Admin|24 February 2016|6:05am
In his usual art of using poetry to articulate his thoughts and convey his message, the former Deputy Speaker of the Cross River State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Orok Duke, has expressed the squalid condition the Niger Delta region is as a result of the exploration of the black gold, crude oil.
Duke makes the point that, the Niger Delta has been ripped off its resources but still have nothing to show. The last line: '…The partridge still hatches the eggs it never laid.', which in my thinking is referring to the Federal government (partridge) and eggs(crude oil), best describes the mood.
*Niger Delta
(Romancing with Death)
This is the Golden Goose,
Not from the Arabian Nights;
It is the Jewel crude,
Not of the Nile,
But of the Niger Delta:
Where the night mimics the day
And constantly glows with foul flavour
Seasoned by the wasted gas.
Earth is torn asunder,
Death dines on her naked breasts and plunders.
They captured our air
And spewed poison into our streams,
With no more fishermen,
Farming has now become a myth.
The hunters of our land
Are engulfed by the fragrance of death.
They pray that we won’t forget
This fortune that brought regret.
Horrors by trespassers abound,
Tenants of the squalid land are remote,
Shrills from troubled souls that are gone
Remind us that we are alone:
The acid rain,
Livelihood lost,
All to the black gold.
Our playgrounds no more host plays
And our deities are recluses in our shrines.
As the clouds fly past the crying moon-
The partridge still hatches the eggs it never laid.
Orok Otu Duke
@ Ellipses (2016)
