Are we too afraid?

This coin beneath my pillow has two sides. Heads; Kobo, Tail; Cents.

Last night I sat in my living room room watching Ory Okolloh’s TED talk on how she became an activist. She talked about how she walked away from a six-figure paying job in the United States and returned to Kenya. Whether and when I want to return fully to live in Nigeria has been on my mind for a lot lately. Whether or not i want to apply for a Green Card  So hearing her say “for those of you in the diaspora who are struggling with where should I be, should I move back, should I stay? You know just jump! The continent needs you”  really inspired me. Okolloh flipped the coin and it landed on heads last night. I was excited for what I can do to help Nigeria and Africa as a whole.

This morning, I woke up to the news of the bomb attacks on the U.N headquarters in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja where 18 people were reported dead by CNN and 8 injured. Suddenly the coin was flipped again. Just when you decide to be positive and to incite the change you desire to see, you get reminders of the scary scene in Nigeria and  become cynic questioning again whether it is worthwhile to move back.

I have read all the angry facebook statuses and tweets and listen to Nigerians express their disgust or disappointment in the Nigerian government. Although the Nigerian government is not without fault, I feel like a lot of Nigerians (probably me included) like to pass on blame to someone else. Sometimes I think of what it would take to get to a peaceful state in Nigeria. Would it require a revolutionary war like the on-going one in Libya? If it would, are we ready to fight? You see if I am still contemplating when and whether I want to go back to help and invest in my country because I fear for my safety and the safety of my children that are yet to be born, then do I have the right to really criticize our leaders? Are we (Nigerians) too afraid to seek and to be the change we desire? The government plays a large part in the welfare of a country but so do the citizens. If the citizens are complacent or afraid of their own voice. Too afraid to demand accountability from the leaders, to afraid to oppose violence (whether religious or political), and indeed to afraid to even live in the country they want to see “change”, then  is there any hope for revolutionary change?

Now I stand on the vertical side of this coin, too afraid, too confused to pick a side. Afraid to stand on ‘Tail” for if I do, my own heart would haunt me for abandoning the place I call home. For allowing myself to be a coward and to run away from my ability to incite change. Afraid to land on “Heads” because if I do, I might die there, without seeing the change I desire, without recognition for my pursuit.

Are we too afraid to seek and be change? And if we are, do we have the right to complain?

~Bernadette Ikhena~

*untitled*

It's ten minutes to nine,
Do you see the tear in her golden eye?
Her brittle fingers
Cover the dusty face where loneliness lingers


Listen to the words of her black sapphire eyes
see the stories they tell of the shivers in her spine.

Turn off the incandescent
[where your "dreams" lie]
Drink the light within her feline eye
Kiss her fragile fingers to life.

It's ten minutes to nine
Her heart is on the red line
Ten minutes later she would die
Lying alone supine

~Bernadette Ikhena~


This is an ekphrasis inspired by a friend's photograph

Red hearts on the beach

I have seen red hearts run this track before.
Only to crack at the shore.
It annoys me how they fail to learn
How they retrace footsteps they printed in the sea while in yearn

Footsteps that printed "HURT" on their hearts in the past
Still they kiss them like this time they'll last
But it's the same print that ends on a weary sand
That, they don't understand

So they allow the sand to be eroded [again] by their own footsteps.

They let their hearts trod the same glass pieces

hidden in the same coarse sand

and they bleed the same maroon blood, again.

I lay covered in this pink quilt and wonder
Am I the wise one here or the fool?
The one whose keg would never be full?

Is it possible that trodden footsteps will now bring happiness?
That he that waiteth at the shore [this time] is like no other?
They say only fools rush in
But do the "fools" ever come out smiling?

If this same path leads to an altar at the shore,
I know I was wrong before

And if it doesn't, I repeat
Those sands would never [again]tingle the heels of my feet

I have seen red hearts run this track before
I wonder if they'll ever reach the shore, assure.

~~Bernadette Ikhena~~