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REHAB






By Yakubu Emmanella

Everywhere is ravaged by the same plague - fire! Wild fire! Oh sorry! I mean rage. Rage with an incessant passion. The cities have been intruded, the walls broken and the gates burned to the ground. Our cities are now clothed with nakedness- the kind without appeal.Its desolation seems to be beyond recovery. What tragedy has our folly earned us?

 I see despair in the eyes of the very ones called to bless our land. I still breathe in the fragrance of peace amidst them but why do their deeds speak of a strange thing -rage?!
There is pain amidst love, after all there is none genuine without sacrifice but the fear I perceive in their hearts, I so dread. God! This is only as a result of the falsehood they gave themselves to: they believed only lies and upheld them. Oh lord, please don’t give them away to their ignorance. I have suffered rejection; I know the pangs it sponsors. Your head begins to breathe like your heart and when the fight gets real tough and you want to back off, just then you find out that the keys were swallowed by your own greed.

Greed: an enemy of the city. He plunders her inhabitants and takes away the spoil. He informs the rich of their lack and how tattered they look on their Agbada and suits.  His soup does not give that scent that reminds our belly of a coming satisfaction but rather a stench; the kind that speaks of death. What a shame their untamed appetite led them to the room where the only needed ingredient was their soul and hmm betrayal.

She wears exquisite linen of many colors, flattery, deceits, blah blah blah. Her accent is mixed; her vocabulary confuses but yet puts one in a state of pseudo -control. She allows you make the plan and sets a trap for you to stumble and fall. She talks about strength like she has no weakness, about pity like she knows its origin but when she’s finished with you, her last word is REVENGE!

Allow me skip this one. It has brought much hurt on our cities. Unfortunately, these forces and effects happen at the very heart of her dwellings. Our cities seem to be a market place, unplanned and dirty, full of insincere merchants and thieves. How sad the ones you bore do not know you. Their wings grew so strong and they flew over the walls. Now, you’ve been destroyed by your very own. But I know that savior’s shall arise from your heart. They will judge this perversion and return your honor.

Show me, teach me how to gather them together and I’ll guide your young ones back; your pride, the reflection of your strength and beauty. Tell me how to call them for they still remember your songs of love taught them at infancy. Please don’t give up on them yet, I haven’t. Though you bore them into royalty, among nobles and raised them in wealth, they set ambushes at lonely paths and rob the innocent but I will bring them back (home). I’ll remind them of the dignity they once knew.

I’ll show them the emptiness they try to feed and lead them to rest. You’ll call them by a name only you know and once more, they’ll glow.

DEDICATED TO: WADI BEN-HIRKI FOUNDATION

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