By Muttaqa Yushaú (myushau@gmail.com)
When the heart vibrates,
Eager to descend you,
For your urgent call,
As I glimpse at you
Lured by your Paris outlook
Peaceful, calm like mid night,
Dakar reminds me of Africa,
Where route of penury persists,
Is it for its shared history?
Or the colonial fiat,The elite’s mischief
We remain siblings.
Language barrier made us part
The dream to integrate a mirage
Our hearts, far million miles
ECOWAS! CEDEAO!
The challenge is beforehand.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Sunday, August 9, 2009
FAREWELL
(A poem dedicated to JSS3A & SS1 by JSS2A students of Darul Arkam College, Kano, Nigeria )
For the jokes we have shared together,
We laughed, we played, and we fought.
And now you are leaving, farewell we say.
For the time we have spent together,
Chatting, clapping, hugging, and smiling.
And now you are leaving, farewell we say.
We are on intimate terms, our neighbours.
We have shared some secrets together,
And now you are leaving, farewell we say.
For the tears that is coming together,
Going here and there on our cheeks,
For your leaving, farewell we say.
For the stories that we have heard together,
And for the tears of sorrow which filled our
Hearts, for your leaving, farewell we say.
For all the beautiful moments
We have spent together
This poem I dedicated to you
Whole heartedly I say farewell to you
...."Sai wata rana" WE SAY.
ZAINAB ABDULLAHI NASHE (JSS2A)
For the jokes we have shared together,
We laughed, we played, and we fought.
And now you are leaving, farewell we say.
For the time we have spent together,
Chatting, clapping, hugging, and smiling.
And now you are leaving, farewell we say.
We are on intimate terms, our neighbours.
We have shared some secrets together,
And now you are leaving, farewell we say.
For the tears that is coming together,
Going here and there on our cheeks,
For your leaving, farewell we say.
For the stories that we have heard together,
And for the tears of sorrow which filled our
Hearts, for your leaving, farewell we say.
For all the beautiful moments
We have spent together
This poem I dedicated to you
Whole heartedly I say farewell to you
...."Sai wata rana" WE SAY.
ZAINAB ABDULLAHI NASHE (JSS2A)
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Binta Salma Mohammed (1969-2009): A tribute
I don’t know where to start. We lost Malama Binta as she is popularly known by writers Kano. The last time I went to visit her, she was very hopeful that she will recover and me too. Although I was deeply troubled by her condition, I was prayerful that when she recovers, we shall continue with any of our many projects, we have many literary projects, just like those I have with her husband Ibrahim Sheme, he calls them ‘one of those projects’ Although we cannot stop her death, we are saddened by her demise. She was a nice person, a brilliant writer, a generous mother and inspiring teacher. Allah ka jikan Binta Salma Mohammed.
I first met Binta sometimes in 1995 after I joined the services of Bayero University Kano as an Assistant Lecturer. My good friend (then) Adamu Idris Tanko and I were into writing and ANA activities. In our search for fellow writers we stumble upon Binta and from then on we became not only fellows but almost as brothers and sister. We became her brothers, she became our sister. We move together all the time, we eat together, we close work together because then we all live off campus. Tanko has a yellow Toyota Corolla we named ‘old faithful’, he drops her at her home in NNDC quarters and I drop at Gadon Kaya while he drives to Jakara where he lives. We attend her lectures, she attends ours, she attends our seminars we attend theirs. She almost became a Geographer. When we went to the Jos Plateau with her on our annual field course, she walked with us to Pankshin scarpland, Kerang Volcanic Plug, Kurra falls and was greatly inspired and wrote a number of beautiful poems. In fact, it was our influence that decided the title of her first published collection of poems ‘Contours of Life’.
In 1997, when ANA Kano proposed to start its bilingual creative writer’s fora, it was Binta that I turned to for support and advice. While I contacted (then) Dr Saleh Abdu about the possibility of starting Bayero Poetry Society which was suggested by Rajiv Bendre (then director of the British Council, Kano), Binta and I were discussing the possibility of starting a joint forum between ANA Kano and the Department of English and European Languages (then) of the BUK. She was able to convince her department to partner with ANA to submit a proposal to the British Council. Two of us wrote it and sign, she representing their department, I representing ANA, and we became the co-founders and first co-ordinators of the now famous Creative Writer Forum. I can remember vividly how it all began. The first meeting has few of us, Binta, Maigari Ahmed Bichi (then Kano State Deputy Librarian) Tanko and me. We met and read to ourselves what we had. Subsequently we continue to meet on monthly basis, sometimes only three of us, but we still read to each other, after about six months, we were able to attract our friends, students and colleagues and by September 1998, we were a full house. All of us will remember and very much appreciate her contributions to the monthly proceedings.
Binta continued to mentor young poets like Ismail Bala Garba, Aisha Zakari, Zaharadden Kalla Muhammad Kabir Muhammad, Badsha Muktar, Aliyu Abubakar, Umma Aliyu, and a host of others. We attend ANA conventions together and one day while going to Abuja, we branched at Kaduna where we met with Sheme and travelled together to the convention. On the car we started writing a poem which continue to grow as each of us (Tanko, Binta, Malumfashi, Sheme and I) contributed. It was published on New Nigeria’s WriteStuff. It as after that meeting with Sheme a new chemistry was started. We realised that someone is going to rob us. But because he was one of us, when he said to me “I am interested” I said try your luck, he did and he took her hand into matrimony. I can remember that we had a special reading at Royal Tropicana hotel. I compiled the poems and give them a title Contours and Potions combining their two books ‘Contours of Life’ and Sheme’s “Malam’s Potion”‘ Some of the poems are presented below:
‘Contours and Potions’
Edited by Yusuf Adamu
Creative He & She
Yusuf Adamu
Poetically they declared
‘I think I love you’
Like FICTION it seem
To the he & she
Meeting like a SHORT STORY
Making it appear like a PLAY
Stranger than FICTION
It finally became
The creative Sheme
Has taken the Creative Binta
Into a literary voyage
With a social face
A romantic soul
Let’s wait and see
What kind of children that will be
Whether they be just smiling babies
Or wordy babies or both
Muna murna
April 8, 2000 Gandun Albasa
Contours of Life
Adamu Idris Tanko
Contours of life
That’s from the poet’s bride
Yes she caught it right
She caught his
Malam’s portion in good time
Indeed a hopeful beauty
He the gentle kind
I ever know
I pray for a peaceful
Home, a blissful
One for both of you
So many golden seeds
The soil is fertile now
And the season is rainy too
Great you ‘re through
With the downs of life
Now the golden moment begins
8/4/2000 Royal Tropicana Hotel
SALAMATU
Isa Ibrahim
“Love is the fate which draws
Two people together”
So she said in her Contours
And marriage?
“that fate that seals semblance”
So she might say
As her fate brings not
A shame but Sheme
And not a sigh but Salma.
What a well-paired couple!
Literati Knot
Nura Ahmad
(for Sheme & Salma on their wedding day 8th April 2000)
It’s not a meet’s
between egg and stone
Rather between paper and pen
Whither the pen without paper
Paper without pen?
What a literati knot
The Bride on her wedding Day
Isma’ila Bala Garba
Poetry so bold like April Sun
It flashes across the room
A ball of light in the night
Leaving behind a trail of words:
Confetti of poems showers on every head
It patches every face
Like a perpetual smile
Of a bride on her wedding day
It whirls loudly in the room
And we all rise up chanting
Singing
Laughing
Oh, marriage is nothing
But the poetry of the mind
Being read at
A wedding day
Happy Wedlock
Obinna Ezenwanne
Beauty accompanied Brains.
Icon of Knowledge and feminity
Nourishing us-comforted in our gains
Thawing up our icy mentality
An inspiring you are our minds
The D-Day
Aisha Usman Bugaje
I have to be there
I got to be there
Sun and rain will not stop me
Neither do chemistry
The wedding of the millennium
The literary union
I cannot afford to miss
The charting and laughing
The eating and drinking
The congratulations of
Friends and well wishers
I have to be part
Part of the celeberation
8/4/2000.
TWO OF A KIND
John Jekpe
Wedding bells for a duo tolls
Two of a literary kind they are
The malam’s Potion reacts
With the Contours of life
“Richard Burton Weds ‘Liz Taylor”
An “Hassan-Tom” marries “Fatima Usara”
A dramatist takes on a poetess
To plaugh and to plunder?
To date and dirt
Almighty has joined
Woe unto him who undo
Union of literary titans
OUR BINTA
Kabiru Umar Gano
Our fear, our pride
Our jewel in the dust
Our choice
Our poetess
Our love
Our Bint
The sea you light
The heart you light
The throat you clear, are you the tea?
This day forever
Ogbu S. Ode
This day your beauty
Has found a home
This day your joy forever
Is born
This day I wish
You all I want
This day I give nothing
But dry leaves, dead wood
And words
But
This day, these are to me
Mightier than the General’s smite
This day was my first, I ask
To share elegance
This day, this scribbling nightingale
Perched on Sheme
This day, will mean HAPPINESS
For you BINTA and SHEME evermore
As the ALMIGHTY GOD hear us
A LOVE FULFILLED
Jibrin Baba Ndace
Today, Beauty, Intelligence
Nobility, Tolerance, Aura
Melting into a soul
Today a soul is reaching
Out to a soul
Today, a spirit is reaching
Out to a spirit
Today, she is drawn to
Him like a bee to a flower
Today, innocent beauty,
Unique beauty, holy beauty
Is bewitched by a soul
Today, an Oasis in the desert
Is discovered by a thirsting traveller
Today, the beauty spot of the
Jungle is discovered by a
Brave hunter
Today, a healthy palm tree
Is discovered by an acute
Observer
Today, a pleasure dome is
Discovered by a conquering emperor
Today, love is manifestly
Consummated
A NIGHT TO THE WEDDING DAY
(for Binta & Sheme)
by
Aisha Zakari
Fourteen hours to the wedding
It was then I reached a painful decision
That is when I made a final decision
After long duration of prayers and analysis
After hectic hours of long discussion
After painful discussions
Now my thinking is at its zenith
No going back I promise myself
Binta’a wedding is such a marking stone
In her life and in my life
On her part ‘cos its her wedding day
On my part ‘cos I reached certain decision
Decision of what I really want
I stretch my hands for I am taking it
It has been waiting for me for quite sometime
Now I am here to claim it as mine
I thank the lord for showing it to me before it is late
I bow down to the Most High for making it mine
BEHIND THE VEIL
IBRAHIM DAUDA ALI
BEYOND PROFANITY
UNSPOKEN REALITY
BEHIND MORTALITY
UNWRITTEN ACTUALITY
CANT EXPLAIN
ALOOF THE MUNDANE
CAN EXPERIENCE
WITHIN THE MUNDANE
BEHIND THE VEIL
BENEATH THE UNVEIL
GOLDREN SCROLLS
GLOWING SOULS
WISDOM NAY NUDE
WHELM TO THE TIMULTITUDE
I am unable to publish this collection until this day, but am glad that I kept it for all this while. During her life time we shared knowledge and creativity and I always respect her as a person because of her humility, open mind, friendship, maturity, modesty, chastity, purity, brilliance, consideration, and humanity.
When ANA Kano members visited her a few days before she left for Cairo, I was introducing some of the members to her and then introduce her to some of them saying ‘kin san wadannan sababbi ne’ she smiled and said to me ´Yaya Yusuf (as she fondly call me) most of the new members do not know me, especially those who write in Hausa’ we joked about her only short story in Hausa which she wrote in 1998, about the death of a head of state, which she said we discouraged her from publishing, saying, it was her only work in Hausa language. We enjoyed visiting her as a group and she was so happy to see us. It was a memorable visit. We prayed for her and present some gift from the Association.
When I received the news of her demise, I was confused and saddened, so was and is everyone who knew her. We posted the news on the writer’s yahoo groups (josana and dandalin marubuta). Instantly members send their condolences, some called me and hundreds emailed and text Ibrahim Sheme, her husband. I produced a selection from josana below;
Salam,May the Almighty lord ease and relief her soul of this world's burden. Shower her with bliss, forgive her and bestow her eternal peace ameen.May her husband, Dr. Sheme, her three children, her family and friends be blessed with the fortitude to bear the loss ameen.When our time comes may we go in peace and be remembered as those members of the society who works hard and be positively productive like her ameen.Aisha Zakari
Yusuf,Pls extend my heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of Binta. She was one of those who genuinely love the arts and displayed so much to the best of her abilities. I can’t recall all the great and memorable encounters I have had with her: she remains very fresh and evergreen as an honourable woman.
Remi Raji
Dear Ibrahim, pls accept my condolence. Allah gave and Allah takes. Who are we to question the timing, or even the decision. May the departed receive pardon and the coveted prize of paradise. Amin.
AHMED MAIWADA
I am sincerely sorry to learn of Binta's passing. We were together in a writers' workshop years ago (I believe 1995?), and we never met again. I didn't even know she was married to Sheme, like Binta a distinguished friend I came to know many years later. My heartfelt condolences go to her husband Ibrahim Sheme, their children, and their entire family members. May Allah in His infinite mercy grant her eternal rest.
Obiwu
We have lost a gem, a friend, a mother, a wife, a teacher, a mentor, a poetess, a generous human being and a dear colleague. What we must do is to continue to pray for her and her kids. We hope, Sheme will ensure that all her unpublished works are published and as fellow writers ensure that we keep her memory alive. I will finally close with one of her poems I love very much.
GRANT, GOD
Grant, God
A clear release from pain
From enemy and from those that envy
And destroy while they build success
Over our misfortunes
Grant, too, friendship and love
Grant, God
A release from this anguished cry
From this loneliness and helplessness
From wild winds crying out against us
From life’s stillness and stones without juice
From robbers who strip us of our laughter
I first met Binta sometimes in 1995 after I joined the services of Bayero University Kano as an Assistant Lecturer. My good friend (then) Adamu Idris Tanko and I were into writing and ANA activities. In our search for fellow writers we stumble upon Binta and from then on we became not only fellows but almost as brothers and sister. We became her brothers, she became our sister. We move together all the time, we eat together, we close work together because then we all live off campus. Tanko has a yellow Toyota Corolla we named ‘old faithful’, he drops her at her home in NNDC quarters and I drop at Gadon Kaya while he drives to Jakara where he lives. We attend her lectures, she attends ours, she attends our seminars we attend theirs. She almost became a Geographer. When we went to the Jos Plateau with her on our annual field course, she walked with us to Pankshin scarpland, Kerang Volcanic Plug, Kurra falls and was greatly inspired and wrote a number of beautiful poems. In fact, it was our influence that decided the title of her first published collection of poems ‘Contours of Life’.
In 1997, when ANA Kano proposed to start its bilingual creative writer’s fora, it was Binta that I turned to for support and advice. While I contacted (then) Dr Saleh Abdu about the possibility of starting Bayero Poetry Society which was suggested by Rajiv Bendre (then director of the British Council, Kano), Binta and I were discussing the possibility of starting a joint forum between ANA Kano and the Department of English and European Languages (then) of the BUK. She was able to convince her department to partner with ANA to submit a proposal to the British Council. Two of us wrote it and sign, she representing their department, I representing ANA, and we became the co-founders and first co-ordinators of the now famous Creative Writer Forum. I can remember vividly how it all began. The first meeting has few of us, Binta, Maigari Ahmed Bichi (then Kano State Deputy Librarian) Tanko and me. We met and read to ourselves what we had. Subsequently we continue to meet on monthly basis, sometimes only three of us, but we still read to each other, after about six months, we were able to attract our friends, students and colleagues and by September 1998, we were a full house. All of us will remember and very much appreciate her contributions to the monthly proceedings.
Binta continued to mentor young poets like Ismail Bala Garba, Aisha Zakari, Zaharadden Kalla Muhammad Kabir Muhammad, Badsha Muktar, Aliyu Abubakar, Umma Aliyu, and a host of others. We attend ANA conventions together and one day while going to Abuja, we branched at Kaduna where we met with Sheme and travelled together to the convention. On the car we started writing a poem which continue to grow as each of us (Tanko, Binta, Malumfashi, Sheme and I) contributed. It was published on New Nigeria’s WriteStuff. It as after that meeting with Sheme a new chemistry was started. We realised that someone is going to rob us. But because he was one of us, when he said to me “I am interested” I said try your luck, he did and he took her hand into matrimony. I can remember that we had a special reading at Royal Tropicana hotel. I compiled the poems and give them a title Contours and Potions combining their two books ‘Contours of Life’ and Sheme’s “Malam’s Potion”‘ Some of the poems are presented below:
‘Contours and Potions’
Edited by Yusuf Adamu
Creative He & She
Yusuf Adamu
Poetically they declared
‘I think I love you’
Like FICTION it seem
To the he & she
Meeting like a SHORT STORY
Making it appear like a PLAY
Stranger than FICTION
It finally became
The creative Sheme
Has taken the Creative Binta
Into a literary voyage
With a social face
A romantic soul
Let’s wait and see
What kind of children that will be
Whether they be just smiling babies
Or wordy babies or both
Muna murna
April 8, 2000 Gandun Albasa
Contours of Life
Adamu Idris Tanko
Contours of life
That’s from the poet’s bride
Yes she caught it right
She caught his
Malam’s portion in good time
Indeed a hopeful beauty
He the gentle kind
I ever know
I pray for a peaceful
Home, a blissful
One for both of you
So many golden seeds
The soil is fertile now
And the season is rainy too
Great you ‘re through
With the downs of life
Now the golden moment begins
8/4/2000 Royal Tropicana Hotel
SALAMATU
Isa Ibrahim
“Love is the fate which draws
Two people together”
So she said in her Contours
And marriage?
“that fate that seals semblance”
So she might say
As her fate brings not
A shame but Sheme
And not a sigh but Salma.
What a well-paired couple!
Literati Knot
Nura Ahmad
(for Sheme & Salma on their wedding day 8th April 2000)
It’s not a meet’s
between egg and stone
Rather between paper and pen
Whither the pen without paper
Paper without pen?
What a literati knot
The Bride on her wedding Day
Isma’ila Bala Garba
Poetry so bold like April Sun
It flashes across the room
A ball of light in the night
Leaving behind a trail of words:
Confetti of poems showers on every head
It patches every face
Like a perpetual smile
Of a bride on her wedding day
It whirls loudly in the room
And we all rise up chanting
Singing
Laughing
Oh, marriage is nothing
But the poetry of the mind
Being read at
A wedding day
Happy Wedlock
Obinna Ezenwanne
Beauty accompanied Brains.
Icon of Knowledge and feminity
Nourishing us-comforted in our gains
Thawing up our icy mentality
An inspiring you are our minds
The D-Day
Aisha Usman Bugaje
I have to be there
I got to be there
Sun and rain will not stop me
Neither do chemistry
The wedding of the millennium
The literary union
I cannot afford to miss
The charting and laughing
The eating and drinking
The congratulations of
Friends and well wishers
I have to be part
Part of the celeberation
8/4/2000.
TWO OF A KIND
John Jekpe
Wedding bells for a duo tolls
Two of a literary kind they are
The malam’s Potion reacts
With the Contours of life
“Richard Burton Weds ‘Liz Taylor”
An “Hassan-Tom” marries “Fatima Usara”
A dramatist takes on a poetess
To plaugh and to plunder?
To date and dirt
Almighty has joined
Woe unto him who undo
Union of literary titans
OUR BINTA
Kabiru Umar Gano
Our fear, our pride
Our jewel in the dust
Our choice
Our poetess
Our love
Our Bint
The sea you light
The heart you light
The throat you clear, are you the tea?
This day forever
Ogbu S. Ode
This day your beauty
Has found a home
This day your joy forever
Is born
This day I wish
You all I want
This day I give nothing
But dry leaves, dead wood
And words
But
This day, these are to me
Mightier than the General’s smite
This day was my first, I ask
To share elegance
This day, this scribbling nightingale
Perched on Sheme
This day, will mean HAPPINESS
For you BINTA and SHEME evermore
As the ALMIGHTY GOD hear us
A LOVE FULFILLED
Jibrin Baba Ndace
Today, Beauty, Intelligence
Nobility, Tolerance, Aura
Melting into a soul
Today a soul is reaching
Out to a soul
Today, a spirit is reaching
Out to a spirit
Today, she is drawn to
Him like a bee to a flower
Today, innocent beauty,
Unique beauty, holy beauty
Is bewitched by a soul
Today, an Oasis in the desert
Is discovered by a thirsting traveller
Today, the beauty spot of the
Jungle is discovered by a
Brave hunter
Today, a healthy palm tree
Is discovered by an acute
Observer
Today, a pleasure dome is
Discovered by a conquering emperor
Today, love is manifestly
Consummated
A NIGHT TO THE WEDDING DAY
(for Binta & Sheme)
by
Aisha Zakari
Fourteen hours to the wedding
It was then I reached a painful decision
That is when I made a final decision
After long duration of prayers and analysis
After hectic hours of long discussion
After painful discussions
Now my thinking is at its zenith
No going back I promise myself
Binta’a wedding is such a marking stone
In her life and in my life
On her part ‘cos its her wedding day
On my part ‘cos I reached certain decision
Decision of what I really want
I stretch my hands for I am taking it
It has been waiting for me for quite sometime
Now I am here to claim it as mine
I thank the lord for showing it to me before it is late
I bow down to the Most High for making it mine
BEHIND THE VEIL
IBRAHIM DAUDA ALI
BEYOND PROFANITY
UNSPOKEN REALITY
BEHIND MORTALITY
UNWRITTEN ACTUALITY
CANT EXPLAIN
ALOOF THE MUNDANE
CAN EXPERIENCE
WITHIN THE MUNDANE
BEHIND THE VEIL
BENEATH THE UNVEIL
GOLDREN SCROLLS
GLOWING SOULS
WISDOM NAY NUDE
WHELM TO THE TIMULTITUDE
I am unable to publish this collection until this day, but am glad that I kept it for all this while. During her life time we shared knowledge and creativity and I always respect her as a person because of her humility, open mind, friendship, maturity, modesty, chastity, purity, brilliance, consideration, and humanity.
When ANA Kano members visited her a few days before she left for Cairo, I was introducing some of the members to her and then introduce her to some of them saying ‘kin san wadannan sababbi ne’ she smiled and said to me ´Yaya Yusuf (as she fondly call me) most of the new members do not know me, especially those who write in Hausa’ we joked about her only short story in Hausa which she wrote in 1998, about the death of a head of state, which she said we discouraged her from publishing, saying, it was her only work in Hausa language. We enjoyed visiting her as a group and she was so happy to see us. It was a memorable visit. We prayed for her and present some gift from the Association.
When I received the news of her demise, I was confused and saddened, so was and is everyone who knew her. We posted the news on the writer’s yahoo groups (josana and dandalin marubuta). Instantly members send their condolences, some called me and hundreds emailed and text Ibrahim Sheme, her husband. I produced a selection from josana below;
Salam,May the Almighty lord ease and relief her soul of this world's burden. Shower her with bliss, forgive her and bestow her eternal peace ameen.May her husband, Dr. Sheme, her three children, her family and friends be blessed with the fortitude to bear the loss ameen.When our time comes may we go in peace and be remembered as those members of the society who works hard and be positively productive like her ameen.Aisha Zakari
Yusuf,Pls extend my heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of Binta. She was one of those who genuinely love the arts and displayed so much to the best of her abilities. I can’t recall all the great and memorable encounters I have had with her: she remains very fresh and evergreen as an honourable woman.
Remi Raji
Dear Ibrahim, pls accept my condolence. Allah gave and Allah takes. Who are we to question the timing, or even the decision. May the departed receive pardon and the coveted prize of paradise. Amin.
AHMED MAIWADA
I am sincerely sorry to learn of Binta's passing. We were together in a writers' workshop years ago (I believe 1995?), and we never met again. I didn't even know she was married to Sheme, like Binta a distinguished friend I came to know many years later. My heartfelt condolences go to her husband Ibrahim Sheme, their children, and their entire family members. May Allah in His infinite mercy grant her eternal rest.
Obiwu
We have lost a gem, a friend, a mother, a wife, a teacher, a mentor, a poetess, a generous human being and a dear colleague. What we must do is to continue to pray for her and her kids. We hope, Sheme will ensure that all her unpublished works are published and as fellow writers ensure that we keep her memory alive. I will finally close with one of her poems I love very much.
GRANT, GOD
Grant, God
A clear release from pain
From enemy and from those that envy
And destroy while they build success
Over our misfortunes
Grant, too, friendship and love
Grant, God
A release from this anguished cry
From this loneliness and helplessness
From wild winds crying out against us
From life’s stillness and stones without juice
From robbers who strip us of our laughter
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Yearning to be a poet
I yearn to be a poet
Strung on letters to form words
To follow like a stream
Like the poets does
When I read a poem
I marvel in amazement and wonderment
On how letters ride on to words
To give meaning and peace
As you read on all through
Yet could not fathom
How they do it all
Yet yearn to be a poet
So as to capture moments in time
Translate moments in words
For mind and eyes to remember
How do they do it?
Despite the wonderment
I still yearn to be a poet
And one day I shall be a poet.
Zaynab Tukur
Strung on letters to form words
To follow like a stream
Like the poets does
When I read a poem
I marvel in amazement and wonderment
On how letters ride on to words
To give meaning and peace
As you read on all through
Yet could not fathom
How they do it all
Yet yearn to be a poet
So as to capture moments in time
Translate moments in words
For mind and eyes to remember
How do they do it?
Despite the wonderment
I still yearn to be a poet
And one day I shall be a poet.
Zaynab Tukur
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
ANA Kano Elects New Executives
The ANA Kano AGM/Elections took place at the Murtala Muhammed Library Kano on Sunday March 1 2009.
The event which was well attended by Kano ANA members, two former ANA Kano Chairmen and Dr Bala Muhammed who is one of the Patrons took off about 12 noon.
After all the reports had been presented, the house agreed that since the current Exco had already exceeded its official term of two years by one year,a Caretaker Committee be put into place for the next one year.
Subsequently, the following members were elected into the Caretaker Committee;
1. Dr Yusuf Adamu....... .. .Chairman
2. Ismail B. Garba ........... Vice Chairman
3. Zaraddeen I Kalla....... ... Secretary
4. Zulkifilu Dakata ........... Asst Secretary
5. Muhammad Lawal Barista..... ..... Fin Secretary
6. Aminu Sadisu Giginyu Treasurer
7. Kabiru Yusuf Anka PRO Hausa
8. Muhammed B Sango PRO English
9. Sa'adatu Baba Ahmed Legal Adviser
10.Rabi Talle Maifata Welfare
11. Malam Lawal Giginyu Auditor 1
12.Auwalu Garba Danbarno Auditor 2
13. Ado Ahmed Gidandabino Ex Officio.
14. Fauziyya D Suleiman Non Official
15. Abdullahi Yaron Malam Non Official
16. Ilyasu Umar Non Official
The new Caretaker Committee which will be in office till March 2010, will be expected to carry out an accredittation of members and set up the machinery for conducting a new election in 2010.
The committee is also expected to bring together all the bickering parties in the Chapter and restore ANA Kano to its past glory.
COMMENTS;
1. Members of the CC should not lose tract of what they are supposed to do. Their duty is to heal all wounds in the Chapter rather than forment new ones.
2. They should remember that they are just Members of the CC and not real Exco and so, should know their limits.
3. They should try and carry everyone along and respect the past Exco.
4. The former Exco should try and cooperate with the committee and give them all the necessary assistance.
5. ANA Kano should be commended for the peaceful manner and maturity with which they were able to resolve their differences.
Maryam Ali Ali, ANA National Financial Secretary.
Representative of the ANA National Exco at the AGM.
The event which was well attended by Kano ANA members, two former ANA Kano Chairmen and Dr Bala Muhammed who is one of the Patrons took off about 12 noon.
After all the reports had been presented, the house agreed that since the current Exco had already exceeded its official term of two years by one year,a Caretaker Committee be put into place for the next one year.
Subsequently, the following members were elected into the Caretaker Committee;
1. Dr Yusuf Adamu....... .. .Chairman
2. Ismail B. Garba ........... Vice Chairman
3. Zaraddeen I Kalla....... ... Secretary
4. Zulkifilu Dakata ........... Asst Secretary
5. Muhammad Lawal Barista..... ..... Fin Secretary
6. Aminu Sadisu Giginyu Treasurer
7. Kabiru Yusuf Anka PRO Hausa
8. Muhammed B Sango PRO English
9. Sa'adatu Baba Ahmed Legal Adviser
10.Rabi Talle Maifata Welfare
11. Malam Lawal Giginyu Auditor 1
12.Auwalu Garba Danbarno Auditor 2
13. Ado Ahmed Gidandabino Ex Officio.
14. Fauziyya D Suleiman Non Official
15. Abdullahi Yaron Malam Non Official
16. Ilyasu Umar Non Official
The new Caretaker Committee which will be in office till March 2010, will be expected to carry out an accredittation of members and set up the machinery for conducting a new election in 2010.
The committee is also expected to bring together all the bickering parties in the Chapter and restore ANA Kano to its past glory.
COMMENTS;
1. Members of the CC should not lose tract of what they are supposed to do. Their duty is to heal all wounds in the Chapter rather than forment new ones.
2. They should remember that they are just Members of the CC and not real Exco and so, should know their limits.
3. They should try and carry everyone along and respect the past Exco.
4. The former Exco should try and cooperate with the committee and give them all the necessary assistance.
5. ANA Kano should be commended for the peaceful manner and maturity with which they were able to resolve their differences.
Maryam Ali Ali, ANA National Financial Secretary.
Representative of the ANA National Exco at the AGM.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
BLOODBATH IN JOS
Your natural landscapes are painted red again
Your cool and fresh weather heated by hatred
Your once open hands of brotherhood amputated
Your loving heart for love mutilated
Only hatred is sprouting from your once green soil
You have massacred women and children
As your leaders shamelessly watch with an approval nod
Their hands are full of blood of the innocents
Oh Jos! Oh Jos!! What befell you?
I heard that you hate settlers
But if I may ask the older settlers of the Plateau
Where were they when the settlers came?
Where were they when they settled?
Where were they when the settled toiled robustly at the mines?
Where were they when they built your so-called capital?
Were indigenes on the hills busy drinking burkutu?
I heard that you are becoming puritanical
I heard that what you want is a purely Christian State
Where no other creed or belief shall flourish
Could you be self sufficient in a nation of multiple faiths?
Can you afford to be isolated by other Nigerians who share other faiths?
The nation is sensing the shadow of puritanical paganism looming
The professed faith is loosing its clasp of your hearts
The love preached by Christ is gradually being battered by hatred
Oh Jos! You cannot go on like this
Those heartless butchers must be brought to book
And the spirit of those murdered shall keep them awake for eternity
Never again! The settlers have spoken!
December 13, 2008
© Yusuf Adamu 2008
Saturday, December 6, 2008
THE CARNAGE ON THE PLATEAU
The Devil walked up and down,
Thinking deeply, reflecting,
On where best to land,
And so he studied the list,
Of possible places and decided at last
In his pestiferous way, to land on the Plateau.
He looked around, along with a band of his fallen angels,
At the cheerful faces of the people,
Walking around with their cherished ambitions
And decided to select among them,
Who best to anoint with his deadly fingers,
He dicided at last, to anoint the people living on the Plateau.
He orchestrated the chaos, and perpetrated it
At its cresendo, men, women and children,
Where all running up and down,
In a frenzied situation, and peace was then
A strange word, in the ears and minds
Of the people living on the Plateau.
People kept scrambling, hiding,
Prisoners they turned themselves, in their houses,
Eyes dazed with horror, some crouched in bushes, and in ditches,
Neck outstretched, they looked and corked
Their ears, only to scrambled at the cry of ''they are coming!''
Pouncing on the people living on the plateau.
And when all was over, after six days from,
That fateful Friday that has no weekend,
The seventh of September it was, a sunny day,
"Perfect" said the devil, in his scurrilous way "Well, almost perfect,"
He observed, as he studied the anguished faces,
And counted the heap up bones of the people living on Plateau.
As far as he is concerned,
It was an odyssey. But it was in fact
A carnage. For he did turned his back,
Along with his fallen angels, and retired to the hills,
Nay, to the dormant volcanoes, happy with himself,
With this wrapped up anguish, death and despair,
He brought as his 'Godly Seasons' Gift to the people living on the Plateau.
Men walked around, and women too,
Picking the broken pieces of their
Once happy, prosperous and peaceful
Heritage. With scowling faces they now
Looked at the once cheerful faces of thier neigbors and friends
The people living on the Plateau.
"Happy survival'' is now the greetings
That replaced the "hello" and ''good morning''
That was only yesterday, the salutations
That graced the lips of the joyous people,
The fun loving, friendly and ever busy people,
The good people living on the Plateau.
It was indeed a sad September
And October, November and December
But who will bring back that lost Amethyst
Called Peace that was snatched away so suddenly
From the people living on the Plateau?
© MARYAM ALI ALI, 2009
(I wrote this poem after the September 2001 Jos massacre, and it was published in the JOSANA anthology Echoes of The Rock. We thought we have seen the end of it, but it appears that the devil was still lurking around)
Thinking deeply, reflecting,
On where best to land,
And so he studied the list,
Of possible places and decided at last
In his pestiferous way, to land on the Plateau.
He looked around, along with a band of his fallen angels,
At the cheerful faces of the people,
Walking around with their cherished ambitions
And decided to select among them,
Who best to anoint with his deadly fingers,
He dicided at last, to anoint the people living on the Plateau.
He orchestrated the chaos, and perpetrated it
At its cresendo, men, women and children,
Where all running up and down,
In a frenzied situation, and peace was then
A strange word, in the ears and minds
Of the people living on the Plateau.
People kept scrambling, hiding,
Prisoners they turned themselves, in their houses,
Eyes dazed with horror, some crouched in bushes, and in ditches,
Neck outstretched, they looked and corked
Their ears, only to scrambled at the cry of ''they are coming!''
Pouncing on the people living on the plateau.
And when all was over, after six days from,
That fateful Friday that has no weekend,
The seventh of September it was, a sunny day,
"Perfect" said the devil, in his scurrilous way "Well, almost perfect,"
He observed, as he studied the anguished faces,
And counted the heap up bones of the people living on Plateau.
As far as he is concerned,
It was an odyssey. But it was in fact
A carnage. For he did turned his back,
Along with his fallen angels, and retired to the hills,
Nay, to the dormant volcanoes, happy with himself,
With this wrapped up anguish, death and despair,
He brought as his 'Godly Seasons' Gift to the people living on the Plateau.
Men walked around, and women too,
Picking the broken pieces of their
Once happy, prosperous and peaceful
Heritage. With scowling faces they now
Looked at the once cheerful faces of thier neigbors and friends
The people living on the Plateau.
"Happy survival'' is now the greetings
That replaced the "hello" and ''good morning''
That was only yesterday, the salutations
That graced the lips of the joyous people,
The fun loving, friendly and ever busy people,
The good people living on the Plateau.
It was indeed a sad September
And October, November and December
But who will bring back that lost Amethyst
Called Peace that was snatched away so suddenly
From the people living on the Plateau?
© MARYAM ALI ALI, 2009
(I wrote this poem after the September 2001 Jos massacre, and it was published in the JOSANA anthology Echoes of The Rock. We thought we have seen the end of it, but it appears that the devil was still lurking around)
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