Title of the Book: This is Not a Poem
Author: Richard Inya
Reviewer: Onyebuchi Nwosu
Publishers: Mwanaka Media and Publishing, Zimbabwe
Year: 2019
Pages: 78
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 978-0-7974-9336-0
One Nigerian poet whose voice is gaining a strident ardour with ardent fervour in Nigeria’s contemporary poetic firmament is Richard Inya. In his most recent poetry collection ironically entitled This is not a Poem, paints a kaleidoscopic picture of events in contemporary Nigeria. Starting with a highly satiric title “This is not a Poem,” the poet portrays that the poems in the collection, though artistic pieces are more than mere lyrical renditions. It suggests that the poems are more of inner effusions steeped in personal experiences that are equally immersed in conscionable thoughts couched in a language that is overtly poetic.
Divided into six parts, Inya in the first part of the collection entitled “Disquiet” toes the line of Christopher Okigbo who in the early 1960s, through his poetry, warns of impending catastrophe. Foreboding doom in Nigeria’s socio-political situation, Inya warns that unless the plight of civil servants are seriously considered and something drastic is done, a revolution is about to erupt. Chanting in a poem entitled “In the Realm of Service” Inya cautions that “An armed revolution/Rages against quietness/In the bell of starving ones” (2). The revolution will occur among public/civil servants who “their intestines are trapped snakes/struggling to break loose” (2) as these workers endure vain promises that are emanating “from the anus of the bloated talks.” (2). The picture he paints here is that of Nigerian workers who are constantly hoodwinked by government that insistently dishes empty promises and sometimes blatant lies to them. If it is not of increased minimum wage, that its negotiations take endless interminable duration, it is of free housing which only ends in newspaper pages. This to the poet spells doom to those who toil daily in service to the nation but who are not considered in the general scheme of things. As if Inya is prophetic, only recently one of the Presidential candidates in the just concluded elections in Nigeria, Omoyole Sowore is alleged to have called for a revolution against the incumbent government.
If workers are not tired of unfulfilled promises, they are fearful of retirement; a situation that seems like death sentence to them. As Inya observes, the thought about retirement haunts every Nigerian civil servant:
At the end of service
Is a houseful of ghosts
Echoes of questions
………………………………
Should I go or should I stay? (3)
This pushes many into the act of falsifying their age documents so as to stay on in service. Their fear being that pension fund is grossly mismanaged:
Giant hawks prey on pension funds
Hawks are rock-hearted caretakers
Nay, lions watching over aged sheep (4)
Inya’s choice of metaphors here is apt and invocative; “rock-hearted caretakers” and “lions watching over aged sheep”. One wonders the kind of care-giving, a stone-hearted care giver will offer while aged sheep are easy prey for lions! Not long ago, one Abdulrasheed Maina was accused of embezzling a large chunk of Nigeria’s pension funds; however, he implicated many high ranking government officials and his has been on trial since then. The poet is unhappy with the way a very important and useful fund like the pension fund is usually treated as slush fund while pensioners are subjected to unspeakable forms of hardship due to the wanton mismanagement of their funds. When people who are still in service see the way pensioners are maltreated and dehumanized, they dread retirement!
From the plight of civil servants, Inya moves to current state of the nation and how the country has gradually transformed into a ghoulish, nightmarish, tortuous enclave; one that is terrorists-infested and cares less for the wellbeing of its citizenry.
You are now a dusty shadow playing pranks
A loud sepulchral voice feigning hurt
A site for mass burial of fallen heroes
A ghoulish air fanning up bloodshed
The entrance of a deserted cemetery….
They have named you by the things of death (7)
Pointedly, Nigeria of current dispensation is well associated with death—death of many of her citizens! If not from terrorism, it is from kidnapping, banditry, herdsmen/farmers clashes, violent agitation, ethno-religious-induced violence, petrol-tanker ignited flares, hunger and extreme hardship. No wonder the poet asks rhetorically that
When the dust of terror settles
And the billows of rage recede
…………………………………………
Please tell me, glorious home of ripe things
How should I remember you? (8)
Consequently, anyone who has been in Nigeria in the last ten years is surely bearing the scars of bloodshed in his memories. Somehow, Nigeria has degenerated to a bloody macabre, with so many theaters of war dotting its landscape.
Another issue that captures Inya’s attention is the intractable cases of corruption in Nigeria with Nigerians seeing the moment as “a time to grab.” It is as if corruption is airborne in Nigeria and permeates all strata of the society. “Volleyed cash bags are airborne /Floating like hot-air balloons/Returning to our square” (p.11). The poet warns those whose mantra is to grab everything by reminding them that “he that cheats on food/spends more time in the toilet” (p.10), so, people are cautioned to be wary of developing the grabbing spirit. However, in spite of the gloomy and sordid picture of Nigeria he paints in the collection, Inya is hopeful that Nigeria will prevail against all negative forces that are working against her progress and development. To him, terrorism, insecurity, bad governance and corruption, shall one day be things of history:
“We are a weighty pebble fighting/To stay afloat upon a murky pool/There’s harmattan in every throat/And the thorns in every word/ We speak in loud sighs and silence” (12)
This picture is made more manifest in the cover page where Nigeria is projected as the bud of beautiful flowers flourishing amidst spiky thorns all held in one stem. In spite of this, the poet is optimistic: “yet the colours of things bright and flowering/speaks to my heart: This shall also pass” (12). With this he encourages Nigerians not to despair but to be hopeful that someday, things will get better. Arising from such high-spirited realm, Inya depicts the overwhelming sorrow in the land, quipping that this may be the harshest time to live in Nigeria as Nigerians are left “crying in the rain.” Assuming the personality of a solitary mourner, the poet laments the depreciation of life and living in Nigeria. He considers himself a lone-mourner who is abandoned in the rain. The imagery of a man crying alone in the rain invokes utter sorrow and neglect. Crying alone in the rain portends stupendous anguish.
Of great concern to Inya in the poetry collection is the issue of illegal migration and its debilitating consequences. This is the concern of the part entitled “Leaving.” First he sees the obsessive quest by young Nigerians to “check out of the country” to Europe and other Western countries in search of greener pastures under whatever condition and through whatever means as a risky, dangerous and fatalistic venture. This flagrantly adventurous venture is fired by an inordinate desire, an “unchecked dream” anchored on the belief that prosperity lurks in all the streets in Europe. In the process of pursuing this dream many end up under the Mediterranean Sea while a whole lot of others are roasted by the sun in the Sahara desert. For anyone with such an unbridled ambition, the poet warns: “You are a body bag waiting to be claimed/Body bags are dreams searching for a nation/You are Moses/There lies your promise land/This is Spain/This is Morocco/This is Europe/ Here is Africa” (26). The message is obvious, that Nigerian youth should desist from running out of the country through illegal risky routes where they end up drowning or getting killed. To buttress this, he gives instances of the kind of life those who have embarked on this movement are left to grapple with in countries like Libya.
Sometime ago, news came that most Nigerians who migrated to troubled countries like Libya are being turned into slaves and dehumanized by some militia groups in Libya. Some horrible pictures emerged where useful body parts of some of them were harvested without any form of anaesthesia; they were later inconsiderately abandoned to die a painful slow death. Inya has people like these who cross through the desert to Libya in mind when he sings: “The dunes are graves for the sojourners/ Torpedoed in a sea of burning sand/Ridges of sand are high walls blocking/ Hurries dreams from taking flash/More are leaving their homeland/ To be soon counted among the dead.” (28) Even till today, the unbearable economic situation in Nigeria is forcing more to still check out, “to be soon counted among the dead.” Inya vehemently stands against this kind of movement and encourages Nigerians trapped in many regions of the world to brave it and find their way home. “Turn, return; my people, return/Our faggots can cook us food/A people’s firewood cooks their food/Our wood burns well/Even if smoke enters our eyes/What is ours is ours.” (30) The imagery of cooking as deployed in the stanza above is eclectic and meaning impacting. It is a witty way of telling the overly migratory-conscious Nigerians that the resources we have in Nigeria is well enough to take care of everyone. There is no need taking unnecessary risks to jet out to Malaysia, Libya, Europe and America, Inya says. Rather, he urges all to turn and return for “our faggots can cook us food” (30). We can help to build Nigeria and make it a better place!
From migration, Inya’s poet raconteur moves over to environmental issues. Writing with the same stamina like Osundare in his ecocritical masterpiece, The Eye of the Earth, Inya calls for a change of attitude in the way the environment is currently handled. He is certain that one who destroys the environment destabilizes himself and other creatures; he causes great disequilibrium in the society’s structural ecology as he displaces both the flora and fauna. He warns that people destroy the environment at their own peril for the earth has a way of fighting back: “The earth fights her cause/Tomorrow is heavy with our baby/Would we smile if it looked like us?/Not only a drunk tells his only son/one must get lost to learn new roads” (35). It would be disastrous if the earth gives birth to the piles of polluting materials that it is currently incubating, the poet reasons. He further satirizes the lumberman—core enemy of the wood and forest. With the number of trees grossly depleted, people are exposed to so much environmental hazards. “The sun rests on our rooftops/Baring its body to every eye/many a thing that lived is gone/And cool breeze is now luxury” (39). These are the major problems of deforestation. In the same vein Inya warns those who have built on water-ways and flood-prone areas to leave in order to live.
Another issue that is of concern to eagle-eyed Inya in the poetry collection This is not a Poem is the craze for pilgrimage to Jerusalem or Mecca by people with unclean hearts and hands; especially those that are deeply soaked in corruptive tendencies. To this category of people the poet asks: “When you go on pilgrimage/ The land lies quiet like a pond at night/And peace is the song of the people/Nursing the pains from your ceaseless loot/…../Do you wear stolen apparels to the holy land/Do holy artefacts tremble at your holy feet/How does yours differ from a picnic, O pilgrim?” (56) With unmistakable chains of rhetorical questions above, the poet lampoons the essence of embarking on holy visits when one is sure that the spirit is tainted by corruption. Would such journey not amount to a jamboree, he wonders
In the last part of the collection entitled “Terror” the poet delves into issues pertaining to insecurity and violence. Couching a poem with some animalistic terms, with highly allegorical underpinning, he sagaciously weaves in the code names of some military operations which have been put forward in Nigeria to tackle insecurity. “I’m a den/Of reptiles/Do not wonder/Why all the frenzy/Pythons are dancing/Crocodiles are smiling/be wary of these new drums/They beat the music of death” (60). To adequately handle the rising agitations and insecurity in the southern part of Nigeria, the military some years ago launched two major military operations. While “Operation Python Dance” is being yearly carried out during the ember moths in the south-eastern part of Nigeria, “Operation Crocodile Smile” goes on in the South-south axis. The poem warns people living in those regions, especially agitators and militants to mind their behaviours and utterances; as such operations are targeted towards hooligans who are involved in anti-social behaviours or economic sabotage.
In another poem with the title, “Mass Burial” the poet glorified cows and beatified pastoral essence. He reminds Nigerians that the fear of herdsmen in Nigeria of today has become the beginning of wisdom, else, any clash with them will end in the community carrying out mass burial of their loved and cherished ones. He sings that these days “Cows are trains/Who dare stand in their way?/Cows swallow souls/And graze wildly on graveyards” (61) The depth of the metaphors deployed here are incredible. While the train crushes anything that stands on its way, the picture of a cow swallowing human souls is appalling, but communities where farmers and herders have had a brush can confirm the reality of this affirmation. No wonder in the poem “Served to Cows” the poet bemoans the situation where Nigerians are daily served to cows as they are mowed down through cow related fracas.
One singular outstanding style that runs through the collection is the poet’s disinterested approach. The issues are objectively presented with no scintilla of authorial intrusion. Also, Inya’s language is highly poetic with a tinge of simplicity that engenders strong imagistic impressions. In This is not a Poem, the reading public is presented lucid and evocative lines of poetry recollected in the most uncluttered form with less highfalutin words. It is with such crystal-clear expressions that Richard Inya embarks on a poetic oeuvre that borders on heart-touching issues about Nigeria. The collection is tightly edited thus eliminating the usual typos that mar such texts in recent times. The layout is appreciably reader-friendly while the cover design is symbolic and attractive. I strongly recommend the collection for anyone who wants to have a varied but highly synchronized view of Nigeria’s current situations.
————————————————————-
Onyebuchi Nwosu (Ph.D) is a lecturer in the Department of English and Literary Studies, Alex Ekwueme Federal University Ndufu-Alike Ebonyi State Nigeria. A playwright, short story writer and prolific essayist, his research interest is in African Oral Literature, especially in the areas of ascertaining the functionality of oral literary arts in societies where they are practised. He is a member of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) as well as Nigeria Oral Literature Association (NOLA). His critical essays have been published in national and international journals with some appearing as book chapters.
