Tag Archives: Writings

Reflect Nigeria – Failure To Rescue Chibok And Now Dapchi Girls – Who Should We Blame?

Let us consider the equation of democracy. The government of the people by the people for the people.  Thus, the government of the people is accountable to the people. Lest the government obligated to serve the people forget their responsibility because they inhabit the intoxicating corridors of power, they must be reminded, that they are stewards of the people and have a sworn obligation to protect and serve. Therefore, who should be blamed when the country’s children are kidnapped from their school in the middle night, especially when the kidnapping was a foreseeable event, communicated unequivocally in advance by the captors. Who will be blamed when the apparatus of the government, in the wake of the kidnapping, proclaimed that the kidnapping was a hoax thereby squandering valuable time, which otherwise, could have been employed towards a rescue mission. Who will we blame when an international ridicule is made of the country through the spectacle purportedly lamenting the kidnapping of the children.

Should we blame the mothers who lament the loss of their children,

Should the blame be that of the fathers that gnash their teeth,

Or the communities, devastated by the carnage of brutality

Violently uprooting innocence and hope from their midst.

Or should we lay the blame at the feet of the children, who in innocence

Sought advancement through education and the pursuit of dreams,

And now, violated, alienated from hope, are haunted by grim despair.

Nay, we will and should blame the government for the colossal ineptitude.

And how, with callous irony, lies the audacity of the machinery of power, that

Fails its people and then criticizes its people for seeking accountability.

YemilBenjoy ©

Imagine this:

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSL6N0P135P20140620?irpc=932

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized

Curb The Negative

Do not let the ripples of irritation in life
Be they constant, or intermittent, detract
From the promise and joy of living earnestly.
For they, possess the power and proclivity
Of attempting to consume or overshadow
Life to the disadvantage of sustained progress.

Therefore, make diligent entreaties towards
Focusing on the nature and promise of hope.
Accentuate that which inspires the spirit to soar.
Convert the destructive into positive momentum,
And propel yourself forward to the realization
Of the dreams you envisioned for the fullness
Of the bountiful gift of the life that is yours.

 
YemilBenjoy ©

Leave a comment

Filed under General

Reflect Nigeria – Vacant Noise

The hollow platitude by the government about how
Malevolent the abduction of the Chibox girls was …
Is yet but a meaningless mirage of feigned solace
To the girls in the clutches of utmost despair, their hopes
Their families, the nation and the world, and
Wretchedly cause more consternation and anguish.
Without a doubt, the issues of import are thus,
What has been done by those who proclaim they govern
And what will be done forthwith by the Nigerian government
To return to their communities, prior lives and innocence
The young girls kidnapped from within their school and country.

Alas, the national query about the safe passage of the girls
Back to their abodes in safety, must incessantly without pause,
In loud and unyielding refrain, drown out the puerile
Statements that advance, neither cause nor even weary hope,
That our girls will be returned home without further delay.

As the adage goes – talk is cheap!
Tell us something new, show us progress and bring back our girls.

YemilBenjoy ©
All rights reserved

Leave a comment

Filed under Life

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 ©

Leave a comment

Filed under General

Reflect Nigeria – Tragic Fiction (4) Thunderous Silence

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

Thunderous is the silence of inactivity in the country concerning the continued situation of the hundreds of girls abducted from their school in Nigeria.

Mr. President:

How was your breakfast today? How was the comfort of your tranquil bed last night? Well, I have not eaten anything in two days, neither have I slept in my dormitory bed or enjoyed the comfort of my family home in 10 weeks. What a tragedy! Let me remind you, in case you have forgotten, that I have been in the stranglehold of captivity since I was abducted between the hours of April 14 and April 15, 2014, from my school in Chibok, Nigeria as I slept in my dormitory dreaming about my future. A future that I hoped would somehow only be limited by the dimensions of my innate potential. However, I was not allowed to pursue that promise because of the ineptitude of my government; due to the failure to protect vulnerable school girls and the failure to rescue us. What a pity!

Again, lest you have forgotten, let me remind you of the horror that has befallen the daughters of the country you took an oath to protect. Or do you somehow pray that we will become shadows of the night blended with oblivion and erased from the remembrance of the nation and the world. Although, we may have been relegated to the recesses of existence, by the inexcusable failure of your government to adequately protect our school and the unconscionable failure thereafter to effect our immediate liberation, the undeniable fact is that we are Nigerian girls who were violently snatched from the pursuit of our lives, a right, inalienable, and bequeathed to every human being. Lest none forget us, one of our collective prayers in incarceration is that history etch our names indelibly in blood in the chronicles of the mind and time so that our names and faces will never be erased from the collective memory of the nation, and world.

How tragic the unbridled grief of our families from whom solace stands ever fickle and aloof in the debris of shattered hope. What exactly do you think has been our fate? Do you somehow believe that we have not been beaten, gang raped repeatedly, degraded incessantly and humiliated beyond description? Or do you choose to ignore the reality of our situation. The stark reality is that the depth of the depravity we have been subjected to by evil during the day and at night is unimaginable. As the horrific moments turned into horrendous days and now those days into the dreadful months, all figment of hope has dissipated into smithereens. We languish in the midst of despair and mourn the death of our dreams and the abrupt cessation of our youth. Should your government not be leading the campaign to rescue us from this vortex of fear? Rather, instead of determined valour, in its stead lies crippled the skeletal and desiccated remains of apathy. Alas, dead and still, lie any mirage of the vacuous platitudes to extricate us from this quagmire. Have you even declared a day of mourning for us? For we hear the stories of you dancing at parties and boarding jets beyond the boundaries of the nation as we suffocate in this cesspit. What a calamity! Woe betide and cursed be the night of April 14 through April 15, 2014, in the history books of Nigeria. Let it stand in infamy in the history of our country as mothers rend their garments and fathers gnash their teeth.

I hear the boots of oppression approaching … so I must stop again.

Fictional story to be continued.

YemilBenjoy ©

 

 

 

1 Comment

Filed under Life

How’s Enigma

The riddle of when how became how
May not be as confounding as
How simply, how became how
Or how, how manifests as how.
And may not be as troubling
As what in its essence came first.
How it evolved, or how it was once.
Or what was, before how became how, and
What transpired for how to assume how, or
What came to be, for how to develop into how.
Nonetheless, whatever the order or transpired,
What how may be now or came to be, may not
Necessarily be as important to decode as
Whether how should remain how.

YemilBenjoy ©

Leave a comment

Filed under General

Eternal Comfort

They may assail your being…
Take all your earthly possessions.
Unjustly curtail one’s liberty
Confiscate all they think you own
And trample on one’s humanity
Even unto the cessation of mortal life.
Yet, they cannot even if they try
Touch the Almighty God and Creator
Who provides the divine assurance
Of Eternal bliss, even if they try.
Thus in all matters, rely completely on
He who is greater than greatness, and
The generous benefactor of all grace.

YemilBenjoy ©

 

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Life

Courage’s Pull

When courage’s conviction visits thy habitation
Will thou in earnest, welcome and adopt it fully,
Or will thou dismiss its valiant entreaties, to stand
Ramrod under its auspices, for its just and fearless cause.
Courage precipitates the flourish of advanced audacity.
Thus, imbibe its virtue, don it ardently as shield and sword.
As shield, to proceed valiantly when its essence is required,
Or to protect you, from the putrid tempest of ugly repression
When eventually you are counted amid the virtuous assembly.
As sword, will you deliver from the pulpit of righteous indignation,
Rendition, powerfully piercing through the cloak of brutality, to
Challenge the venomous sting of atrocity spearing tormented souls.
Tarry not, courage still beckons to all, zealously seek to embrace  it,
To its fullest dimension, and emboldened by it, confront that which
Is intent on destroying all that is of positive measure in humanity.

YemilBenjoy ©

Leave a comment

Filed under Life

Will Anybody Come To Your Aid

Will you hear me when I call for help for anyone in need
Or will you elect to ignore the cries and ardent pleas.
Will you heed the sobbing or wailing in the night
Or in content, drown them in feigned oblivion or indifference.
Will you walk away when affliction confronts others
Convincing yourself, that someone else somewhere else
Will in your stead, seek to rescue the sorely oppressed
And downtrodden masses, trapped under evil’s albatross.
Will you close your eyes to all the aggravated suffering
That beckons loudly for necessary and sustained intervention,
Till no solace is offered to neither nations or hapless souls
And all civility is obliterated from the course of humanity, then
The unconscionable, thriving reigns wantonly and supreme
While decency itself is subjugated amid complete despair
Till you, then look around for urgent help for yourself, and
Find, all figment of lost hope, lying conquered and entombed
Within the ruins of decency, and none can no longer rise
To your rescue or dare stand to extend any measure of relief.

YemilBenjoy ©

Leave a comment

Filed under Life

The Power of Mind

Others, may blindly, not see the priceless essence of your being.
Some may demean and often degrade you because they can.
Others may laugh at the way you speak or read,
Some may chuckle at the way you look or your garments,
And oppress you probably because of your gender,
While others stand by callously, or join in, and
Refuse to come to your rescue or assistance.
As hard as it is, even amid the reign of injustice
Hold your head high and retain your dignity.
Walk away, and if you can’t physically walk away
Even if it is for a moment, transport your mind
Beyond the ugly and focus on the beauty in you,
Which innately, resides in you just because you are you.
Remember always, that the measure of your self-worth
Lives uniquely and marvelously in you and nobody else.
Thus, do not, by your own actions or inaction
Fall prey to their evil machinations intent on
Defining you to your own detriment, no
Do not let them steal your last refuge of hope,
Which is the power of your precious mind, rather
Elevate your being within you and for you
Empower your mind because you must believe in you
And then soar… with the unrestrained power of your mind
Beyond the impediment of the oppression.

YemilBenjoy ©

Leave a comment

Filed under Life