Odiedo Stephen

“BIAFRA’S hungry ghosts have heard your passionate, eloquent dithyramb for AGUIYI-IRONSI, NIGERIA’S stalwart warrior. But, EZZI-NNE: NIGERIA’S Seeing Eye does not get to ride the barque of the return. Him NIGERIA mourned; him NIGERIA loved; him NIGERIA knows, remembers. Until NIGERIA knows, mourns, and names by name each of BIAFRA’S hungry skeletons – and BIAFRA’S skeletal GHOSTS have no hope of that ever happening – none rides the barque of the return. None: save the SOLDIER-POET whose farseeing gave the TABLETS OF FATE into my hands that expected but a handful of earth. BIAFRA’S skeletal ghosts have long memories, EZZI-NNE: from NIGERIA we hope for nought but oblivion, collective amnesia.

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"NIGERIA'S flag cannot swear a proud oath when IRONSI'S gaze looks deep into NIGERIA'S soul. For what AGUIYI-IRONSI Seeing Eye of NIGERIA'S perfidy sees are children enslaved while the flag flies high. NIGERIA has nought to say to AGUIYI-IRONSI because all the promises that were made now make of NIGERIA a mockery, a hollow reed. For it is the mothers lamenting the abduction of their daughters into forced slave-wives that NIGERIA turns its guns on. Steady of gaze, as unblinking as the sun, IRONSI of witness chronicles of the abominations inflicted on a people by their own flag. Potent is the oath sworn to the flag - and cursed be the traditors that stands by as treason traduces this flag."  

"NIGERIA'S witness to the deaths to come: IRONSI the unblinking gaze that sees slavery and bestows the curse anew upon NIGERIA. When a people are damned, when a generational curse lives in the blood, a nation goes into conclave, seeks the lifting of the curse, seeks the collective cure - not seek to pile up curses anew upon themselves and their unborn children and their children's children unto the seventh generation. Your NIGERIA refuses to expiate old wrongs; seeks, plants, waters and grows new abominations. Children captured and sold into slavery when NIGERIA'S flag swore to shield each child in the republic against that oldest of NIGERIA'S curses: slavery - ineradicable, ancient curse."

"NIGERIA banished its memory of you, banished history from NIGERIA'S national life, banished history from the school. Yet banishing history could not erase AGUIYI-IRONSI from the national psyche. The more NIGERIA unremembered you the more NIGERIA could not forget IRONSI IRONSIDE. NIGERIA'S best laid plans flounder and sink unto the abyss because NIGERIA has forgotten AGUIYI-IRONSI. What success will NIGERIA ever attain - when IRONSI IRONSIDE'S memory is forever erased? This nation must discover the truth of IRONSI IRONSIDE if ever it hopes to lift the curse upon NIGERIA. And yet. And yet: NIGERIA has chosen to unremember AGUIYI-IRONSI. What hope then for you, NIGERIA'S ETERNAL WITNESS?"

"NIGERIA'S Seeing Eye: IRONSI of unblinking gaze. NIGERIA looked deep into the heart of the abyss - and the abyss has looked deep into NIGERIA'S soul. Nought that NIGERIA does surprises you - for like the monster-child that it is, NIGERIA was born with a full head of teeth and pregnant with triplets. Nought that NIGERIA births but is rotted to its bone-marrow: of steel plants that never produce steel; of armies that can never shoot straight at BOKO HARAM but never misses when shooting unarmed mothers in the back; of head counts that can never give census data; of currency forged and falling to pieces while yet mint-fresh; of the learned that can't write straight - AGUIYI-CURSE sees it all."

"NIGERIA'S Man of Sorrows -" mother BIAFRA stops, chides the hungry ghost-child: "CASSANDRA,prophet never believed, your voice should be as clear as a bell." "Yes, EZI-NNE." "So: speak clear of the trains from KADUNA and JOS."  "From KADUNA and JOS the death trains shrieked daily for BIAFRA loaded overfull with dead black as lungfish: and those GHOST-TRAINS still shriek daily through NIGERIA'S Soul. AGUIYI-IRONSI: whenever three NIGERIANS meet at an embassy reception in GENEVA, at the doctor's, or the teller her customer, or the police officer at that roadblock - wherever three NIGERIANS meet your GHOST-TRAINS shriek - suddenly it all turns into ashes in the soul. Your death cursed NIGERIA."

"NIGERIA'S fluent teacher of failed  coups d'etat and dead civilians. Trains bound for BIAFRA piled high with dead: bloated bodies - glistening black porpoises as the grim trains shriek towards BIAFRA. AGUIYI-IRONSI: at the hard lessons on the fate of failed coup plotters, what master is there greater? AGUIYI-IRONSI: uneasy must sleep the coup d'etat on the bed of state. Hubris heeded not MERLIN, sage-enchanter. Next in prophetic vision to ISRAEL, contender for GOD, are the HYPERBOREANS, wisest of nations. The coup d'etat that heeds not MERLIN buries child-maidens debauched and force-ripened at the point of the state bayonet. Hard learnings IRONSI: master of the failed African coup d'etat."

"NIGERIA'S scapegoat: luckless leader doomed to suffer the agon of the perfected one. AGUIYI-IRONSI: by your stoic courage you wrote your name first on the TABLETS OF FATE. Stoic as the scapegoat under the knotted whip. JOHNNY IRONSIDES - lashed to ribbons of raw flesh on the famished to road from IBADAN to the place of fate where the three roads meet thus from the morning yet on creation day whose half of a yellow Sun witnesses of the scourge to the end of time's riverrun. Who knows to speak to NIGERIA the pith of the curse upon this land if not you, stalwart IRONSI? Nations that curse themselves run giddy with joy until too late: the joke has been on your beloved NIGERIA ever since."

"NIGERIA'S terrible bargain with the abyss is writ large on the TABLETS OF FATE: AGUIYI-IRONSI. The debt each BIAFRAN would pay IRONSI paid twice, thrice over. Stand at the prow of this boat and speak , name IRONSIDE, he that was whipped until the white bones of his ribs showed. Name him in a voice as clear as a bell." "IRONSI stalwart warrior. As stoic as stoic is: not tears but grim days Baba.  Grim as only grim can be. And a warning to BIAFRA'S mothers: savaged and assaulted once your son challenges for power. Bloated dead bodies piled highon wagons - gifts of the north to BIAFRA'S mothers. Take on power only if you march to your death unafraid - or never return from the battlefield.

"BIAFRA'S last flag is this torn rag covering my nakedness. Except for that the talisman I give you, BIAFRA'S first of the returned is my hand on your forehead. Walk for them all - BIAFRA'S dead sons and daughters. Not just the hungry ghost-children. This boat you pilot for them whose souls knew no burial. They wander the abyss of the damned eyeless and outcast. Guide their sightless souls. Be their seeing eye." "The POET-SOLDIER'S name I name first to show mother BIAFRA that all her children freely ride this boat." "Seek them out, seek them all. And in your search turn neither to the right nor to the left, nor to the dead nor the living. That is the best I can do for BIAFRA'S CASSANDRA."

"BIAFRA calls you first, boat and thyrsus of the death god. Of how you came to hold his staff I will leave to the god to speak himself. The river of the dead judges you by the yardstick of the gods themselves - lest a howl of outrage cross from the realm of the damned to the reach of the living. That you have commandeered the barque of the dead does not mean that the river of the dead must agree to the whims of every spectral child just because they are not asking for your almighty favour. The dead would burn down the barque of the dead first than grant BIAFRA'S ghost-children any favours. Already BIAFRA'S every dead have been demanding what measure of favour you children command of me."

BARAKOA On the tides of Lolwe fountainhead of the Nile, the Ankh, Siaya's beautiful Soul dances the direful Coronach, her chant-song for her beloved river Nile now dead.    As the Ankh dances on the bleak tides the barque of the sun capsizes out of the sky at sunset with the body of her beloved Nile. As the barque of the dead makes the feared journey across the abyss of the damned Siaya's beautiful Soul sings her rage against death. The rage of the Ankh shutters the chains binding the Soul of her beloved and the boat of the dead begins the arduous journey of the return of the Soul reborn.    The Ankh's beautiful dance guides the sun boat out of the abyss of the dead and at dawn the triumphant sun reaches for the sky. As Siaya's beautiful Soul dances the joyous dance of the reborn sun, her bleak Coronach turns into the great song of affirmation , rebirth and renewal.   BARAKOA is a sonnet sequence chronicling the dolorous journey of the Soul, her peri...

"BIAFRA names you first, CASSANDRA. For when the dead sought to ride their boat of the return you did not step back in shame at the torn blood-stained rag which covers an old woman's nakedness. Inscribed on the TABLETS OF FATE your name anchors the boat each soul that seeks the second sun would but ride. Unbelief meets your cautionary portents. Even the dead in their clear-eyed gaze into th heart of things disbelieve you CASSANDRA. A child splits no kola. The dead are no shill for power - but child your raw tears corrodes the rutted earth 'pon which the river'd run." "That's what favourite son said: BIAFRA'S living-dead have no use for my raw words." "Yet yours th' barque of the return."

"BIAFRA'S POET-SOLDIER asked me a question, EZI-NNE. 'When a one betrays their country it is high treason,' he said. What is the name of it when it is the country that betrays a one? What is that betrayal called? What is the name of it, the POET-SOLDIER asked me. I had no answer, EZI-NNE. What is the name of that heinous crime when a country betrays its own people? I had no answer to give BIAFRA'S dead POET-SOLDIER. Perhaps, mother BIAFRA, you will answer the POET-SOLDIER. He deserves an answer - although not as favoured by you as BIAFRA'S favourite son OJUKWU, still, the POET-SOLDIER deserves an answer of you. Glad he was that mother BIAFRA is here in UMUAHIA to name the the dead by name."

"BIAFRA'S children are not the only seekers of the journey of the return, EZI-NNE - thus the POET-SOLDIER told me in OWERRI." "Where is the dead earth of OWERRI?" POET-SOLDIER led me to IDOTO, told me not the dead of BIAFRA only deserved of the SEEING EYE of mother BIAFRA. Instead, like favourite son OJUKWU, the POET-SOLDIER spoke of TROY and UKRAINE, asked that mother BIAFRA speak their dead. Then hevgave me the TABLETS OF FATE." "So mother BIAFR: hear what grief the POET-SOLDIER brings before your throne." "No, my mother: BIAFRA'S dead live and die the sunset and the sunrise of the barque of the sun. Scroll and each dead they step forward to speak of their sorrows to the TABLETS OF FATE."

"NIGERIA will not have it that easy, child. To name only the children that starved to death in BIAFRA'S war mocks the dead children that BIAFRA sent ill-trained, badly armed to face NIGERIA'S war machine. It was a sending of raw children into NIGERIA'S meat grinder to be turned into mincemeat." "All the children, EZI-NNE. Of this you and I speak with one voice." "That is not all: what of them that died before the UNION JACK came down?" "Them too, EZI-NNE." "And them dead in chains on the journey to the sea." "Yes." And them that died in chains across the sea." "Them all, EZI-NNE." "To UMUAHIA bring earth from whence the starved ones fell." "Gladly, EZI-NNE. Name our names, our hungry souls."

"BIAFRA'S mothers would be glad to birth your favourite son beginning his return from the dead. What mother wouldn't, EZI-NNE? Just look at his funeral - compare that with our ugly bodies slithering off wheelbarrows to slide gracelessly into shallow ditches. Or the wagons loaded high with our dead bodies from northern NIGERIA - at least their rotted flesh wasn't sliding off their bones. But my word, EZI-NNE: those bodies from the north did swell something feardie. And the crows. O the crows. Still, BIAFRA'S mother will find a mother honoured to birth your reborn favourite. Who knows? Perhaps, favourite son may come back OJUKWU. Don't take too long on us, EZI-NNE. The dead await rebirth."

"BIAFRA averts its gaze when our hungry skeletal deaths are mentioned, EZI-NNE. We are an embarrassment: tadpoles - skeletal yet keen-eyed, distended bellies. But you, EZI-NNE: you have a favourite son whose boat of the return you want to ride this river. Every mother hungrily wants the best for her son. And EZI-NNE wants her favourite son to make the journey of the return. EZI-NNE wants her warrior-son reborn to make the great return - perhaps reborn in NNEWI to take up the warrior title of IKEMBA NNEWI. But our skeletal ghosts stand in your way, EZI-NNE. Hungry skeletal monsterlets denying the living peace, quiet, deserved sleep. Name our million names NNE, grant your favoured rebirth."

"NIGERIA cannot lock the gates of UMUAHIA looking glass gateway of the dead - only you, EZI-NNE, can deny us this. Fifty years, EZI-NNE. There is just cause for BIAFRA'S dead children to demand that the living sing our fifty-years-too-late death dirge? If De Gaulle spoke of BIAFRA'S fight as a just and noble cause, there is just cause in BIAFRA'S dead skeletal children asking that BIAFRA mourn our deaths. And if BIAFRA, like doomed NIGERIA has forgotten us, then EZI-NNE must guide alone  in UMUAHIA through the looking glass gate." "BIAFRA'S children must know that  none else mourn your ignoble deaths. Expect none." "The better, NNE: BIAFRA'S skeletal ones are NIGERIA'S writing on the wall."

"BIAFRA'S mother sees my forever punishment - chasing the sun plunging to its death at sunset that UKRAINKA I too would find my welcome death," UKRAINKA tells mother BIAFRA of UKRAINE'S abiding sorrow. In UMUAHIA mirrored gate, the dead ask why, by the blood price their lives paid, BIAFRA'S rising Sun abdicated. "In BIAFRA'S torn rag of a flag here in UMUAHIA suffers the tongue that speaks against its sworn oath. It is BIAFRA that first swore to protect the republic and to defend NIGERIA'S flag. BIAFRA - the tongue that swore by NIGERIA'S flag was first to speak secession." "In remembering her starving dead BIAFRA'S mother must look neither to the left nor to the right," UKRAINKA avows.

"BIAFRA must mourn her genocide-by-starvation dead. My fear of the soulless Soviet state stopped UKRAINKA: I never mourned UKRAINE'S starved dead. The dead walking skeletons of the HOLODOMOR never forgave UKRAINKA - the dead don't forget. UKRAINE'S dead passed a hard sentence against UKRAINKA: my hundred-year long day. Mourn your dead, BIAFRA. My terror of the godless Soviet state sealed my lips; my fear stopped my saying that UKRAINE'S children were starving to death by the millions. The godless Soviet state is dead - but UKRAINE'S dead never forgave UKRAINKA. The child offers mother BIAFRA atonement. UKRAINE'S dead are unforgiving. BIAFRA'S mother of the dead must not throw away her luck."

"BIAFRA'S mother must not make the error my UKRAINE made. A people that forsakes their Soul; their Soul forsakes - as my UKRAINE that turned away from its Soul to worship the godless state found out. Swift was UKRAINE worshipper of the godless state's punishment. HOLODOMOR: genocide-by-starvation. UKRAINE'S fate drives me to BIAFRA. For when mother BIAFRA calls her dead, my hope that UKRAINE'S dead may grant me my death and the end of my shame may yet pass. A hundred years chasing the sunset thus to catch my death - that is a century of wild sorrow. A day one hundred years long - never yet catching up with the sunset that ends my purgatory. I pray BIAFRA'S mother avoids UKRAINKA'S curse."

"NIGERIA is as far from UKRAINE as sunrise from sunset," says EZI-NNE. "True," answers UKRAINKA, "but the heart carrying her load of regret is as raw in BIAFRA as mine is raw for UKRAINE. From when the HOLODOMOR famine-genocide  came to my UKRAINE I have chased the sunset in search of my death. Many seek even but a day more of this life - for near a hundred years av sought but death to end this sorrow. Fifty years and BIAFRA'S dead are asking their mother to speak their names. Refuse them not this last wish of BIAFRA'S lost children. Were that UKRAINE'S famine had given me BIAFRA'S measured dirge for her starved dead." "EZI-NNE, call your children to UMUAHIA'S last gate," CASSANDRA adds.

"NIGERIA cares little that you have walked me to BIAFRA'S bone-filled ditches and and shallow trenches that serve BIAFRA'S hungry children for graves. Here in UMUAHIA, last stand of doomed BIAFRA, the living have no use for the dead. I must leave." "No, EZI-NNE. It is in UMUAHIA that mother BIAFRA must hear the dead summoning." "Not right, child. No." "Hail: unending is my heart-sorrow - I spoke not when UKRAINE'S millions starved, died. Listen to the child." "Who speaks of the starved dead to BIAFRA?" "Am UKRAINKA, voice of the HOLODOMOR, UKRAINE'S genocide by hunger. Name your hungry dead. I am UKRAINE'S greatest sorrow - never to have shouted loud of the hungry; the dead. Heed the child."

"NIGERIA took away BIAFRA'S songs - but in the taking of what belongs to BIAFRA - not the republic - NIGERIA shackled both by the death grip of the all-powerful state. Shackle a man in the mud, shackle yourself in the mud with him. To it's doom, NIGERIA robbed BIAFRA of what rightly is BIAFRA'S." "EZI-NNE, you are speaking like the IKEMBA NNEWI who damned the enigma of NIGERIA'S knotted fate as the curse of Hellen of TROY. MENELAUS took his HELLEN back with him to SPARTA after fellow GREEKS had vengefully burnt luckless TROY down to its accursed foundations. Yet what a terrible price GREECE paid! BIAFRA: good measure pressed down, shaken together and running over - the IKEMBA NNEWI'S words."

"BIAFRA is NIGERIA'S good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over - thus the IKEMBA NNEWI spoke of it all by the time of his return from exile. By then he was a changed man, EZI-NNE. By turns voluble, taciturn - those long periods of silence. We that are of BIAFRA'S hungry dead would gather - a skeletal chorus round the IKEMBA NNEWI - and we would marvel at the depth of his reading. If he was a man who read books before and during the BIAFRA WAR, this returned exile read something astonishing: the IKEMBA NNEWI read books. And chronicled the dead: from ZARIA to ABEOKUTA - 1945, 1955, 1966, the BOKO HARAM killings. Good measure pressed down, shaken together and running over."

"BIAFRA'S son OJUKWU ever spoke of that victory GREECE won over TROY. 'GREECE won against TROY. Soared to the heights of war, statesmanship, philosophy - then GREECE sunk unto the abyss of the damned. OJUKWU knew winning this war would sink NIGERIA unto the abyss of the damned," CASSANDRA tells mother BIAFRA. "And Prophetic CASSANDRA come back fifty years is telling NIGERIA that OJUKWU was right?" "OJUKWU said BIAFRA is NIGERIA'S CASSANDRA. The infallible voice of prophetic utterance - which yet NIGERIA will never believe. I have come fifty years after this war - not to fulfill prophecy but to hear mother BIAFRA speak of them NIGERIA starved to death calling that a legitimate weapon of war."

"BIAFRA is this offering NIGERIA has gifted the republic. A potent holocaust unto the planting of NIGERIA'S flag on this land. A holocaust, child. A sacrifice - not a sacrifice offered to the ancient gods - but  to the republic. For a holocaust is a perfected offering in a time of calamity. When the nation faces catastrophic defeat in a war, or a devastating plague is decimating the living. Or at the planting of a new nation, a new time, a new land. And true it is that NIGERIA is planting the flag in the heart of each son and daughter. That is the planting time of  NIGERIA in this land. A holocaust, a perfected offering. Blameless, free of pollution, a fitting offering unto the republic."

"BIAFRA'S skeletal children are traitors, EZI-NNE: dying, instead of fighting BIAFRA'S war. To starve to death is treason against BIAFRA. We're traitors: wordless, skeletal. Dying, mute before the world's cameras, damning BIAFRA'S liberation war, giving BIAFRA bad press. Favourite OJUKWU speaks of the sack of TROY and that accursed GREEK victory. It was no victory, EZI-NNE: GREECE destroyed TROY - men, women, children. Victor against Troy is NIGERIA'S flag: a pyrrhic victory. The great AFRICAN STATE is a victorious monster, EZI-NNE. Invite your enemy's surrender - then kill, starve their children. NIGERIA'S flag is the curse of the AFRICAN STATE." "BIAFRA is listening, prophetic CASSANDRA."

"NIGERIA does not owe BIAFRA'S dead children any loyalty, my child." "It is BIAFRA, not NIGERIA that makes me afraid. To BIAFRA we are a crime EZI-NNE. An embarrassment. We are a thing of shame. Distended bellies. Skeletal bodies. Dead eyes. BIAFRA is ashamed that we are BIAFRANS. As BIAFRA speaks of battlefield victories before the world's cameras, we, BIAFRA'S dead stick-like children, we are an embarrassment. BIAFRA radio rejoices to announce victory after victory after victory - the children with distended bellies and stick legs? Not a word. Yet BIAFRA swore to protect us - the children." "Just like all NIGERIA swore an oath to the flag, child. They all swore an oath to NIGERIA'S flag."

 "NIGERIA'S flag is as a flame blazing forth not for NIGERIA or BIAFRA only. NIGERIA'S flag is as that flame blazing forth for them that are of BRAZIL, MARTINIQUE, AMERICA, THE ISLANDS, HAITI, CUBA - all lands where NIGERIA'S sons and daughters sorrowed in chains. NIGERIA'S flag is the meaning of the lives of other nations chained - like those of MAURITANIA, QATAR. Thus to talk secession, as my BIAFRA has done: know the price BIAFRA has asked them to pay - not for the future only, but for a terrible past of slavery and chains. So child: do I stand by BIAFRA? I stand with BIAFRA in this accursed venture and will mourn each son, daughter." "That's all that the dead dare ask," says CASSANDRA.