Carry confidence along the corridor of self worth;
A key ingredient to succeed is passion
That conviction of faith upon your fingers
Ringed to ring bells that bring perfection
Or usher imperfection.
To love yourself is the first step
In the book of loving others.
To be better in loving together
Begins with the accompanying zeal
To dress self confidence
With the candour that elegance portends.
To evolve as a free soul,
Reject the notion of first impression
Impressed that ‘it lasts the longest.’
First impressions may never be correct
Save if your toga of judgementality gets ahead of you.
Wear your crown like Nefertiti’s titular tiara
And rock your world
Like no other could.
The loads love lords in belching darkness
And yawning light
Are lots life invoke upon you.
Let the cavity where your joy is ensconsed
Be open to the glare of the sun.
That way, your tale will stand tall still
In an eponymous designation.
SPRING RAINAnd the rain …
the rain danced salsa
on my cheeks
and eyelashes,
looked into my eyes
with tears
of spring gladness.
And the sun …
the sun seeped
through him, as a sign
of the mystery,
that me and you,
my beloved,
like two plants
fused into one,
and our roots
are intertwined,
and our lips
know each other
as they know
rain and earth,
probably because
we are made
by earth and rain …
Mysterious day,
here’s the rain …
the rain danced salsa …
And the sun …
the sun seeped through him…
And Spring…
Spring walked on tiptoe
between
the raindrops
and bestowed love.
Retired Activists like Festus Keyamo, Adams Oshiomole and others like them must not be allowed to come out of retirement showing zeal of activism and speaking languages of the masses to further their political enterprise. They must be left to whatever their lot and lost they have incured.
Wikipedia is the place to have persons defined as they will want to be perceived in relation to their passion, purpose and priority. On this, Festus Keyamo is introduced to the world as a lawyer by profession, Senior Advocate of Nigeria. His passion, purpose and priority were encapsulated in three words: critic, columnist, human rights activist.
The dynamics of states reaching their vision is at the mercy of the Fourth Estate of the realm and the civil society. To the former Keyamo belong as a columnist, spicing his writings with the richness of his critical mind. He was indeed a critic. The latter had the best of him, up in legal battles several times against oppressive policies and high handedness in governments.
In 2008, ferocious Festus made a legal prey of the Federal Government when he took them to court over illegal appointment of Service Chiefs. But between 2008 and now so much has gone under the bridge to quieten our dear Festus. While almost every Nigerian were crying over the illegality of the appointment and tenure extension of service chiefs, Keyamo looked the other way. In 2014, he became an Ambassador of the change Nigeria is presently “enjoying”. By 2018 what lies ahead will need strategic communication and who else but Keyamo fitted the bill. He did so without anyone having a glimpse of this next level of Fulanization.
No nation has ever been built on any one generation or singly on the vision of their founding fathers, except supported by the civil rights activists and the Fourth Estate of the realms. Nation’s dreams will never be guarded by politicians and government officials but by a committed media community and the civil societies. Nations that had great reformers who brought about great change in the society do so because the Media understood such vision, sold it to the people and stood up for it.
We have had many push for success as a nation. The pre-independent Nigeria had such activists, whose efforts were sustained among the masses through the support system the Media provided.
Our freedom from the military, were championed by many captains of the people’s army. Men such as Ken Saro Wiwa who will not sell out their people, but rather put Ogoni agitations in Global perspective at the cost of his life.
The tendency to become oppressive is a challenge of leadership. Babangida was mustering a democratic approach in military uniform and was deft enough to have remained glued to power. But the resistant forces of the people, led by the Senior Advocate of the Masses, the Late Chief Gani Fawehinmi supported by a credible crop of members of the Media principal among whom was Dele Giwa, who though paid the ultimate price. There were also others like him who gave bite to the efforts of the people for freedom.
The mentorship of Gani Fawehinmi gave rise to several leading lights on the stage of activism in Nigeria today. In the twilight of military era in Nigeria, we had such men as Omoyele Sowore who has remained consistently consistent at championing the cause of the Nigerian masses. Festus Keyamo like one destined, joined the people’s chamber in the year of National Deliverance, 1993. So a fruitful life of activism started on the rhythm of societal hope for change.
Two years later like a joinman who has had enough of his carpenter, he proceeded to start his private practice. With many landmark human right cases, he came to limelight. His legal erudition came on hand in the inadvertent allegations of Jagaban’s Certificate Scandal.
Never in the history of activism has anyone been as loud as him. He was in the media for any and every reason always having something to say. Hence Nigerians took him serious, in hope that another Gani Fawehinmi was here. For his efforts, he was forgiven for whatever was responsible for the drama of his parting with the People’s SAM (Senior Advocate of the Masses). But can a leopard change its skin? Keyamo rose to stardom riding on the wings of the people.
The compromise of the Media and the civil societies by politicians are the biggest undoing of our nation state. Civil right movements and activism have become a big business and a once treasured profession of journalism that brought leaders like Lateef Jakande to limelight and made of them peoples’ leader till death, is today a merchandise for the highest bidder.
Festus Keyamo has made a thriving enterprise, out of not just his practice of law, but his strategic communication activism. From the juicy case of Tinubu’s certificate scandal, to holding the referral of EFCC, only to be seen at the table of corruption with men who he once referred in court as accused in financial corruption cases.
There is a great difference between Gani Fawehinmi and Festus Keyamo. Gani’s conscience will have nothing to do with corruption, nor will he share a table with men whose identities are in doubt as looters of the people’s commonwealth. Babangida himself testified to it on a National Television when he affirmed that of all critics of government in Nigeria, Ganiyu Oyesola Fawehinmi stood out! Babangida butressed his point by further confirming that his own Administration offered Fawehinmi the post of Attorney General and Minister of Justice six (6) times, yet Fawehinmi rejected the offers and insisted that Military regimes were an aberration!
Death is an adage. It spoke in Gani Fawehinmi, the lawman and Dele Giwa the Mediaman, that we should be careful of what may become of activism.
Festus Keyamo’s noise with APC was not in vain. He was rewarded with a juicy appointment to serve as junior minister to a man he once accused as a looter and put in the duck.
He couldn’t stay long at “off the mic ministry of Niger Delta”. He would be too loud for Akpabio’s mandate at the ministry. A raging internal politics seconded him to the Ministry of labour and productivity where he had reasons to reinvent the “bull” in him who could still bully members of the National Assembly. But this bull no longer has teeth to bite!
The Festus who walked the streets in protest against bad governance as a student in his university days is now minister of state for labour and productivity when ASSU was on strike for over a year, staff of Polytechnics are beginning theirs and Keyamo’s voice is yet to be heard. His President is on AWOL, on a flimsy medical excuse while Doctors are on strike in Nigeria and Keyamo has nothing to say on the President’s absence nor to Doctors or our patients nation who will suffer the brunt of Doctors strike. Casualisation of worker has take over every sectors under our human rights activist; even the Oil Industry is not spared. Our unemployment rate has risen to 30% under the watch of Keyamo and Ngige. Appointments into juicy parastatals and agencies are allegedly up for sales to the highest bidder, our productivity as a nation is at it’s all time low while Keyamo held sway as minister of state at the ministry of labour and productivity. The passionate lawyer and SAN to whom the #EndSARS generation should look in the day of their affliction for a pro bono service has been overtaken by pleasure.
The mistake of this administration has become to Nigerians, is not to the political class who deliberately packaged incompetence, ineptitude for integrity and handed same to the civil society organizations who got the media merchants men and women to deliver it to the door steps of Nigerians.
At the peak of our preparation for 2023, death has thrown another adage to us in the demise of Yinka Odumakin. That an “Ade oni yeye”, (a jesting Ade) will jump at the opportunity of Odumakin’s demise and turn a mourning visit into Afenifere’s endorsement of an Afenifeibi.
As we slide towards 2023, we must not just be weary of the politicians and their tactics, we must look and examine closely the activities of civil societies and the comprised Media to be sure that the packages they are serving at our doorstep, have not been pirated by the evil geniuses in our political space.
Retired Activists like Festus Keyamo, Adams Oshiomole and others like them must not be allowed to come out of retirement showing zeal of activism and speaking languages of the masses to further their political enterprise. They must be left to whatever their lot and lost they have incured.
Where art my reminiscence from the bygone births?
Where art those prudent clouds that drench my arid earth?
Seek not I these mundane wealth; seek not I all pearls;
I seek the hoary remnants all; as my life unfurls.
I long to learn the roots of life; the azoic hues I held,
Where hath life for me began? What soul in me hath dwelled?
Seek not I thy maiden warmth; seek not I thy lust,
I seek the words that bask in truth and thrive in immaculate trust.
The earth that made the rose; made me with her arms;
Brimming in the winds of life; I savoured her sublime charms.
Death shall bring no end; tis soul that wears the flesh,
Tis soul that carries the cage and flaunts in each ephemeral face.
I seek to cherish the thoughts that bear my quondam forms,
I yearn to cognise truth amid the fugacious storms.
A human was not I; perhaps an ant or ape,
Might have wandered I; across the barren landscape.
Let me drink the drops from the noetic clouds,
Let me seek my face amid the mortal crowd.
Tis a voyage of soul through frowns and smiling faces,
Through storms and tranquil air; it hath conquered places.
Fear not I the winds; fear not I the storms,
I fear my wilted heart gasping in nescient forms.
It knows not what dust it holds; quivering the glooms of death,
Death holds all that’s true; a land of immaculate faith.
An attempt to fathom the ocean invites the dawn,
Phantom luncheon surprises her eyebrows to frown,
Angelic beauty glittered in her best attire to shine,
Emeralds and rubies studded her earlobes divine.
Pumpkin chariot seemed the royal conveyance,
Her veil danced with the breeze to the song of romance,
Jasmine dazzled amidst the tresses fragrance,
Swept the twisting roads of destination clairvoyance.
Calls of someone heard in the echoed breeze amateur,
Dare to stop ,moved the soulful steps to heightened towers,
Hypnotized deals are these where life balances to capture,
Garlands of belief accept the new journey carpeted with flowers.
Doors of fortune maybe open with these traits of showers,
Prince bowed to greet her towards the world of dreams,
Wagon laced with desirous orchids mesmerized hearts,
Drops of essence in fingertips drenched the noon tides.
Smoke plumes from the chimneys shaped to joyous,
Spread of apricots, cream dipped in honey cherry blossoms,
Hand in hand lost to promise few eye to eye contacts.
Bouquet of Roses red proposed the lifetime endeavours.
Tender petals forced to fly around shaping a love story,
Sips of wine drank through eyes intoxicated fiery,
Hold the thread of life, maybe heartbeats loud deafen the cacophony,
Nature worked to unite a couple filled with sacred serenity …
Copyrights reserved Farhana Sait. #tipsfrommytable
Lovers NightIn the mysterious
Night, I have come
To your doorstep,
Open up, or give up
I know I exist
A part of your own
Life, a part of mine
It’s the eleventh hour
Leaves listen bowing
To our whispers
And the breeze play
The flute, for our love
Like the birds will
Engross nature itself
Come home to me
I see your parched
Lips open up for love
Your longing arms
Reach mine, we see
Each other in our own
Light while the moon
Is having a siesta.
Dreams are desires of reality
But deep in a dream there’s no thought
The soul crawling in the past knows
nothing of happiness
The spirit ever present speaks of amiableness
This world is like a dance floor
dancers are earthling
They dance, they come and go
To the world unknown, it’s a mistery
Peace is the dialect that even the blind people can see and deaf people can Understand
Speak it from your core and give it to others with your warm hand
Orgasm is blissfulness
even without a physical body
One can reach the climax or pleasantness
Through his/her own mind
Picture this if the world we live in now turn into a paradise
Where best wishes never delay to come through
What could be the wish you’d wish born to reality
First look at your life if it’s intact or you can start anew
Groping in pain and despair we discovers a life so real
Yes pain and anguish are best moulders of our characters
balance life take knowledge and clarity, sometimes we just need a bird’s eye view
To see where the problem is
even being right doesn’t make sense sometimes
I apprise of the dreamers they do impossible
It’s my dream to be a dreamer by profession
Living my life performing miracle after miracle
With a heart so grateful and filled with passion
I see the presence of nature
In the velvet cloak of night
With my Star i commune
There is always a brighter star
Someone stronger,
More successful,
Intelligent or wiser
But I am content with my Star
A comfort to my sight
Glad I am not blind to it
Lame laments the blind
Blind laments the dumb
Dumb laments the deaf
We all lament the dead
To breathe, to eat and to love
Is happiness enough
To be alive in my mind
Let’s lament our idols
Purveyors of hero syndrome
Under cheeks of rosy cheer,
There’s demons I fear
When they cast masks aside,
Monsters there abide
Ever showing us
How with drum and gun,
Arrow and bow
Vanquishing the foe
The different we must mow
Creating enemies amongst men
Scoffing at the real heroes
The kind and unselfish
Self sacrificing and sincere
Truthful and open
Who veil even that, that hurts
Not to pain others
Yes , I look at my Star
It’s not blindingly bright
But it guides me home
Copyright
Sher Ali Khan
2018/11/01 .
Artwork : @ Copyright Marie Rouge
And the rain …
In the mysterious
