currency and all our action were covered in transparency.

Those times have left us, when we sealed deals with handshakes and warm smiles and we needed only the moon to watch over the night.

I would have told you this story before man became the greatest fear of man.

One Morning In The 3rd World. By O.b.i

Ebupa, that's what they call it, or sand fly, that's what google calls it, Nwanneka unconsciously threw her right palm with the swiftness of one half asleep to the bare skin on her left forearm, in a futile effort to kill the ebupa  that was by now long gone. She stirred almost immediately to the right, now facing the big aluminium pot that stood opposite the bamboo bed she shared with her younger ones; Obiajulu, Nkoli and Adaku, just then the sleep vanished from her eyes and she jolted into full consciousness. One would think it was the sharp bite from the ebupa that woke her up, only that this was Olo, where you have to go to the farm and do the usually tedious farm work, go to the stream and fetch the first water for drinking and then for bathing, sweep the ilo, bath the children, make breakfast; which is often garri and soup from the previous night or seldom roasted yam and salted palm oil, and walk 7 miles to Community Secondary School, Olo before 7:45 AM. This was Nwanneka's routine on most mornings, so it was not the bite from the blood sucking ebupa that woke her up by 4:15AM that morning and every other morning. And like every other morning too, she arrived school late, 8:17 AM. But she was not alone in this lateness, almost all the students in C. S. S Olo are perpetual late comers, they all lived in Olo or farther and they all had different variation of Nwanneka's morning. Mr. Ikem, the school's disciplinarian will have none of that, if you came to school later than 7:45 AM then a cutlass was waiting for you at the entrance, you will cut, if he (Mr. Ikem) is in a good mood, about 15 meter square of long overgrown elephant grass or if he was in a bad moodwell, lets just hope he is always in a good mood.

So by 9 AM when the buzz must have died down and I walk into Nwanneka's class and start telling her and her class mates about atoms and electrons and Pauli's exclusion principle, and 15 minutes into my class they tell me they are tired, I beg them for a few more minutes to teach because I understand, I understand that it is not Chemistry that have tired them, in fact it is because they are tired that is why they are seated in a class room. They are tired of the 3rd world and the class room was their exit strategy. They came into the class room to get out of the 3rd world...and I hope it works, I hope I can help them, I hope we have not all been lied to.

The Poet's Prophecy. A Poem By Jesam Eko.

A child will stare out of a window

for a moment

Deciphering the future from a dusky harmattan wind of November

Does he imagine that some wisp

of cloud reveals the handwritings

of things to come?

Or that life is an nsibidi in the palms

of a poet waiting to be translated

into creeds of poetry

And sometimes a girl stands naked

by a mirror

Imagining beauty in a stranger's eyes

Finding a place where fear meets desire.

For what is prophecy but unlettered itching words between the fingers

of a poet

Words he must birth on vivid verses

In stanzas of reechoing admonitions

Baptising minds in rhythmic poetic

processions

Yet it's not so much of what's written

But what's heard and the honor of sacred words

For the words of a poet are mustard

seeds meant for fertile grounds

meant for those gifted in listening

to heed the solemn call for peace

beneath the murmurs of dying refugees

To hear the dying grass bending to

the tempest of unrest

And to chronicle the ones by whose

ink territories were regained.

Glossary

Nsibidi : handwriting originated from the Ekoi people. Neighbours of the Efik

and Ibibio ethnic group in Nigeria.

Jesam Eko is an erudite writer, poet, broadcaster and a passionate environmentalist. He hails from Yakur L.G.A in Cross River state. The University of Portharcourt graduate is an advocate of creativity as a tool to foster national peace and security.

Jesam is currently working on an anthology to be published soon.

jesameko@gmail.com