Pray for Nigeria. (Happy Independence Day!).

I woke up this morning and the weather outside was mild and beautiful. The sweet, soft, cold and gentle breeze rocked the leaves and blew joy into the atmosphere. The sky was somewhat grey, looking as though it was going to rain but the clouds weren't heavy. Minutes later it began to drizzle and some peaceful rain followed. Everything about the morning was beautiful and gentle. Glory be to God! Nigeria is 54.

    So I began to pray. I prayed for God to bless my country. Bless the soil, trees, animals, people, etc. every single thing that makes up Nigeria.

    I prayed! I prayed to God to provide Nigeria with better leaders who will exhaust their last energy for Nigeria. Leaders who view every Nigerian as their own.

   I prayed! I prayed for God to bless those who strive for my country, give them strength, will and courage to continue their good work.

    I prayed to God! I begged God to guide our leaders onto the right path and protect us against those that are far gone. 

    I prayed! I prayed that the 2015 elections will be held peacefully and justly and for the best man to win.

    I prayed! I prayed to God to bring back our girls, bring back my sisters and for Him to protect them, grant them patience, endurance and perseverance.

    I prayed! I asked God to defeat the enemies of my great country and expose them. And to grant guidance to those that can be guided.

    I prayed to God! To grant my fellow citizens who died as a result of insurgency, diseases and every other responsibility of the government; heaven. Grant health, endurance and patience to those that are affected one way or another.

    I prayed! I prayed for God to give home to the homeless, voice to the voiceless, health to the sick, wealth to the poor, food to the starving, happiness to the sad and care to the orphan and widow. I prayed to God to provide every Nigerian with anything good they need.

    I prayed! Prayed for peace and stability; honesty amongst the rulers and the ruled.

    I prayed! I prayed for God to expose every hypocrite. For Him to clear the corrupt, the launderer, the criminal, the selfish and the heartless from our path.

    I prayed to God! I keep praying for my blessed country. The land of my ancestors; the land of Queen Amina, Oranmiyan and king Jaja. I asked asked God to protect the home of Azikiwe, Tafawa Balewa and Awolowo.

    I prayed to God to watch over and enrich my fatherland. And most of all, I prayed! I pray! And I will continue to pray for Nigerian unity in Diveristy!

Happy Independence Day my people!!!

Lost virtues by Al-Amin Bugaje

Where is the justice?

When nepotism is surviving

When favoritism is abounding

When autonomy is the principle guiding

When wrongs keep surmounting

When rights are being subverted

Where is the peace?

When hatred dwells in our bosom

When discrimination is termed as awesome

When with everyday comes a new sorrow

When a fight breaks out from a hocus

When harmony seize to exist in our focus

Where is the security?

When where ever you are, you aren't  safe

When your home becomes just another cage

When bombs are a substitute for natural plague

When life is treated like a minimum wage

When peace and justice only exist in a page

When you can't trust even a goddamn sage.

I believe : accepting the immutable and redressing the changeable! By AL-AMIN BUGAJE

It takes a lot of courage to believe

To profess a conviction held deep within

I close my eyes and the breath I feel,

Convinces me that I believe.

That Adam was black 

And racism is still at large.

The inevitable report of an explosive car,

And that people are afraid to go out in the dark.

I believe in the gift of life

In the unending struggle of happy and strife

It takes no much effort to be alive

It takes a deep conviction to live a life

I believe in the power of truth

To never lie even when it doesn't favor you

To give credit where it is due

To accept blame from the lapses ensued

I believe in respecting the old

And catering for the young when it is cold

That a society never succeeds

Where injustice gracefully breeds

I believe in making the plausible best of time

And the prohibition to abstain from wine

In order to get, you have to give

And sometimes it is best if you just forgive

I believe in the reality of the early morning grind

The suffering of my people that I can't feign to be blind

I believe the government is abusing power

And our hearts are so deadened that we can't protest for the lack of power

Sometimes all we can muster is a cry

A silent prayer to follow our sigh

A fake smile is all we can muster

To the harsh reality that life offers

I believe the truth can sometimes be harsh

That my people are intellectually inept and rash

That belief is a thing of the heart

And a fight never gets you that far

I believe that history sometimes forgets

And the real heroes never manifest

It takes courage to call history a lie

And that we are all afraid to die

I believe the sky is not really blue

And love stories are not entirely true

People may greatly differ in what they seek

But the truth... The truth is simply what we believe

If you walk long enough you'll get there

And this adventure, life, is fair

Every effort gets rewarded

And every action is recorded.

True strength is acting weak

And being beaten is a chance to redeem

The best result is between extremes 

And the power to change lies deep within.

I believe in enjoying a good laugh

And comforting a friend when they are sad

In enjoying a simple cup of tea

And cherishing the littlest finest of things

I believe love is the most powerful weapon

But Romeo and Juliet was only a fictional sequel

The greater good seems the driving force withal

But in the end, desire or ambition conquers all.

I believe in a life after death

And an existence before life itself

There is an overall power that sees to our affair

And we are judged accordingly, to what seems fair.

I believe in possibilities that show

There are answers besides a yes and a no.

To all the little things above

I'd say I believe in everything and nothing at all.

BROTHERS BY UMAR ABDULLAHI(Evilgenius)

Of what good are we as brothers,if we can't crave a smile on each other's face?
We can't even stand by each other as stand the pillars of the earth,of
what good are we when we can't support each other?
We seized to laugh with our hearts and close our doors against each
other,the devil laughing hysterically at us until he falls off his
throne.
Now our interests are drifted from collective ones to individual
ones,we are defeated by darkness and yet we don't seek light.
Of what good are we when we can't laugh when our brothers laugh and
grief when they do? Oh my brothers!
All we do now is look for faults in others,criticize them, instead of
picking them up,flying with them.
Once we realize what our brothers mean to us, we ll be unbreakable,
indestructible, together,we defeat the devil and his loyal servants.
I wish not to judge you my brothers but appreciate what you do and get
you on track when you are about to derail.
I pour out my heart to you,not minding what ll happen to me,because I
have found a purpose,to be there for you.

TRIBAL WARS BY UMAR ABDULLAHI(Evilgenius)

We were divided into different races and tribes,not as a barrier between us,
But a unifying force that binds us together,to understand one another,
To be as one without mistreatment of one another,
For true unity lies in diversity,it shows our ability to settle our differences,
The stars may appear distinct from one another,
Some shine better than others,illuminating the heavens,
But they're all regarded as stars with no difference,
So should we regard ourselves as being humans without any difference,
For greatness lies in being one,united we are to stand!

Nigeria! My mother

My father,

With heart as black as coal

And hard as rock.

A thief with claws for fingers.

Slaying the delicate dreams of his children.

A hen that drinks it's eggs,

Crushes it's chicks rather than guide.

My father,

Often I wonder how blind art thou

My brother's corpses drowning in their blood.

My sister's slowly ripped of their dignity

My mother clouded with depression watching with folded arms

My father,

My hero, now an enemy

Slowly crushing the labor of my ancestors.

A hypocrite stimulating instability.

An advocate of death you are!

You murder my siblings

You murder the light in my mother

You murder the dreams of my sisters

You murder the heart of my brothers

You murder the joy in my family 

Shame!

I refuse to die

The love of my mother lives on

My prayers lives on 

By chimamanda Ngozi adichie

Some of my relatives lived for decades in the North, in Kano and Bornu. They spoke fluent Hausa. (One relative taught me, at the age of eight, to count in Hausa.) They made planned visits to Anambra only a few times a year, at Christmas and to attend weddings and funerals. But sometimes, in the wake of violence, they made unplanned visits. I remember the word ‘Maitatsine’ – to my young ears, it had a striking lyricism – and I remember the influx of relatives who had packed a few bags and fled the killings. What struck me about those hasty returns to the East was that my relatives always went back to the North. Until two years ago when my uncle packed up his life of thirty years in Maiduguri and moved to Awka. He was not going back. This time, he felt, was different.

My uncle’s return illustrates a feeling shared by many Nigerians about Boko Haram: a lack of hope, a lack of confidence in our leadership. We are experiencing what is, apart from the Biafran war, the most violent period in our nation’s existence. Like many Nigerians, I am distressed about the students murdered in their school, about the people whose bodies were spattered in Nyanya, about the girls abducted in Chibok. I am furious that politicians are politicizing what should be a collective Nigerian mourning, a shared Nigerian sadness.

And I find our president’s actions and non-actions unbelievably surreal.

I do not want a president who, weeks after girls are abducted from a school and days after brave Nigerians have taken to the streets to protest the abductions, merely announces a fact-finding committee to find the girls.

I want President Jonathan to be consumed, utterly consumed, by the state of insecurity in Nigeria. I want him to make security a priority, and make it seem like a priority. I want a president consumed by the urgency of now, who rejects the false idea of keeping up appearances while the country is mired in terror and uncertainty. I want President Jonathan to know – and let Nigerians know that he knows – that we are not made safer by soldiers checking the boots of cars, that to shut down Abuja in order to hold a World Economic Forum is proof of just how deeply insecure the country is. We have a big problem, and I want the president to act as if we do. I want the president to slice through the muddle of bureaucracy, the morass of ‘how things are done,’ because Boko Haram is unusual and the response to it cannot be business as usual.

I want President Jonathan to communicate with the Nigerian people, to realize that leadership has a strong psychological component: in the face of silence or incoherence, people lose faith. I want him to humanize the lost and the missing, to insist that their individual stories be told, to show that every Nigerian life is precious in the eyes of the Nigerian state.

I want the president to seek new ideas, to act, make decisions, publish the security budget spending, offer incentives, sack people. I want the president to be angrily heartbroken about the murder of so many, to lie sleepless in bed thinking of yet what else can be done, to support and equip the armed forces and the police, but also to insist on humaneness in the midst of terror. I want the president to be equally enraged by soldiers who commit murder, by policemen who beat bomb survivors and mourners. I want the president to stop issuing limp, belated announcements through public officials, to insist on a televised apology from whoever is responsible for lying to Nigerians about the girls having been rescued.

I want President Jonathan to ignore his opponents, to remember that it is the nature of politics, to refuse to respond with defensiveness or guardedness, and to remember that Nigerians are understandably cynical about their government.

I want President Jonathan to seek glory and a place in history, instead of longevity in office. I want him to put aside the forthcoming 2015 elections, and focus today on being the kind of leader Nigeria has never had.

I do not care where the president of Nigeria comes from. Even those Nigerians who focus on ‘where the president is from’ will be won over if they are confronted with good leadership that makes all Nigerians feel included. I have always wanted, as my president, a man or a woman who is intelligent and honest and bold, who is surrounded by truth-telling, competent advisers, whose policies are people-centered, and who wants to lead, who wants to be president, but does not need to – or have to- be president at all costs.

President Jonathan may not fit that bill, but he can approximate it: by being the leader Nigerians desperately need now.

- Chimamanda Adichie is the award winning author of Half of a Yellow Sun, Purple Hibiscus, The Thing Around Your Neck and Americanah