WHAT DO YOU SEE

 Although the technological advances spearheaded by the western cultures have greatly improved the lot of Africans over time, it is sad to see us forget our own unique identity that made us the people we are. The present generation of children will never know moonlight tales or games; they will never understand the proverbs and nuances of their mother tongue; they will not find fun in the festivals and spectacles of their culture. This is sad. Is there no merging of the western culture with African identity? Are we to, therefore, leave the palm wine for the Chardonnays? *just thinking out loud*

 I

Do you see the ancient moat

That surround the ancient abode?

Do you sigh when you sight

Oranmiyan’s Staff at the beginning?

What goes through you

Watching the meandering Ethiope

Sweeping out of the base

Crisscrossing the southern places?

Do you feel the feverish pulse

As the Kanuri beauties sway

To music old as time?

Does your nerves tingle

When the slow beats of the Benue

Pulse through you?

How do you react to the Fulani herdsman

Hopping up and down

Laughter creasing his parched face

With staff held across his shoulder?

When did you forget

The entrance to the fattening rooms

Of beautiful Calabar?

Do you still watch

For the spirits at the festivals;

Spirits that blew smoke and fire?

II

TV decoder

Are you beholden to the television,

The radio, the internet and foreign books?

Are the words lewd with foreign thoughts

That falls from your lips

That has tasted and thirsted

After Nigeria’s greenness?

Do you wash your dirt

At the mouth of the Niger

And let your dead be buried

In its ancient waters?

Do you now banish from you

The dance of early evenings

Moonlit and cool,

For the sweltering dances

Of neon lit dance halls;

Hands groping, eyes glazed,

Hearts thudding and mouths slavering?

Do you let the Palm wine fester

While you preserve crushed grains

In chillers and freezers?

 

photo credit: Fattening room:http://news2.onlinenigeria.com/mobile/mobile/headline/404990-the-world%E2%80%99s-most-shocking-initiation-rites.html

TV decoder: http://www.nairaland.com/436700/get-star-tv-decoder-watch