Tag Archives: Women’s Issues

Reflect Nigeria No Rooms to Confine Us…

Heehee… I don’t know which party my wife belongs but eh… she belongs to

MY kitchen and MY living room and the OTHER room…

 

The gravity of unfortunate utterances, sometimes

Echoes the enormity of cataclysmic regression, tragically

Rippling beyond the demeaning configuration of syntax

And sadly reverberating in fervent crescendo through the

Globalization of dissemination of instantaneous news,

Inauspiciously portends the oblique reality of the unfulfilled

Odyssey towards full recognition of all human rights.

 

Thus, a president’s commentaries, otherwise considered as

Conveying the solemnity of the advancement in optimism

By allaying fears, and elevating aspirations of a disconsolate populace,

Rather, diminish a gender, by electing to emasculate any vacillating

Progress, declared in accord with sacrosanct inalienable rights,

Further fragmenting the essence of meager hope, lying prostrate

In the forlorn vestiges residing within certain aspects of a nation.

 

As such, the sardonic words of the Nigerian President…

Paradoxically spoken to his female counterpart, miserably

Communicated to his citizens and the world, no respect,

But censoriously categorized the nation’s First Lady, by description,

To the ignominious equivalency of a belonging, a mere chattel,

Devoid of independence and human dignity, assigned by others, for

Their use to rooms, in which she neither owns nor has any property value.

 

Alas, the bell for social justice loudly tolls; to engage in concerted effort

The quest for reclamation of any tangible progress previously gained, and to

Negate the irreverent milestone propagated by the untoward vituperation

Which in derisive posture, attempts to devalue the essence of humanity and

Self-determination, freely bestowed on all, but is injudiciously circumscribed

By reprehensible might and circumstance; lest the downward degradation

Resonate in permanent habitation to the lasting detriment of all humanity.

 

Dr. Yemisi Solanke Koya Esq., Golden Poet ©

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Reflect Nigeria Tragic Fiction 5 – Prayer Of An Abducted Chibok And Now Dapchi Girl

I am weary of this horrendous and feigned existence that I am forced to live
And seek complete deliverance, like some of my comrades in chains before me,
Fortunate to be relieved eternally, from the atrocities of oppression that are
Conjoined with the degradation and unveiled brutality of sexual bondage,
Into the embrace of death, from this unbearable agony that ceases not.
For I understand, that it is a transition through redemption, to eternal peace.
Which is what I seek, like some of us, who have since had the tragic fortune
To escape, from this realm, like birds from the captor’s grip, but forever free.
That respite, is what I urgently need from the endless lashing of the torture,
From the shackles of despair, as all innocence is lost from these forsaken woods
Where neither normalcy nor joy nor hope abound, and evil reigns supreme.
I said my prayers silently, the prayers of my own faith, to remove me swiftly
And instantly, from this place, and for this, I now without patience await.

YemilBenjoy ©

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Reflect Nigeria – Tragic Fiction (3)

Although this is a fictional narrative, sadly it is to convey what an abducted girl in captivity may write:

Mr. President,

I return to writing under the threat of bodily harm but I must continue because I do not want you or the world to forget us in the dreadful alleys of time. Have you forgotten us? Or do you hope that with time we will simply fade deep into the recesses of the mind, conveniently never to be remembered. I will continue to write so that you never forget that we were abducted from our school in Chibok and now Dapchi, Nigeria.

The news we heard today was of calamitous proportions. A  12 year-old girl is pregnant. My heart stopped when I heard the news. It was a confounding situation, not for lack of understanding the process that led to this perplexing state of affairs, but completely destabilizing because of the protracted cruelty of evil. How could this be? I prayed that it would not be true. I prayed for myself and prayed for my sister that this would not be our fate. The thought was unbearable. How could childhood be violently interrupted with forced motherhood? How could innocence be violated with no consequences? All because we pursued the dream of advancement through education and our government failed to protect us from foreseeable acts of the malevolent. Alas, it failed to protect the hallowed ground of every child, our school.

Now the shores of hope remain distant, even the mirage of a gallant rescue that we used to cling to has dissipated into nothingness like the barren forest we are held captive in, barren of love, barren of parents, barren of childhood, barren of dreams and barren of life. What a tragedy. Frightening minutes have turned into awful days and into forsaken weeks. Have you even thought about us recently? Do you weep for us? If I were your daughter, would I still be here? Again, I ask have you spoken to our parents. We heard that a security risk may have prevented you from going to Chibok and now Dapchi. What an irony. Yet, we have been condemned by the government’s failure to rescue us to lives in tatters where there is no promise or protection.

Will my life be a continuum of threats, assaults, degradation and fear? Or will it be plagued constantly with the screaming of another captive beaten to death because she had the audacity to fight for her life. There is no refuge in this place. The days are filled with despair and the nights with dread and the silent weeping under the yoke of tyranny. Do we cry in vain? Hear our cries and save us.

I hate to but I must stop again.

Fictional story to be continued.

YemilBenjoy ©

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World – Ponder This

The fact that the gender that bears and brings forth humanity

Is often treated with unveiled disdain and repugnant brutality

Truly, is an irreconcilable absurdity of the human existence.

Save our girls!

 

YemilBenjoy ©

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Reflect Nigeria – Tragic Fiction (2) Chibok And Now Dapchi Girls

Although this is a fictional narrative, sadly it is to convey what an abducted girl in captivity may write:

Mr. President,

I had to abruptly stop writing the other day because I heard one of the captors coming and if they had found me writing they would have beaten me mercilessly to the point of death like my best friend. I miss her, my sister and everyone I love. I try to remember their faces so that I never forget them. I can only write this letter because I had a notebook and pen with me when we were abducted. We take turn hiding the items so that they are not found.

This letter gives us a dim flicker of hope that you will send troops to rescue us from this quagmire. It seems that we will never be rescued. The captors laugh at us. They laugh at our nakedness, tell us we are worthless and will be sold as sex slaves. It is just so awful to hear and contemplate. They tell us that our government does not care about us and will not rescue us, and that even if the government tried, they will not be able to rescue us. Is this true? For if it is, that is nothing but damnation for us. For we are damned by the acts of the foreseeable abduction, that was not prevented, and the failure to rescue us, to a  wretched existence of shame, torture, ridicule, bondage and repeated violation. If you will not or cannot rescue us, have you asked other countries that can rescue us to save us from this cursed forest.

Words cannot adequately describe the depth of my despair nor convey the feeling of helplessness at being violently uprooted from the foundation of my life. It is a state of complete desperation. I am deathly afraid. I have not seen my mother’s smile nor heard my father’s voice in weeks, let alone the streets of my community or the sunset over my home. Why? I know that my grandmother wears her black garment of lamentation to mourn for me. Yet I am not dead. Alas, the pathetic irony is that I may be alive, yet I am not living. How could this happen to me, all because I am girl who went to school in Chibok. I miss my life.

It is another forsaken day in captivity. It is raining again and there is minimal shelter. We sit huddled together and dare not express our real feelings or we will feel the cold ends of the guns against our heads. We wait silently for the sun to come out to dry our skin and our clothes. I no longer like the sound of rain. I tried to cry but no tears came. I tried to console another girl who does not speak any more but no words came forth, so I hold her hand and it is very cold. When will this suffering end? Will it ever end?

I wonder, is it right that some men because they have power over vulnerable school girls, can change the course of our lives, sending us to premature deaths and selling us into slavery. Why are we the scapegoats and sacrificial lambs at the altar of anarchy and depravity? They boast. They say that they are more powerful than ever. They plan more bombings and kidnappings.

I must stop again. Save us please.

Fictional story to be continued – Chibox and now Dapchi Girls

 

YemilBenjoy ©

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