Quest!

Pressed hard from all sides
Like the squeeze of a boar constrictor.
Messed up at all sites
Like the trail of an alligator
In a body of water
Stagnant and muddy
From years of pollution and neglect.
The nation sits in depths of regret
As the people hang by their nails
To a sinking vessel.
A leaky vessel taking water
From faults
Man made faults
in the hull of the vessel.
Faults, there from years
of looting
of the public treasury
Years, too many for counting.
Blatant draining of public coffers
Of funds meant to be coffered
For schools, for tools,
For health care and people's welfare.
Funds meant for railroads, highways,
Seaports, airports.
Funds meant for bridges,ridges on farmlands.
Recreation for leisure and jobs,
For stadiums, and freedom
from boredom in youths.

Funds, chewed off and hauled off
To foreign banks
Like chunks of cheese.
Stolen by rats
In the dead of night.
Funds stolen in broad daylight, and
Stashed away as cash, homes and kind.
Hard to find.
Year after year, the runs are made
By waves of rats with cheese
Scurrying back and forth
Totally unrestrained.
Scurrying, by the very eyes
Of the cats there to guard.
Not a catch is ever made on their guard
Despite all the noise,
And grand poise,
Corruption reigns supreme
Eroding all the dreams
of greatness
As the vessel sinks,
Slowly
Taking in water,
Lots of water
Daily
From the faults, numerous faults
On the hull of the vessel.

The people hang on, as in a daze.
New faults are coming, gaping faults
Made by bombs and explosives
jammed in cars, getting past cat posts
Forcing death, untimely death, and injury
On the people.
Deafening sounds, terror,
Ground shaking horror, gruesome.
The people awake from their stupor
And ponder
And then they wonder
at their candor.
Candor, for the first time,
Candor.

All these years they took it
As in a jest,
The blatant abuse.
Having no rest
From east to west,
Took abuse at the behest
Of jesters, jokers and pranksters,
And remained happy, very happy
As in a daze.

Now wide awake
To face the test,
Just in time to do their part,
Not with bombs or bullets, but
With their brains, making inquiries
Sharp inquiries, one after the other
of the cats, the guards of the treasury,
Of their bosses, and the errand boys and girls
Sent by the people to speak for them.

The time is here for the people
To do their part.
Go on a quest.
The time is now.
Quest!

Chinwe Enemchukwu
August 30 2011.

Aburi---SOS

Aburi was on all the lips
across the land.
Hope and excitement were in the air.
Adults talked about the meeting
The children picked up bits and pieces
Of the excited chatter and debate
Over the Aburi meeting in Ghana.

Ghana, a good neighbor, weighing in
to help restore sanity and peace and
provide a safe heaven for a meeting
where no life would be regarded as worthless
and maybe wasted as thousands had been.

Following months, weeks, and days of strife
And severe blood letting, one last chance
To get it right, and put things back together, and
Forget the past and just move on as a nation.

New outlook, new attitudes, no more bloodshed
Was the hope of all.
Aburi, Aburi, hung over the air waves,
those few days of the Aburi peace talks.
The young people echoed the adults.
Aburi, and there would be peace.
Life would go on,
Violence would be gone
Strife all gone
At last.

They came home, the peacemakers
The Aburi accord was out for all takers.
They had done a fine job.
That soothing voice over the airwaves
Giving the report to his people.

It was in the air
Quite nice and fair
From what the adults said.
With this accord in place
None will have to face
Such horror and terror again.

Such awful things had happened
Unlawful, but still in place.
Happened here and there
With no consequences to face
By the culprits,
In mob action.

Aburi was in the air
Really nice and fair
There was jubilation
And lots of congratulations
From the bit I remember.
We were in the streets chanting
"On my honor as an Easterner,
On Aburi we stand"

Throngs of people matching
With arms in the air, chanting.
Had no clue what was happening
But match and chant we did,
School children sweating in the sun
Having lots of fun
Declaring
" On Aburi we stand"
Stumping the ground.
Anything to get out of class
And run around town, raising dust
" On my honor----
On Aburi we stand"

On Aburi we stood for many days
And weeks.
We stood on Aburi around the clock
Singing it every chance we got
By the chapel, students would flock
To take off a stumping to town
Shouting with a frown
" On Aburi we stand"

Then one last flocking to chapel
Parents were arriving
Teachers were crying
Missionary teachers devastated
Things looked complicated.

"Go home
There is war."


Flurry of activities
Students leaving hurriedly
Goodbyes said so hurriedly
Quick waves, uncertainty.
Roads crowded with cars.
End of school, so abruptly.

Who would have known
What was in store.
Who would have known
Friends never seen again
Songs never heard again
Innocence stolen forever
From children.
Lives destroyed.
Hopes and dreams lost forever.
A good life for ever cast away
Never to return.

Even forty years after the fact
Life is far removed from track
For a nation, once so blessed,
Marching forward, full of hope
And promise. Marching boldly
Alongside the rest of the world.
Who would have believed.

Today
Hope is alive
Faith must thrive
As a nation arrives
At a crossroad.
Bursting at the seams
with people it seems,
The time is ripe
To shed the stripes
And do the right thing-

Stand on something
" On no corruption"
"On healthy competition"
With the rest of the world.

Stand on something
" On good health care"
"On quality education"
" On hard work-
Farm work, road work
Homework, schoolwork"
Whatever it takes
to have a job.

Stand on something
to bring the country back to life.
" Honesty and fairness"
Stand on something.
Yes, it is time to stand on something.

Updated,
Even Aburi will do.
Thank God!

Chinwe Enemchukwu
August 19 2011

Broken

Broken
Totally broken.
Stricken
Thoroughly stricken.
Afflicted
with full affliction.
Defamed
with utter defamation.
Stripped
to bare bones.
A once thriving nation
now just a bad clone
of her true nature.
Had leaders, truculent
malevolent
Rotten to the core.

Leading
Desperate people.

Rivers defiled
Feculent
Forests burned
Pastures destroyed,
Farmlands polluted
Produce hardly esculent

Farmlands swallowed up by gullies
Unsightly gullies
dotting the landscape
and highways.
Gaping holes made by
feculent floods
rushing unrestrained.

Broken
Totally broken.
Stripped
of her past glory.

A nation of children
betrayed
and waylaid
by
Poor schools, no tools,
Bad roads, no roles
No jobs, rough hubs
Sickness.
No health care
Decadence
No conscience.
Pawkiness,
Preying on the naive
across the globe.

Poverty
abject poverty
grips the land.

Yet the oil flows
Yes, the oil flows
As the land dies
one day at a time.
As the mangrove swamps die
And seagulls cease to fly
The fish and crayfish fry
in the cesspools of oil
.
The ever burning flames
of natural gas flaring
Quite a hint of hell
Hot and fiery,
Bright and scary,
from Shell, BP and chums.

The money is flowing
The people are starving
No fish to catch
No farms to scratch
For a living.
The oil left the land
To turn dunes of sand
into rows of mansions grand
where the oil- rich float around
like fat cows in grand robes.
The people die in scores daily
All over the land.
Yet the bloated cows moo
nonchalantly.

Broken
Totally broken
What a token
of a nation.

Chinwe Enemchukwu
© August 8 2011