P5+2?

This is a tale of two adversaries in this weird world

One has amassed nukes enough to annihilate the planet

The other trying to enrich uranium for peaceful means

This is a tale of two adversaries in this weird world

One has closed its doors to UN inspectors and goes scot-free

The other is under crippling sanctions despite allowing inspections

This is a tale of two adversaries in this weird world

One has not invaded any country for two centuries

The other has invaded many countries and still occupies some

The doublespeak and cowardice of so-called world powers

In addressing the problem of these adversaries

Amaze all intelligent and civilized homo-sapiens

But between the labeled axis of evil and the great Satan

The world will have to make decision for peace or war

For injustice in all disguises remains utterly injustice.

November 25, 2013

Endless Colonialism of Speaking in Tongues

Author: Yusuf M. Adamu

Reviewer: Adjekpagbon Blessed Mudiaga

Publisher: Adamu Joji Publishers, Kano

No of pages: 69

Yusuf Adamu’s They Can Speak English, is a philosophical poetic periscope and sad reminder of the negative aspects of British socio-cultural linguistic imperialism and post-independence maladministration of the powers that be in Nigeria till date.

The 69-page book contains 55 poems that evaluate different linguistics, administrative, social, national and global issues, via the windows of medical geographical compass, barometer, wind vane, history, weather and climate skins in the mallemaroking blood of poetry.

Like an angry thunder questioning the audacity of Irokos, mahoganies, and obeches domination of other beautiful shrubs in a forest, the author makes mockery of those neglecting their mother tongue and speaks phonetics as if there are hot crumbs of yam burning their mouths. The medical-geographer cum poet takes swipe at those who claim to be civilised because they can pronounce English words properly in a delicious manner as if speaking in tongues.

Therefore, in the poem titled They Can Speak English, Adamu satirically says: “If you speak English / You are civilised / Praised, recognised / And respected / With a fluency that didn’t / pronounce people as feople / Action as haction / Mother as moda / One becomes an English man in black-ear / But in England / My Pronunciation, they bother not / My grammar they care not / If only they could understand me / I communicate well / But why should a black-eared red-ear one / Be so proud to speak English / Even at the expense of mother tongue?…”

From the foregoing, it is clear that many Nigerians are more English than the English people. This phenomenon of English ‘Mungo Parkism’ is very glaring among various electronics media houses’ newscasters in Nigeria. Sometimes, you wonder whether news was being relayed by foreign newscasters on channels of some Nigerian television or radio stations, as they speak through their noses as if drowning or gasping for breath in a fumigated room. But you would be taken aback at last when the newscasters name is also anglicised with English phonetics that makes you wonder it is a new type of African-English vernacular name.

Adamu says you cannot be an original English person by speaking in a gallivanting manner like a drunken parrot, English phonetics-wise. Hence, he further offers in the same poem above that: “You are only complete when you are complete / So, be proud not because you speak English / Be proud only if in your mother tongue / Be it Hausa, Ashante or Berber / Swahili, Masai or Kwa Zulu / Sango, Yoruba or Arabic / You can think and express your thought”.

However, the poet recognises the importance of English language as Nigeria’s official language. But his bone of contention is that, inability of any non-English native to pronounce some English words properly should not be seen as a sign of illiteracy; as someone who is not fluent in English could be articulate and literate in his mother tongue, which is also a veritable vehicle for communicating, as long as the audience could understand him. This is the major goal of communication- to share meaning and understanding, not borrowed phonology.

Another notable poem in the collection is the one titled Global Village. The author wonders about the deception of globalisation, when racism and class struggle are leopard spots that continue to make some races second class people. Hear him: “Though we are all human / We are made to be different / By forces beyond our clout / Yet they want to remake us / In a new image of their choice / In a village too big to be safe / The world they now call / A single village in the globe / With a big brother to match / As long as we are second class / Within that large village fashioned”…

Nearly all the poems in the volume are blank verses. Only the poem titled Mathematics has quintet ‘even rhymes.’ It is a poem of just five lines. Another piece that contain scatter-graph of ‘even’ and ‘alternate’ rhymes laced with serenading rhythm, is titled The Impossible.

The most common figure of speech in the entire verses is simile; while the asset or style of the poet is his didactic simplicity enrobed with historical allusions to past and contemporary happenings in political administrations, social order and disorder, lamentation and thanks giving to God and personalities with mutual philosophical onions.

In spite of the author’s grievances against some people belittling and claiming superiority over others who cannot pronounce some English words properly, he makes a clarion call for peaceful co-existence in the second to the last poem titled ‘Friendship,’ thus: “So break all the chains / Smash all the complexes / Dismantle all the iron curtains / That prevents friendship from blossoming among men/…”

In conclusion, the poet persona hopefully look forward to a brighter future for all, by wrapping up the volume with a piece titled ‘Optimism,’ as its last four lines offer in the likeness of all Nigerian commoners singsong as follows: “Yet we are very hopeful / Very hopeful people / We are optimistic / Things will one day improve.” This has been the expectation of the masses for centuries. Only God knows when things will improve as the masses wake up from one nightmare to another.

Adamu is an Associate Professor and Medical Geographer, who lectures in the Department of Geography, Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria. He has published bilingually in Hausa and English. His works in Hausa language include ‘Idan So Cuta Ne’; ‘Ummul-Khairi’; ‘Maza Gumbar Dutse’ and ‘Kwaryar Kira’ (which he co-edited) he was chairman of Association of Nigeria Authors (ANA) Kano State chapter, twice (2000-2006 and 2009-2010).

 

 

Waiting for International Judges

One keeps wondering where justice has gone
She used to have her eyes blinded to everyone
Now she seem to have a means of seeing who to judge
Those of us whose eyes are not blinded can see things
We have seen how criminals of war go round unhindered
Those who commit crimes against humanity wander freely
Yet some criminals have an extradition necklace on their necks

 Because some war criminals are too big to be judged

The International Judges see only Third World war criminals
They should be reminded about those criminals still at large
They invaded a whole country and kill its people
They spare not women and children in their barbarism
Using a flimsy excuse of WMD that have never being found

I just remember George Bush and Tony Blair

Will they ever be brought to justice at The Hague?
Are the lives of Iraqi citizens less human or unworthy?
The suffering of a generation caused by B and B is enormous
But they are not to be judged by the International Justice System
For justice if it still exists in this world of bullies
Exist only as a tool of neo-imperialism.

July 23, 2013

 

 

The nexus between poetry, politics, culture

Author: Yusuf M. Adamu (PhD)

Publisher: Adamu Joji Publishers, Kano

Year: 2012

Pages: 69

Reviewer: Adjekpagbon Blessed Mudiaga

                   (blessedbest@hotmail.com)

If the ten definitions of poetry propounded by Carl Sandburg (1878) are used as yardsticks to classify Yusuf  Adamu’s poetry volume titled  A Flat World, one could say the seventh definition best describes Adamu’s cosmological verses full with acres of anger.

Sandburg’s seventh definition of poetry says “poetry is the harnessing of the paradox of earth cradling life and then entombing it.” In this wise, as a medical geographer cum poet, Adamu always employ different commendable instruments of geography in his psyche, such as barometer, compass, wind vane, thermometer, rain-gauge, telescope and so on, in investigating both local and international political weather and cultural climates; and voices out his observation in poetic garments.

Hence, in A Flat World, made up of 51 poems that span 69 pages of the volume, the reader encounters various paradoxical situations that are making the world a bitter place for many peace-loving people; due to bullies on both the local and international topography and socio-cultural spheres. Wondering why acrimony pervades human existence, the author rhetorically welcomes the reader with the first poem in the volume titled, Why Do We Fight?

Although, rhetorical questions don’t deserve answers, Adamu generously provide answers in Why Do We Fight? as follows: “Sometimes we fight / For sacred reasons / Sometimes we fight / To emancipate ourselves / But at times we fight / For naïve and selfish reasons / We fight to make life hard for others / We fight to make the world a brutal place / But must we always fight to have peace? / Isn’t there any other way? / Why must we always fight?”

Having set the ball rolling with the aforesaid poem, the poet paints a beautiful canvass of the hitherto peaceful Jos plateau in Nigeria, which has suddenly become a theatre of concurrent genocide in recent times over the years. Listen to Adamu in the poem titled The Jos Plateau I, where he geographically, socially and resourcefully versify the region in a Michelangelo-like artistic imagery thus: “Tin ores and mines / Volcanic cones and dones / Crater lakes and ponds / Spring-water and waterfalls / Escarpments and slopes / Fluvio-volcanic and granitic hills / Spread on the table land / Nations of people / Biroms, Angas / Pyem, Mwhavul / Mada, Irigwe / Hausa, Fulani / Irish potatoes and maize / Vegetables and fruits / Cool weather, fine scenery / Jos plateau / Land of nature and nations.”

This versification of Jos by the poet clearly shows that it is a place of multiple natural blessings. Who knows? Perhaps, Jos is the original much talked about biblical Garden of Eden.

From the first two poems in the volume already discussed, the reader is not surprised why Adamu is so annoyed with the spate of quarrels, killings and disunity among local, national and international folks in a paradise earth created by God for human enjoyment. On this basis, the reader could feel the author’s cup of thoughts winking with worries at the brim of consciousness like a traffic light.

Therefore, with poems such as The Oro Trap; Ungrateful Brothers; Global Village; Arrogance; Prime Suspect; Injustice; Crumbling Blocks; Filters; Strange Irony; Reciprocate With Love Not With Bombs; Branding; New Imperialism; Murder Is Murder; Pretence; The Rich; Stature’s Ordeal; New Freedom; Hypocrites; Cowardice; The Holocaust Card; Immigration Laws; Niamey; Baghdad; International Community; Bushnization; The Migrants; Palestine; The Wolrd After Bush; Jos Plateau II, Gaza; Blind Hearts; Fuel Subsidy; and so on, Adamu expresses his unhappiness with the systems of things going on in the world. This is in similitude with some poems in Adjekpagbon Blessed Mudiaga’s Nightmares in Paradise volume, which underline the thinking patterns of contemporary poets.
While conjuring metaphors, ironies, innuendos, amongst other literary devices blended in the frying-pan of sarcasm, Adamu’s poetry hisses with volcanic gases bombarding traitors and oppressors gallivanting worldwide.

Moreover, in some lines, you could feel the temperature of the poet persona’s emotion, eager to imprison every global evil doer. The thermostat of his verses is full of brimstone, sulphur, caustic soda, magma, monosaccharide and disaccharide, belching like an angry anaconda, warning the real terrorists of the world, spreading tongue like dark menacing winds.

In the light of the foregoing, one could say the title of the volume, A Flat World, is a metaphorical microcosm of Jos as an epic center symbol of the entire world, where abundant milk and honey flows, but hatred, sorrow and death are the ‘medals of joy’ some self-acclaimed saints of universal authority shower on weaker people daily.
Despite all the oppressive tendencies of the powers that be from the grassroot to international level, Adamu rolls up every atom of his anger from A Flat World into a ball of defiant hope in the book last poem titled Our Spirit Has Not Broken!. In the epilogue poem, he pays glowing homage to some personalities coupled with prayer in the last line thus: “May Allah help us! Amin.”

Though no mechanical or psychological noise was noticed in the book, there is need for the use of a better legible font for the volume’s title (A Flat World) in the front cover during re-impression. The font used in the current edition’s cover is too blank, and there is also no point writing El-Mina Castle simultaneously in the front cover as it tends to confuse a first time observer of the book, as regards the real title.
Adamu is a professor of Medical Geography at the Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria. He has published numerous works in Hausa and English languages.

END

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