Famine in the land

Famine in the land

Echoes and echoes

In the hollow space

A drop of water is heard

Striking the rocks

Emptiness resides where

Once was plenty

I am going to sleep hungry

There is famine in the land

Experts have a revelation

The winds did not herald the clouds

The clouds refused to spit out rain

The Earth got dry

And so disgruntled

Would not allow us plant our seed

Tools for Harvest

Have a new existence

In the hands

Of men who dig the graves

Mother’s plates are clean and dry

Just the way she always wanted

There’s no food, so no dirty dishes

Yet somewhere in the world

they have  leftovers

She holds me close

And sings a lullaby

Then prays to God

I do not die

Babawilly

Dr Wilson Orhiunu

June 2005

My Time

Agege Bread of Life

Agege Bread of Life

If the Holy Land had been situated in Lagos, Nigeria then the first four Books of the New Testament collectively called the Gospels would have been named differently. The Books of Mudiaga, Maduka, Lamido and Jesutosin would have reflected the local population and the scripture Jesutosin Chapter 6 Verse 35 would read; I am the Agege Bread of Life.

There are so many references to food and drink in the Bible and bread features heavily.  This is proof that there can be no spirituality without food. Even the multiple mentions of fasting clearly tell us that the temporary abstinence from food is not a hunger strike. There is always an end to a fast. The state where human beings live on calorie deficient or poor diets goes against the Christian faith.

Ending World hunger is a goal. It is a shame but many hungry people still find it necessary to ask that legitimate question, ‘who prayer epp?’

¹⁵ Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. ¹⁶ If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? 

The starving man has been in prayer for days hoping to encounter a plate of nice edible food and it can be such a disappointment for the hungry to stumble across someone who thinks they know how to pray away hunger pangs they have not felt. The cure for hunger is food and hunger is one of the certainties of life.

Food is a spiritual substance that has great powers of healing for the soul and the body. A full stomach frees the body from the constraints that hunger and scarcity puts on the brain. All great nations have majority of their population eating food on a regular basis. This needs planning and God knows this. A lot of the Bible talks about seed time and harvest time. In the absence of a famine there should be food for all for it is common knowledge that you plant seeds in the planting season in hope of a subsequent harvest. This is how the planet has been from its inception so it is no surprise that people are hungry and need food.

 Likewise it is simple to deduce that you plant enough food for the population you have. The need to resort to food importation is unpardonable.

Through the ages planting seasons and harvests seasons have been celebrated with rites and feasts. Seeds must be sown for it is suicidal not to. Those who do not sow will starve in harvest time.

Jesus is the bread of life. Bread is king. Milk must be queen. Why was that bread metaphor used? The truth is that food is life. Most of what we do as human beings only occur after eating well.

Someone once told me I took food too seriously and this was somehow wrong. Well, he had a full fridge to start with so how would he know the importance of food when he has never seen a kwashiorkor patient before. I was shaken to my foundations when I saw a kwashiorkor patient as a medical student in Nigeria. I found it hard to believe there were malnourished children in Benin City at the time because all the people I knew were eating regularly.

The well fed should have some alimentary compassion for their brothers.

The Bible has Adam and Eve eating what they were not supposed to and being evicted from the Garden of Eden. One of their children killed his brother after harvest time because he was jealous of God’s acceptance of his brother’s sacrifice. Further along Esau sold his birth right to his brother Jacob for a pot of food. The greatest turn around in fortunes came by way of Joseph who went from the prison to the Palace because he knew the blueprint for effective food management in Egypt for the next fourteen years. This was food management at a national scale; storing grain without the benefits of electricity throughout the first seven years of a bumper harvest and the later seven years of famine.

It is strange that in today’s world with cold storage and computerisation, nations cannot produce enough beans to feed the people. The prophet Elisha asked for a pot of stew to be cooked but a ‘learner’ picked the wrong herbs and it became ‘death in a pot’. Elisha sprinkled in flour and the pot was miraculously healed. God’s Plan is that his people must eat.

Soon after someone brought a twenty loaves of bread which he shared among 100 men and had left overs due to a miraculous bread multiplication.

Miraculous food must have tasted divine.

Jesus showed he cared about the state of people’s stomach by miraculously feeding five thousand hungry people and saving the all night prayers for Himself. Satan tempted Him with a stone to bread conversion temptation but He saw through it. The fast was due to end.

His first miracle, a Water- to -wine conversion thrilled wedding guests and he blessed Peter with some much fish his net almost broke.

The Old Testament had the Passover, a hastily eaten meal on the last night in Egypt and the New Testament has a mirror image type of Passover meal popularly called the Last Supper. The bread and wine eaten represented Jesus body and blood respectively.

The longest feeding plan was however the feeding of over one million Jews in the desert for forty years with manna from heaven. Out of the slavery of Egypt, through the wilderness into the promised -land flowing with milk and honey; that was God’s Plan.

Beyond eating food is the enjoyment of the eating process. The gratitude one gets for having a slice of bread is spiritual. The joy that comes from swallowing chewed food is not experienced by all. It is a gift from God. Man has no other duty than to eat his food with relish and gratitude and praise God for the privilege.

²⁴ A person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own toil. This too, I see, is from the hand of God,²⁵ for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment? ²⁶ To the person who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

Some might not believe we are here to eat and be merry. They think like poets all day long and soon get depressed.

The aim of all living has to be the service to our fellow men, feeding them with love and support and expressing thanks and praise to our creator.

What you may ask about those who do not believe in God? Well no one is exempt. Everybody must be the Agege bread of life to their neighbour

References

1. NIV Bi
2. ble James 2:15-16
3. NIV  Bible Ecclesiastes :24-26

Babawilly

Dr Wilson Orhiunu

05/09/2018

MamaPut

MAMA PUT

                                  Add more rice

                                  My appetite exceeds

                                  My ability to pay

                                  Do it for humanity

                                  Do it for your country

                                  For whatever reasons you may find

                                  But please Mama Put

                                  The  physicians took my wages

                                  They diagnosed malnutrition

                                  They kicked me out hungrier

                                  And so I am at your mercy

                                  Use your good offices

                                  I beg, Mama put

                                  Some spoonfuls on that mole hill

                                  And make it a mountain

                                  Remember my friends

                                  Your favourite customers

                                  If I stop coming here

                                  They will go with me

                                  I don’t mean to threaten

                                  But of starvation, I’m frightened

                                  So mama add more Jollof and a bit of

                                  stewed beef  

             

                                  Your mouth like Mama Put

                                  This is business

                                  Not charity

                                  This buka you see

                                  Is my pension and savings plan

                                  Has trained three Graduates

                                  And buried 2 in-laws

                                  So eat what you can afford

                                  Make up the rest with water

                                  For that’s the only thing

                                  That this Mama will Put.

                                  September 2001 – Babawilly

Dr Wilson Orhiunu

My Time 2005

Psalm 23 (Pidgin Version written by Dr Wilson Orhiunu)

1. The Lord is mai sherperd
   I dey kampke
2. He make mi sidon for where betta dey flow
   Come put me next to stream wey make mai bodi thermacool.
3. He panel beat mai soul come spray am white, come dey lead me dey go ni; through hexpless road of righteousness for His name's sake.
4. Walahi!, if I waka pass where arm robber, 419 and juju pipo borku come even join okada reach valley of the shadow of death sef, mai bodi dey inside cloth.
   Your rod and staff nko?
   Na so-so comfort dem dey comfort me for belle.
5. You don prepare Banga and starch make I chop.
   All mai enemies dey look anyaya.
   You anoint me for head wit oil.
   Mai cup na Ogunpa wey burst im banks.
6. True true, betta life and mercy go gum mai back till I quench. And man go tanda for God house sotey sotey ; from Lai lai to lai lai.

GOD ALMIGHTI, NA YOU BICO.

Babawilly 2000

Ukodo Tonight

1.            It’s Ukodo tonight

Finger lickin’ licking good

We are doing alright

You’re my woman

I’m your man

2.            Been at work

Since 9 o’clock

But it’s now 5

Hey!

That boss of mine

Works me to the bone

But it’s now 5

Ahh!

3.            Tonight’s the night

We celebrate our love

You’ve been to Igbudu market

To buy choice yams

Some crayfish

Alligator pepper

And dry fish

I am on my way home

For Ukodo tonight

4.            It’s been 12 months

Since we both said “I do”

Oh, how sweet time flies.

With a candle lit dinner

We are insured against Nepa

Let’s celebrate

We have made it this far

Stir that boiling froth real slow

Yes my appetite is higher

Than any Warri T.V aerial

For Ukodo tonight

5.            I am driving through

the streets of Wari reminiscing

Of how it was at the start

For Mama said

It wouldn’t work

Papa said

It wouldn’t last

Brother said

It wouldn’t work

Sister said

It wouldn’t last

But here we are getting ready

For Ukodo tonight.

6.            The smell fills the compound

Neighbours know what you are cooking

So pull out the phone

And lock the doors

Shut the windows

and draw the curtains

Even if the president comes knocking

We no dey house

For it’s Ukodo tonight

7.            This love grows

Stronger every day

So fan the flames

Of a love

That just wouldn’t die

Soft music plays

As you turn the palm oil

On hot yams so soft

And tender

I’ll rather be no where else

Than here

For Ukodo tonight

February 2001 - Babawilly

Food & I

They say that the way to a man’s heart is a tale of two cardiologists. The hospital cardiologist travels via femoral artery in the groin or the radial artery at the wrist to arrive at the heart using tubes and radiological equipment.

The lady in the kitchen, also a cardiologist of sorts and perhaps an “other room practitioner” gets to the heart through her soup laden with polysaturated fatty acids. This fat travels via the stomach to block off the cardiac arteries leading to “death by brief illness” as they say in Nigeria. What a woman can do, a man can do also. There are male cardiologists in the kitchens of this world cooking up slow poison.

Food is beautiful and there are many beautiful things that can kill but let us move on from terra –depression to terra-happy.

I love food and by the grace of God it will not kill me either through the fast or slow poisons contained therein. Food is such an iconic necessity that lends itself so generously to literature. In the novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, yams are portrayed as Alpha male tubers symbolising wealth and power. Who can forget Chapter Five with its tale of a wealthy man celebrating the Feast of the New Yam with what can best be described as a Trump Tower of foo-foo. The mould was so high that relatives who sat on opposite sides only saw each other when the “mountain” had been levelled, aided and abetted by vegetable soup.

Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist asked for more and was punished for his audacity. This story strikes a chord with all for the request for an extra helping is universal especially at the table of a skilful chef.

Unfortunately, some children in the world are not fortunate to have a tiny first course not to talk of having jara. Parts of Africa are in famine. It is sad that the neighbouring countries cannot help. Africa looks West for help when these things happen. One does wonder if these countries have stored supplies of grain to last them as least a year. If they don’t they should. Without electricity grain was stored for seven years in Egypt during a famine according to the Bible. This was ancient Africa. In today’s world one should expect hunger to have been eradicated by now.

The thought of a child going to bed hungry is heartbreaking especially when there are no wars to blame. Growing maize and rearing goats and chickens is a simple matter. Piping water from the sea or local rivers is also a simple matter.

The Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System is an ocean far underground spanning Libya, Egypt, Sudan and Chad. Discovered in Libya in 1953 while prospecting for oil this reserve of fresh water was exploited by Muammar Gaddafi via the Great Man Made River project in 1991. It sounds incredulous that the eastern Sahara desert has water underneath it.

This is just one example of how water can be piped across vast geographical areas to provide water for the irrigation of farms. Bad weather has been going on since time began and governments should plan for it. Countries that import food and have no stored grain or water supplies are disasters waiting to happy. And when the inevitable drought happens the children die first.

The two African leaders with lofty and ambitious ideas in recent times have been Muammar Gaddafi of Libya and Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso and they are both dead. Both had firm plans for agriculture. Ironically the leaders in Africa with no long term plans who just roll over and let the multinationals rape the land tend to live very long.

I still love my food. West Africa grows cocoa and imports chocolate bars yet I still love my African food. I have been blessed never to have lived in an area of food shortages throughout my life. I see people who run away from food because they want to lose weight yet in some corners of the world people go hungry.  When one person starves we all starve as human beings.

Ukodo is a meal I enjoy. It is one from Urhobo land and it conjures memories of childhood and family. It is strongly linked to my identity as an Urhobo man so much so I wrote a poem about it entitled ‘Ukodo Tonight’. Eating together around a table is good for family life and at the table kids get reminded that they are part of something important.

Good affordable food and water is a fundamental human right.

(Epp us share di Gala Sir).

Babawilly

Dr Wilson Orhiunu

22-11-2016

The Table Matters

Prevention is mightier than the cure and less expensive.  Many psychological ailments that plague in adulthood could have been immunised against in childhood by simply having a roundtable conference with food at the centre.

From the glutinous date who eats up all her starter and then eyes yours to the greedy local government chairman high on drugs and pilfered wealth, we see people whose problems could have been prevented by eating regular family dinners.

No one in folklore history needed family dinners and the training it dispenses like the tortoise that broke his shell in Chapter 11 of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.  As the story goes, the birds were invited for a feast in the sky and seeing that helicopters had not been invented, the only way Mr Tortoise could gatecrash the party was to borrow a Personal Flying Card (PFC) from each bird.  He had a reputation for mischief but he talked them into giving him a one-bird-one-feather loan.

During the flight to the party, he assumed the alias of ‘All of You’ and as soon as their hosts presented food for ‘All of You’ the Tortoise stepped in to display his greed.  The angry birds withdrew their support from him, so by the end of the party he was full of food but could no longer hum his favourite R. Kelly tune.

The parrot offered to tell his wife to put out soft furniture in the garden for his proposed wing-less jump back to earth. The parrot however, told Mrs Tortoise to bring out metallic objects and alas Mr Tortoise jumped.  The impact took the ‘S’ out of his Shell (proof that when the people get angry with the leader they helped to fly high and withdraw their support, a crash down is inevitable).

If the Tortoise had spent time with his parents at the dinner table he would have learnt the following essential lessons:

Curb the Greed

Being reprimanded for an attempt to grab the chicken without consideration for the rest of the family, especially at an early age leaves indelible marks on the personality.

Realise that all at the table must have equal opportunities

The bread comes round and no one takes a lion share.  Equitable distribution of food according to need is learnt and practiced.

There is always a next meal

Spoiling breakfast endangers lunch.  If the food is too salty at lunch, you may not want to endanger your chances of dinner by talking out of turn or hurting the cook’s feelings.

Never bite the finger that feeds

The head of the table that pays the bills blesses the food and generally steers the ship. Things get done in order and every one’s space is respected. No one reaches across the next man’s face to grab the salt but rather asks politely if they could pass it. That is how personal space learnt to be respected and this translates into respect for international boundaries later in life.

There is life after the meal

Those who have stayed behind to talk and laugh after the meal has long finished know that communication with family members must still go on and is an enjoyable part of the post-dinner experience.  Being greedy and eating all the rice will breed resentment and disharmony.  That is why many people who are rich through greedy means are paranoid and always watch their backs for they know there is no good-will coming from any quarters.

The Table is for Service

You serve those you live and eat with (not defraud them). At home you learn to do that noble act of setting the table for others (even God prepared a table in Psalm 23).  Setting a table is forward planning. Each seat is allocated to someone and they grow up knowing that there is a special place reserved for them. Eating meals in harmony in childhood will produce civil servants rather than the civil merchants on the look-out for a bribe.

The tortoise was helped to the skies but he soon forgot his helpers.  The 1971 song by the then Fela Ransome-Kuti called Jeun K’o Ku (Chop and Quench), seems most appropriate to tell about the Tortoise’s expulsion from the party in the sky.

In the song Jeun K’o Ku, the singer laments being saddled with a greedy visitor who eats up the whole ‘economy’ and even makes passes at the lady of the house.  He calls the visitor, ‘Oni Gbese’ (a debtor) for, eating recklessly and living above one’s means leads to debt.  Greedy children without reins on their appetites grow up to be greedy leaders who ‘eat up’ economies they were given feathers to fly into. Fela cried for help to expel the visitor who is hell-bent on eating to the point of achieving a stomach rupture.

So, next time a cunny orator asks for something you have that would enable him get to a position of power, look him in the eyes and ascertain if he ate meals with his parents or was a hustler with a survival instinct and an eye for looting.  If he appears to be a crook, keep your feathers to yourself.

24/3/2015

Babawilly

Dr Wilson Orhiunu