The Servitude Called NYSC

In submission I yielded to the clarion call,

You clothed me in drills and labour

The rigour akin to the harsh whip of our slave masters.

Soldiers, camp commandant, platoon officers

All made me weep in regret.

I was issued a meal ticket

Malnourished from food with sparse ingredients

Food meant for prisoners on death row

Perhaps, even, bad enough to wake the dead.

My settlement was a beehive of activities;

Filled with people; teaching, smoking and lounging.

I took solace in the body of village girls

Randomly occupying the honeypot between their legs.

What a pity !

I also sought satisfaction in the bosoms of local girls.

As I agonized that I wasted my time and energy on meaningless tasks,

Like birds beating their wings,

Against the bars of a cage, in a struggle for freedom.

In the end, I was greeted with a paper;

My name was stamped boldly on it

It resembled a certificate

Which signified my freedom

From the chains of modern slavery.

I took it with mixed feelings

Danced away my sorrows into the winds

Filled with happiness, freedom and prospects.

Even the musicians dropped their instruments

To applaud.

By Adetayo Omotoyosi Adeolu
 omotoyorsiiadeolu@gmail.com

To My Unborn Children

Dear Obianuju and Wemimo, 

I know you really want to come into this world, but I do not want you to suffer for my wrongs. I see friends having fun, from having fun they break up, I don't want such for myself. 


See I am trying to build a life for you and the woman I will call my wife. I know someday I will be a father, I am sure by then your mother will be ready. 

Dear Obianuju, you are a girl do not join the class of slay queens, you should make sure you slay academically, financially, morally, mentally and spiritually. Do not sell your body to any man, respect your body as a temple of God. There is still pride in virginity, free your mind from those charlatans who see virginity as nothing but old and not a cherished virtue. 

Obianuju, I promise to get you a good mother, who will bring you up in a Godly way. A mother, who will guide you spiritually and teach you all you need to know about your Creator.

Please discard anything that has to do with tribalism and ethnicity. Always see every other individual as you see yourself. I have been a victim of tribalism, do away with that. Treat every other person you meet based on the content of their character and not where they come from. Settle down and build a family with the man who understands you very well. Don't be an housewife, be a career woman, do not join 'all those feminist' people.

I did not give you a Yoruba name because I married from another tribe- IGBO. Remember, I told you to do away with tribalism.

Dear Wemimo, the man of the house, I hope you will uphold the integrity I have struggled so hard to gather for my name.

Please always treat the female gender with respect and love, under no circumstances should you lay your hands on any female...or anybody for that matter. If you have feelings for any woman, express yourself honourably to her. If she accepts, FINE, If not, please MOVE ON. Do not force yourself on any woman. I am not a rapist, neither are you.

Education is the best legacy, take your education very seriously. Do not rely on just certificates, create time to develop yourself. Adapt yourself to every new change in the world, acquire every skill that interests you, embrace knowledge, learning never ends.

The place of God in your life is so important, however make sure you have a personal encounter with your creator. Do not let all these 'gods-of-men' that call themselves 'Men-Of-God' deceive you. Use your instincts to discern the true ones among them.

Wemimo, you might not be strict like me, but do not let people take advantage of you. I am a philosopher and I can tell you that patience is everything. Sometimes things will be tough, sometimes it will be smooth, you must keep moving. Have confidence in yourself and never allow anybody belittle or put you down.

Finally, prepare yourself for the future and marriage. Work towards perfecting your life and your marriage. As a rule I followed, marry only one wife, do not exceed that. I wish you grace to solve problems, surmount challenges and be a conqueror. 

You are the greatest my dear son.

By Adetayo Omotoyosi Adeolu
 omotoyorsiiadeolu@gmail.com

The Lonely Man

My heart is made of shattered glasses
In which I drenched my loneliness
Ready to cut you in pieces
With the rage of celibacy

Sometimes my shadow
Becomes my only companion
In it, I see myself clearly
Hanging on to the wallow

I once watched at a glance
In my dream, I poured a libation
Swimming across the ocean
And gathering pawn at dawn

Sometimes I don't know
If I should blame Maa'mi
Or blame Baa'mi
That I am alone
Like bank notes in a vault

I met a Miss
She blew me a kiss
But I took the drug of sorrow
And hid in the sands of time

Love is a drug
Sold by those whose hearts are made of stones, 
ready to break my heart made of glasses
Traded on the stock of loneliness

Maa'mi says time will heal me
She told a beautiful lie
The type pitted cities against each other
As the clock stopped ticking

Maa'mi told me to live freely
Like a rich man's offspring
Because soon and very soon
God shall be without a faith

But the world dies abruptly
And with it, my melancholy.

By Adetayo Omotoyosi Adeolu
 omotoyorsiiadeolu@gmail.com

I Am Bigger Than Papers

“It makes little difference how many university courses and degrees a person may own. If he cannot use words to move an idea from one point to another, his education is incomplete" - Norman Cousins

"Economists who have studied the relationship between education and economic growth confirm what common sense suggests: the number of college degrees is not nearly as important as how well students develop cognitive skills, such as critical thinking and problems solving ability." - Derek Bok.

"What I have learnt is that a whole lot of people with degrees don’t know a damn thing and a lot of people with no degrees are brilliant " - John Henrik Clarke   

I have met many great men of great repute who weren’t defined by what they or by the certificates and degrees they acquired from school. Some of them opted out from school to become who they are now while some of them dropped out from school for one reason or the other.  

Melancholy and sadness give room to doubt… doubt is the beginning of despair; despair is the cruel beginning of the differing degrees of wickedness. It has become a norm in our country, Nigeria, for people to be acknowledged or get acquainted with other people based on the number of certificates or degrees they acquired from higher institutions, without having any clue of what those who acquired those degrees stand to offer to the society.

I am not saying that degrees are not good to acquire or not important, we know that to compete for the jobs of the 21 century and thrive in a global economy, we need a growing, skilled and educated workforce, particularly in the area of science, technology, engineering and math. Nigerians with bachelor’s degrees have half the unemployment rate of those with high school degree but, I am of the opinion that degrees should not be a criterion to judge people base on what they can do or cannot do.  Everyone should be giving a chance in the industry. Don’t judge anybody on his/her educational background. One can be better than those things being taught inside the classroom. One may even end up better than those people that went to school to acquire thousands of certificates and degrees. We have great men who became great today not because of what they studied in school but because they discovered themselves; they discovered their lives beyond what men conditioned on papers with ink.

"Leadership consists not in degrees of techniques but in traits of character, it requires moral rather than athletic or intellectual effort, and it imposes on both leader and follower alike the burdens of self-restraint" - Lewis Lapham. 

We should all feel confident in our intelligence. By the way, intelligence to me isn’t being book-smart or having degrees here and there; it’s trusting your gut instincts, being intuitive, thinking outside the box, and sometimes just realizing that things need to change and being smart enough to change it. You can be all you want to be without degrees littered on your shelf.  

Don’t allow anyone to put you down because you don’t have a PhD or HND or Bachelor's Degree, no! Your dog only bears the name you call it every day.  

Shakuntala Devi once said that Education is not just about going to school and getting a degree. It’s about widening your knowledge and absorbing the truth about life. 

Although Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who are prepared not in degrees but in what can be beneficial to the world. Stop judging people based on the degrees before their names, judge them base on what they can offer to help make the world a better place. We are all bigger and greater than those papers on our shelves.

Truth be told, many people nowadays don’t work with their degrees or certificates. A lot of people don't work based on what they studied in school. Many who studied Sociology ended up working as presenters and some who studied Psychology ended up working in the banking sector.  

So, it is not all about what you studied or the degree you were awarded in the university, it is all about what you can do yourself. I am bigger than those papers likewise you; don’t be defined by it.

 by John Chizoba Vincent
chizobavincent@gmail.com

A Good Day To Die

Last week,
I drew a map in my head
In it lies a geography of cooked acrimony


Here I am,
Standing like a Tripod stand;
Body dredged in pieces of mind and soul
Like Ileya ram.


My soul wanders in the evil forest
In search of my mind;
Leaving my memory behind
Like a river that forgets its source.
In the sea of trees


I buried the map in my head
Pruning my hair
And distorting my life for weeks.
I became blind


And held on to the river
Like a life saving jacket
The river failed me


My life is a shred of rotten papers
My success were penned on these papers
But cast into the ocean
Begging for mercy in the layering waves.


And in the end,
I gave my clothes to a tailor
Whose best clothes were rags.



By Adetayo Omotoyosi Adeolu
 omotoyorsiiadeolu@gmail.com