Heroism of Hope for Africa: Patriotic Poems on a Dawn of a New Era

Heroism of

Hope for Africa

Patriotic Poems

on a Dawn of a New Era

Smithson Buchi Ahiabuike, M.D.

© 2011 Smithson Buchi Ahiabuike

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

Published by Westview, Inc. at Smashwords.com.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This book is available in print at most on-line retailers.

No portion of this book may be reproduced in any fashion, either mechanically or electronically, without the express written permission of the author. Short excerpts may be used with the permission of the author or the publisher for the purposes of media reviews.

ISBN 978-1-62880-017-3

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Reviews

Dedication

Citation I

Citation II

Acknowledgement

Preface

Foreword

Prologue: This I believe

I have a vision

GPS

Dawn of a new Era Part One

Dawn of a new Era Part Two

Heroism of Hope for Africa

Signature of Their Past

United We Stand

Epilogue: Bastion of our Beacon of Hope

About the Author

WHAT NIGERIANS SAY ABOUT PATRIOTIC POEMS ON A DAWN OF A NEW ERA

This book is a treasure. It’s a true cry for a mass awareness of a country’s state of ills and decadence. An acknowledgment of a derailment of God’s will for her existence and her attainment of the greatest heights, a lacuna that must be filled. The author Dr. Smithson Buchi Ahiabuike makes a clarion call for a conscious return from a labyrinth of misplaced values to a realization of a beautiful, powerful, and all-sustainable Nigeria. This book is a true vision of a time when we will all be proud of Nigeria and of being Nigerians. This dream is real. Its realization is now.

Nora Ephraim Ekanem – Calabar

This epic poem is great. This is what we are looking for in Nigeria now. Get this book published as soon as possible. Do not delay any longer for the time is ripe.

Malami Shehu Annuri – Sokoto

It is impressive to see that amidst this air of hopelessness some of us can still dream so exclusively. I hope this dream of a liberated Nigeria comes true some day.

Saudia Tukur – Yola

This is an Epic Verse that will stand the test of time in the Nigerian psyche. It will generate debates and intense study in the future. I’m not a literary expert, but I give you my word for it. There is a balm in the lines that heals the aching Nigerian heart and carves a niche of greater tomorrow for the generations yet unborn.

Godfrey Amaraegbulam – Isuikwuato

Your book is very nice – beautiful and quite outstanding. It is very poetic and very promising, and has great elements of truth in it. It has courageous plans for a future Nigeria. The words are so beautiful and carry lots and lots of meaning in them, meanings that will touch the heart of every Nigerian that comes across them. If my words will encourage you to publish this book, then you can have them all, so that other people can see it too and know what our country Nigeria and our generation can be turned into.

Nafisato Bagiwa – Abuja

I love your poem on a new Nigeria very much. I think you should give every Nigerian the opportunity of owing a copy of it. Think about it.

Uche Dennis Akabogu – Lagos

DEDICATION

To the Almighty God, my endless inspiration

To my children Joshua Chidike, Ugo Einstein,

Chioma Joy and Favor Chimdinma

Whose future and well being spurred the lines

To the future leaders of our nation

Who will read behind the patriotic lines!

Discover the blazing thrill in the love of country

Find a burning flame, and then run with it.

CITATION I

If my people, who are called by my Name,

Will humble themselves and pray

And seek my face and turn

From their WICKED ways,

Then will I hear from Heaven

And will forgive their sin

And will heal their land (Nigeria)

2nd Chronicles 7:14 (NIV)

CITATION II

Laughter will surely come back

To the paradise of our lips

Oh seminal seasons

Oh moons of spurring shadows

Laughing barns are just a tear away

Niyi Osundare

Contemporary Nigerian Poet

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am indebted to numerous individuals who have played important roles in the making and publication of this book. Many of them inspired me directly and a few others indirectly. I am ever grateful to all of them for their tremendous influences.

My greatest joy and acknowledgement goes to the Federal Government of Nigeria between 1978 and 1983, which gave me a federal scholarship to the Federal Government College Wukari in the then Gongola state (now in Taraba State). It was with this scholarship that I got the first-class high school education that propelled me to become a physician and a writer. My college principal was Mr. S. N. Abia, a no nonsense disciplinarian who nurtured us as pioneers of the college with enviable results. I will forever remain grateful to him and to the Federal Government of Nigeria for that great gift they gave to me and to many others at that early stage in our lives. I do hope that national merit scholarships will be started again as of old to give opportunity to poor Nigerian children whose talents will otherwise not be discovered. I have written this anthology purely for love of country and for appreciation of what my country has done for me. I do know very well that there are thousands of other children who, like me, benefitted from such programs. I choose to say ‘thank you’ no matter how bad things may be in the country now. I am proud of my country and am grateful that I can give back to my country with my creative talent. Thank you my Nigeria, my dear country.

I am also indebted to Professor Jerry Gana, a former Minister of Information and Culture in Nigeria during the days of military rule. He was generous during his busy days in office to read my earliest manuscript and write a foreword. Even though I never did meet him in person I am greatly thankful to him for his kind gesture and encouragement even at that early stage.

Adebayo Oyebade, PhD, a deacon in my church, a friend, a seasoned academic and a professor of history at Tennessee State University who took time to go through the book and provided useful advice and strong intellectual insight. He is a published poet and historian. He has authored many books including Reflections; Africa After the Cold War: The Changing Perspectives on Security (co-edited, Africa World Press, 1995); The Transformation of Nigeria: Essays in Honor of Toyin Falola (Africa World Press, 2006); The Foundations of Nigeria: Essays in Honor of Toyin Falola (Africa World Press, 2006); and Culture and Customs of Angola (Greenwood, 2007). He is a patriotic Nigerian who is eager to see political changes which will offer improvement in the life of the average citizen of Nigeria.

Moses Ebe Ochonu, PhD, a friend, a great intellectual, a young and vibrant Associate Professor of African history at Vanderbilt University. He authored Colonial Meltdown by the Ohio University press, and is the author of many journal articles and book chapters. His op-ed articles on African affairs have been published in The Chronicle Review and on Tennessean.com. He veraciously read through the lines and made invaluable contributions that added depth, color and a fresh perspective to the whole essence of the anthology.

I also owe a lot of gratitude to the staff members of the United States Information Service (USIS) Abuja between 1994 and 1997. The Director at that time was Mrs. Claudia Anyaso, who showed profound interest in my poetry and encouraged me to write. She invited me along with many others yearly to her home in Abuja to celebrate the Black History month in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Her encouragement inspired me a great deal and even an ode which was written specifically for her titled Ode to Claudia.

Nora Ephraim-Ekanem, a lawyer who read the earliest manuscript and encouraged its publication to give other citizens a chance to feel the flame of the love of country as espoused in the anthology.

My profound gratitude also extends to my uncle Chief Onyemaechi Ukeje Eloagu (Ojim 1 of Isuamawu, Isuikwuato) who loves poetry and encouraged me a great deal to write. He is my earliest and greatest inspiration. I wrote a sonnet for him titled Temple of Gratitude in my late teens which he gave to an artist in London to beautify in print and frame. It came back with such beauty and elegance and with my name carved in gold, that till this date I remember it with pride and great admiration. It adorns his living room with such a great aura. Uncle, thank you so much for your love and attention when I needed it most and then some.

One individual I owe so much is a young man of profound enterprise and exuberance in Abuja. He knows how to make things happen. He is a peoples’ man and also a good friend who loves poetry very much. He was the architect of Authors In Abuja (AIA) in the 90s. Like Mbari Club in Ibadan in the 1950s and 60s for young emerging Nigerian writers, so was AIA for some of us in the 90s in the fast-developing Federal Capital Territory Abuja. His name is Victor Anoliefo.

Victor and I started the AIA. We wrote and read poetry in public at Rock View Hotel Abuja during what was one of the most productive six months of my life. At that time, Abuja was a small place. One could drive from one end to the other in less than fifteen minutes. I took six months sabbatical from medical practice and wrote poetry with such intensity and candor that many of my friends wondered how I was going to survive abandoning medicine to full-time creative writing in the then Nigeria. Ifeanyi Alan Eze, a poet, later joined us and proved his mettle in our poetry club. Those days were my most glorious and prolific years of creative writing and I do remember them with great nostalgia.

Others include friends and acquaintances who encouraged and inspired me to write: Malami Shehu Annuri, Nafisatu Bagiwa, Onyebuchi Ogbonna, Thomas Brown and Clementine Usman Wamba, Dennis Uche Akabogu, Goddy Amaraegbulam, Ekong George Ekong and Saudia Tukur. These are a few of the many individuals who read the earliest manuscript and championed a need to take it a step further. I am grateful to each and every one of them.

PREFACE

The Nigerian nation is in flux. Everything has steered away from its normal course. The average Nigerian is not quite sure of his nationality and would prefer rather to accept an alien country as his at the least opportunity. The spirit of national consciousness has been beaten down to its lowest ebb by poor leadership bedeviled by greed, corruption and payoffs. The geographical entity called Nigeria is dangling like a big question mark. Sad to say, there are no true patriots