$20 Million Diaspora Fund for Housing: The outcome of NIDO Europe determination to set a new Diaspora engagement initiative goal with Nigeria by supporting the Diaspora roadmap. The pre-Lunch of $20 Million Diaspora Fund for Housing is coming. All is set @ NIGERIAN GLOBAL DIASPORA DEVELOPMENT CONFERENCE 2018, London UK, 26-28 July 2018. A major announcement coming soon!!!

Olalekan Odedeyi is the BME Officer of Middlesbrough, Pioneer and Chair of Tees Valley BME Forum. He started volunteering service at the age of 8 years, he is a Patriot, Change Agent, Educationist, Supply Chain Analyst and the peoples Advocate with a focus on gender equality and girl-child/women empowerment. Olalekan was nominated and won International Award Winner 2017 (Volun-Cheers Award 2017), as well as Platinum Plus Award in the year 2016– the highest award available through Volun-tees at Teesside University, United Kingdom.

However, He is the Founder of Save the Woman, United Kingdom & Nigeria, also the Co-Founder & Executive Secretary, Women Socio-Economic Empowerment Initiative (NGO), He is the CEO, Oddygo Concepts Nigeria Enterprises, looking forward to launch a Social Enterprise in the United Kingdom.

A Presidential NYSC Honour Award Recipient (2010), Best NYSC and MDGs, Sokoto State Award Winner (2009).

In addition to Olalekan’s MSc degree in Supply Chain Management, he was conferred with 2012 Deans’ Award, Engineering Management, School of Engineering and Computing, Coventry University, UK.

He was also celebrated as a Nominee for the Senior Course Rep of the Year, Prestigious 2012 Coventry University Students’ Union Award, Coventry University, United Kingdom. He also successfully completed the Global Leader Leaders Programme at Coventry University, West Midlands, United Kingdom. Olalekan was also a Project Team Member of the International Experience & Mobility Services (IEMS) at Coventry University to support Students, enhance their skills, gain work and voluntary experience in the UK, also to celebrate multiculturalism and multilingualism as richness in diversity, and contributed to the successful implementation of various cultural mundi projects at Coventry, United Kingdom.

Olalekan served as Secretary, Continuous Improvement Committee, Engineering Management Student Forum, also a member, Faculty Academic Board, School of Engineering & Computing, Coventry University, United Kingdom

 

He is a non-violent, visionary youth leader and a former student leader who served meritoriously in various roles and portfolios both in Nigeria and Abroad. He has always ensure the Students voice to be heard at the right time and in a right manner.

He is translating the acquired knowledge in conjunction with his social entrepreneurial skills to add value to people’s lives through mind building and skills acquisition training projects, so as to rebuild the nation through value re-orientation programme by providing technical and educational support for young entrepreneurs, especially the female inmates, in order to reduce rate of re-offending and increase employment rates, which will directly have an effect on the poverty level in line with new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), also enhance the welfare and standard of the many in the society.

Save the Woman Team currently training female inmates to manufacture School Chalk in Nigeria, offering a new skill and empowering women to find new career paths when they leave prison. The team have aspiration to grow the project to involve female prisoners in the United Kingdom, delivering a new product that can sell in the UK market. Already impacted over 400 families and empowered 8 families.

 

HADIZA!
I remember few years ago, we composed love song, we sang love song and we danced in love.

HADIZA!
I remember I thought you Ogirinya dance and you liked it and then you said, “Abah, we are going to dance Ogirinya together forever”. That was the promise that drove me crazy.

HADIZA!
I remember those days that you would never sell any cup of your “nunu” to any customer until I taste it and you would look at me with your sparkling face and pointed nose and smile – the smile that always raptures my soul to the third heaven.

HADIZA!
I remember those days that you would send my sister, Onyeche to me and I would stop whatever I was doing immediately and rush to the Iroko tree along the route to your house and you would say, “Abah, teach me your language; I want to speak Idoma language; I want to greet your mother with Idoma language” and I was proud to tell my friends and mother about you and about our love songs.

HADIZA!
I remember the day I called you my “Ihotu” and you shed tears of joy amidst your usual affectionate smiles. You told me you were privileged to have me in your life and we hugged each other – the first and the last hug in my entire life.

HADIZA!
I remember those days that your elder brother, Hassan lived in my village – hustling freely with his motorcycle day & night and he would stay in Okopi’s drinking joint till midnight before going home and he would go freely and resumes his hustling the following day.

HADIZA!
I remember those days that your uncle, Jibril would match his herds of cattle to River Benue after grazing all day in Okpoga and my father would say, “Jibril, please guide your cattle from my cassava farm o” and Jibril would laugh and say, “I de do my work well well”. He always brought bush meat to my father.

HADIZA!
I remember the Sunday morning that a lorry came to our village and all of you were to be moved from our village and I rushed to you before you entered; you thrust your gaze into mine and burst into deep sobbing; I followed suit. You said you would come back to me and I believed you.

HADIZA!
Where are you now?
You said you would come back to me but it was your brothers that came back.

HADIZA!
Are you aware that your brothers came back with daggers, knives and guns – hunting us like wild animals, roasting us like bush animals, slaughtering our necks like defenseless animals?

HADIZA!
What about the love song we sang together?
What about the Ogirinya dance we danced together every evening under the Iroko tree?
What about our sweet promise of  love?

HADIZA!
Do you still love me?
My heart still beats for you
I still dream about you day & night
My flute still remembers your sweet name

HADIZA!
If you still love me;
Tell your brothers about us
Tell them we only know love songs
Tell them our mouths can’t chant war songs
Tell them we aren’t their enemies or animals

HADIZA!
If you don’t talk to your brothers swiftly
My head may be their next target and you will forever miss me but you may not miss me because my ghost will keep making love with you.

***
Abah, Linus Ajene was born in Ogo Oluwa L.G.A. of Oyo State and brought up in Idiri Okpoga in Okpokwu L.G.A. of Benue State where he has his biological root. He is a 400L student of Benue State University studying English/Education with the ambition of become an African Literature scholar as he progresses in life with time. He was the first runner-up of the 2017 Albert Jungers Poetry Prize and was also shortlisted for the 2018 Tony Tokunbo Fernandez International Poetry Competition. He is the current President of Writers’ League, Benue State University chapter. He writes poems and prose-fictions.

 

Caesar’s Antics

An Original Poem by

Diana Benskin

Copyright@Diana Benskin

 

While Rome is Crumbling

Caesar is fiddling

Heads of State at loggerheads debating

And his Cabinet staff continue resigning

 

While Rome is Crumbling

Caesar keeps fiddling

The democracy he is not saving

From the brink of collapsing

 

Caesar’s leadership skills are not emerging

While Rome is continually crumbling

Another is tactfully recruiting

Those Romans whose skill is inventing

 

Rome’s citizens are protesting

Their cries Caesar is ignoring

While Rome is crumbling

Caesar is demanding

A show of military might Parading

And to the South a wall he will be building

 

While Rome is Crumbling

Caesar is rendered powerless as he is fiddling

By force or will Romans are exiting

An orchestrated purging

Caesar’s wish for ethnic cleansing

 

While Rome is crumbling

Caesar does what he  is best at, fiddling

The  coffers are no longer brimming

Rome once perched high, now a downward slope spiraling

 

While Rome is crumbling

Caesar pouts as he is fiddling

The world is watching

The Romans for Caesar’s impeachment they are calling

But at the throne he is steadfastly remaining

 

While Rome is Crumbling

Caesar has ramped up his fiddling

New laws he is implementing

Tactfully the once United Rome he is slowly dividing

To conquer and rule he will be winning

 

Romans arise and in Unity Resist!

To conquer Caesar we must persist

Get up Stand up and profoundly insist

This tyranny will no longer be allowed to exist 

 

 

 

 I am an African born in the Caribbean, the eldest of my 11 Siblings. I was fortunate to end up in the custody of my maternal Uncle and maternal Grandmother after being born to an unwed immigrant mother in the Caribbean.

Under my uncle’s  loving care , I was encouraged to speak properly and was given the autonomy to explore my surroundings and to question my uncle on issues that puzzled me. I was encouraged to use my creativity and to read a lot.
The above foundation laid the premise for my inquisitive tones of my poetry and to invoke question and thought in my readers. I also seek to remind and record  readers of historical events.

At eight years old I was sexually violated by an unknown assailant, I was told that I went from being a happy go lucky girl , to an angry troublesome child. It was at this time  I was quickly  jettisoned without any reason given to me back to the care of the woman who birth me.

I no longer enjoyed the free flow of dialogue , instead all I heard was to shut up, no one wants to hear you and your ramblings. I was subjected to verbal, emotional, psychological and physical abuse from her. My mother referred to my poetry as nonsense and crazy ramblings that will amount to nothing. I was a mere child of ten years old when this was being said to me, and so I gave up documenting my thoughts on the world around me, but I retained them in my brain .

 

“Spoken words from the mouth of this Babe” is the culmination of those ramblings.   I have also written my life story, “Per Ardua Ad Astra” Latin for Through difficulty to success. The life story of one West Indian Girl.  I am currently working on releasing another Collection “Reflections, Spoken words of an African Immigrant. I am also hoping to release the first in my children’s book series The Adventures of Nugget the dog.

 

I would like to pay  tribute to my Maternal Uncle and  Grandmother,  and my inspiration for writing poetry Maya Angelou. I would also like to thank Dr. Mac for his infinite encouragement to pursue my writing, to my many friends who were my ears of approval or not when I read them my works initially. 

Special thanks to Mrs. Judith Byer who saved my life after I was stabbed by my mother  and nearly perished as a teenager. Lastly but not least to my God Mother Helen Weekes (deceased) who was an inspiring surrogate mother to me.

 

 

 

 

In the poem  below, I seek to compare the society in which I reside in today , with that of ancient Rome. As we continually witness the dysfunction played out in the USA. It will be appearing in my upcoming anthology “Reflections, Spoken words of an African Immigrant. I am one of the nominees for Author of the year under the Divas of Color 2018.

 

 

 

 

Caesar’s Antics

An Original Poem by

Diana Benskin

Copyright@Diana Benskin

 

While Rome is Crumbling

Caesar is fiddling

Heads of State at loggerheads debating

And his Cabinet staff continue resigning

 

While Rome is Crumbling

Caesar keeps fiddling

The democracy he is not saving

From the brink of collapsing

 

Caesar’s leadership skills are not emerging

While Rome is continually crumbling

Another is tactfully recruiting

Those Romans whose skill is inventing

 

Rome’s citizens are protesting

Their cries Caesar is ignoring

While Rome is crumbling

Caesar is demanding

A show of military might Parading

And to the South a wall he will be building

 

While Rome is Crumbling

Caesar is rendered powerless as he is fiddling

By force or will Romans are exiting

An orchestrated purging

Caesar’s wish for ethnic cleansing

 

While Rome is crumbling

Caesar does what he  is best at, fiddling

The  coffers are no longer brimming

Rome once perched high, now a downward slope spiraling

 

While Rome is crumbling

Caesar pouts as he is fiddling

The world is watching

The Romans for Caesar’s impeachment they are calling

But at the throne he is steadfastly remaining

 

While Rome is Crumbling

Caesar has ramped up his fiddling

New laws he is implementing

Tactfully the once United Rome he is slowly dividing

To conquer and rule he will be winning

 

Romans arise and in Unity Resist!

To conquer Caesar we must persist

Get up Stand up and profoundly insist

This tyranny will no longer be allowed to exist 

 

 

 

BREAKING NEWS
We are pleased to inform you that as part of THE FIRST EVER INTER-CULTURAL AFRICAN FESTIVAL TAKING PLACE IN BASEL, SWITZERLAND on Friday the 29th of May and Saturday the 30th of May at The Pyramiden Platz in Basel , Switzerland, we shall be honouring African Achievers in Switzerland as part of our Africa4u Awards initiative

A BIG CONGRATULATIONS to the nominees for this years Africa4u Awards for Africans in Switzerland as part of the 1st ever Inter-cultural African festival
The Nominees include :
Mr. Jegede Sunday – Jeges Sunny
Sunny jeges production Switzerland
CEO Club Lara Basel Switzerland

 

WHAT IF TOMORROW IS A MIRAGE

We’ve sheltered the seeds of man in the soil
Sprouted, that birth a head or a tail or both

We’ve leaped to sides of the folded earth
Cloaked in the garment that rise and fill larva

When the birth of man comes in the spring
We lived up like the pigs wallowing in the mud

But the death of man in the winter
The eyes grew in layers like that of a broiler

As I cudgel into this verses
I know not in the mirage of tomorrow

But Papa told me afore I was born
The hairs planted on his head
Is cocooned with black caps
Now laced with yards worn by the angels -white

And Mama has warned to be genteel
Enliven in the world saturated in flowers and woods
For not to live like the shadow
Who vowed to save its silhouette from the sun
For not to-mourn-row -Tomorrow
With columns runs from top to bottom

For the rain falls
Perhaps, the sun shines
For your fruits grow
For if tomorrow is a mirage;
The rain shall fall again
And lap your fruits on its shoulder.

©Onasgeneral

Short bio: My name is Onafowokan Taofeek. I study geography in the faculty of the social sciences ,University of Ibadan. I hail from Ogun State.

Orukoro Dancer

 “Child, weep not

Mother will be fine”

 

Still Tonye’s voice went out

Surpassingthe rolling drums

To win mother’s attention,

Her hands stretched forth

Forcing body through dense crowd

To mar mother’s drunken steps,

She, solitary Lass, soaked with her tears,

Weaved a cry:

“Mother! Mother!

What have they done to you mother!?

It’s me your daughter!

Come!Come homeward!”

But all were health tips for pigs.

 

Dancer, canoe to the unseen paddler

Dancer, slave to the spiritual native banter

Feet, chalk-patterned by her painter

Body, clad with white and red George-wrapper,

Dancedforward, danced backward,

Danced drummers-ward, danced viewers-ward,

Danced, Shell to her marine partner

Dancedshe, beats after beats,songs after songs,

Swung,palm leaves at wind’s gate.

Ah! Severalfresh eggs went lost to her belly.

Then I replaced the soil on my soles with another

Weaving pity in my heart

Pity for viewers, lostin spirit’s huddle

Spirits who seek for more canoes to paddle.

 

By Fubaraibi Anari Benstowe

 

 

 

Note:

Orukoro dancers are women who dance to certain drumbeats under the influence of a marine spirit, at these times, songs and drums are played by members of their Orukoro society. Viewers usually come out in their numbers to witness the dance-steps.The word Orukoro means the coming down of a deity, In this case it is usually the marine deity that possesses a person.

The Orukoro societiesare worshippers of marine deities in many Ijaw communities in Bayelsa, Delta and Rivers States of Nigeria.

 

 

 

the taste of our names

regardless of what the sun’s puissant ray
may tell you of the taste of my flesh,
i am not an emissary who curbs war
and revolts with waves of abandon, bartering
my blackness for packs of bribes
that comes in prayers & eulogies of twelve religions.

rather, i am the name of a man battered
by the harsh whispers of spite, by an eloquence
of lawyers whose tongues are mapped
by geographies of success, globes shaped
like adam’s apple (literally).

i am the ash on sidi bouzid, searching
for the arabic nomenclature for scream, the
tiny providence on the lips of tunisians
that will just say bouazizi.

i am the drowned ghosts of refugees, the
one-minute silences invented by daughters
who only hear about their fathers on confessions
by pirates smooching wooden crosses.
I am the soft natter of juveniles,
the erratic swirl of chibok’s gospels, riding
on the scent of betrayal from judas’ kiss.
 
i do not have the algorithms to night’s tempest shades,
millenniums crumbling into fragments of decay.
but, this is how i thwart pain, by recounting
the jaded edges of our ancestry with songs,
unmaking chaos.

 

immigrant

home.

 

i have always beaten my skin for you. dug my bones

for the fatness of foxes. but what do i get

from you? deprivation.

 

a thin solace—

too small to make a room for my house.

 

it is true you cannot boast of renewal. no.

not

until you are able to wear your country in

every place without shame.

 

my country is disabled.

 

mother reads my poems. she says. i am a

perpetual purpose.

 

obsessed. too obsessed with renewal.

 

maybe she is right. like importunity— i have over-worn like tide.

will the coast give way? beforei return to myself.

 

i am in a bus. faces. abidjan.

 

patriotic. &french.

 

laughter too. they like my english. not my skin.

they laugh. & needles. my body bleeds. a lass smells

my country from my hair. she touches it like rabies.

 

i crawl into my skin. anger seethes beneath.

it is in my language. i cannot tell it. they will laugh

more.

 

ca va ici. i de

scend.

 

their laughter pushes me down. like

they are not black too.

 

i am angry that my country pushes me here. i am angry

thati cannot wear my country with pride—

that my country is disabled. i am angry that

 

i am another boy. away from home.

 

 

Ayoola Goodness

A soul with no hair!
There in the emptiness…!
There i left my soul with its shirt!
There i left the flame of my own dreams,together
With the embers of love
There,where my youth faded away
There in the smell of withered roses
among sprouts that are dead before they are born
amid the vehemence of youth
There,where the eyes have anothere function
There wherethe heart is driving like a mad
There where the braids of hairless soul are woven
and my man’s hair is uncombed…!