Isn’t it odd to want something so badly it hurts only for you to have it and desperately ache to opt out with as much fervor?
That is the exact replica of the plight of students in the Nigerian tertiary institutions.
One may wonder why the state of affairs has culminated to such degradable extent despite the rate of students who jostle for
admittance into these schools of learning, at all cost and sweat.
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board annually records a
record-breaking number of applicants who vie for the seemingly utopian
position of studentship in the little sparse rooms offered by Nigeria’s
higher institutions of learning.
Some despite being demoralized from the failures recorded from previous
attempts, even strive again just to get higher education.
However the answer lies in the questions, “what is the cause? Who is to
be blamed? Is it the management of these tertiary institutions, the
often ill-prepared students or the government herself? With these in
view, who however shares the larger blame?
The students, all starry eyed with novel dreams and ideas of tertiary
institution as a life of freedom outside the supposed captive room
of their parents clutches, usually get the shock of their existence with
the realization that all that glitters truly is not gold.
Their earlier misconceptions, garnered from the frivolous lifestyles of
peers who seemingly had got admittance before them, make them
ill-prepared for the expectations of campus life and are usually
shattered with responsibilities saddled upon them by the academic
environment.
You get to wake up earlier than usual, prepare for the day, struggle
through classes and try to maintain an equilibrium between solving
assignments and living the illusion you have been made to believe.
Hence, reality dawns on them that admittance into tertiary institutions
is not as arduous as staying in.
Additionally, the school management thickens the plot. The time tables
are unrealistic, the school fees are unaffordable and worse, the educational facilities required are either lacking or completely
unavailable.
Imagine an institution where the libraries are unequipped, handouts are
expensive and imposed, assignments and projects are piling up, learning
is done in stress, sexual harassment are mounting, insecurity from
cultism is at its peak and the management are unresponsive nor proactive
to the educational crisis of the students. What choice is there for
such student than to find an alternative in opting out?
Meanwhile, the government also share a chunk in the messy situation.
The polytechnics, colleges of education and universities are business
centres where little investments are put in but profits are reaped
unjustifiably.
State owned and federal schools are often left by the government to
cater for the welfare and payment of their academic and non-academic
workers salaries and wages.
Educational facilities are not supplied and education is left to survive on mere trails scavenged by the school management.
Therefore in a situation whereby the academic situation is inimical to
the students welfare, where desperation sets in to excel but without
success, the students prefer the outside walls to the fiery furnace of
academic travails in Nigerian tertiary institutions.
Monday, 22 April 2013
Monday, 15 April 2013
THE HOMECOMING
The Homecoming
Ahhh....
Hmmmn...
Sweet pain, racing pulses.
Moaning whispers, Heavy breaths...
Lovers leaving the insignia of their promises on the threshold of spent moments.
Excited shudders,
Bucking waists racing with the urgency of a tourney.
Ripples coursing through earthly frames...
A weakness bestowed like the weight of Jesus' burden,
The coming of milk to the land of honey,
Wild oats sowed on ripened mound.
Life springs,
Germinated from the farmer's milky mead.
Lovingly planted in rhythmic slow haste.
With time's patient walk,
Rotund, a seedling evolved.
Feeding from roots tapped into feminine earthly space.
It drew air and luminance from the hemisphere.
With blooming abundance it took form, and applied the law of meoisis.
Time aged and
Ahhh...
Hmmnnnn...
"It's a boy", they cried!
While I, from my cocoon pried.
In anger, I cried!
Welcomed by the sparse smiling-yellowed cob of the aged midwife.
Hmmmn...
Sweet pain, racing pulses.
Moaning whispers, Heavy breaths...
Lovers leaving the insignia of their promises on the threshold of spent moments.
Excited shudders,
Bucking waists racing with the urgency of a tourney.
Ripples coursing through earthly frames...
A weakness bestowed like the weight of Jesus' burden,
The coming of milk to the land of honey,
Wild oats sowed on ripened mound.
Life springs,
Germinated from the farmer's milky mead.
Lovingly planted in rhythmic slow haste.
With time's patient walk,
Rotund, a seedling evolved.
Feeding from roots tapped into feminine earthly space.
It drew air and luminance from the hemisphere.
With blooming abundance it took form, and applied the law of meoisis.
Time aged and
Ahhh...
Hmmnnnn...
"It's a boy", they cried!
While I, from my cocoon pried.
In anger, I cried!
Welcomed by the sparse smiling-yellowed cob of the aged midwife.
MOONLIGHT ACHES
http://facebook.com/hihbeeby Otapo Olalekan Ibrahim on Wednesday, March 27, 2013 at 11:24am
On a moonlight walk,
In the heart of spring,
With the haste of a light spring,
I danced past a spring,
Lined with canaries whispering gossip-talk.
In the meadow,
The fireflies blazed with blinking flare,
Torching their paths with natures glow,
While moving towards their greenish lair.
On a stump,
Sat a girlish rump,
Singing a sorrowful song,
With her head droopingly hung,
In the shadowy silent ambiance of a corner.
She sang in another tongue,
Like a mourner,
Wailing out the soul of her heart.
I wondered about her plight,
Why she sang so absent of mirth.
I wondered why she choose to be shadowed by the dark comfort of night.
I knew she sang of the death of old hopes,
Buried deep into the middle of the earth,
Away from aspiring gropes.
She spoke of snoring slumbering dreams,
Covered with layers of rigid films,
Fastened with the tightrope of the death bell.
Little wonder her face fell
That much, I could tell.
Frustrations had nipped at her core.
She wanted no more,
Of harrowing arrows lodged deep within her
As evident on the fore.
All she wanted was something to hold dear.
I knew she wished for coup dé grace,
Just to end the torturous race.
But will her death not make her life a farce,
Even when existence stays sparse?
Time will fulfill,
a man's dreams, aches and sins
He yearns to share.
splayed on the bayou like a canvass atop the mountaintop,
For all to see, know and tell.
The sinking ship overflows with its rolling tears,
but must it drown in its fears?
In the heart of spring,
With the haste of a light spring,
I danced past a spring,
Lined with canaries whispering gossip-talk.
In the meadow,
The fireflies blazed with blinking flare,
Torching their paths with natures glow,
While moving towards their greenish lair.
On a stump,
Sat a girlish rump,
Singing a sorrowful song,
With her head droopingly hung,
In the shadowy silent ambiance of a corner.
She sang in another tongue,
Like a mourner,
Wailing out the soul of her heart.
I wondered about her plight,
Why she sang so absent of mirth.
I wondered why she choose to be shadowed by the dark comfort of night.
I knew she sang of the death of old hopes,
Buried deep into the middle of the earth,
Away from aspiring gropes.
She spoke of snoring slumbering dreams,
Covered with layers of rigid films,
Fastened with the tightrope of the death bell.
Little wonder her face fell
That much, I could tell.
Frustrations had nipped at her core.
She wanted no more,
Of harrowing arrows lodged deep within her
As evident on the fore.
All she wanted was something to hold dear.
I knew she wished for coup dé grace,
Just to end the torturous race.
But will her death not make her life a farce,
Even when existence stays sparse?
Time will fulfill,
a man's dreams, aches and sins
He yearns to share.
splayed on the bayou like a canvass atop the mountaintop,
For all to see, know and tell.
The sinking ship overflows with its rolling tears,
but must it drown in its fears?
Otinspiration Blog: IYEMAJA
Otinspiration Blog: IYEMAJA: Iyemaja by Otapo Olalekan Ibrahim on Thursday, April 11, 2013 at 12:32pm Under the calm allure of the nightly ...
IYEMAJA
Iyemaja
Under the calm allure of the nightly breeze,
The tide rolls and tease,
Teasing the moon that hangs lazy on the extreme edge of the shore,
A silent silvery light lounging on the camp-seat of the shoreline.
The wind whispers a raspy tune, encoded with words replica of the sunset sonata,
As it bade twilight good rest.
The shrill cry of the night bird away from its nest,
accompanies the symphony of night by the waterside...
Life just started anew.
The mayan joint echoes its buzz, booze and smell,
While the night queens serenade the eager hearts,
An attempt to ace the pawns.
The tide rolls and tease,
Teasing the moon that hangs lazy on the extreme edge of the shore,
A silent silvery light lounging on the camp-seat of the shoreline.
The wind whispers a raspy tune, encoded with words replica of the sunset sonata,
As it bade twilight good rest.
The shrill cry of the night bird away from its nest,
accompanies the symphony of night by the waterside...
Life just started anew.
The mayan joint echoes its buzz, booze and smell,
While the night queens serenade the eager hearts,
An attempt to ace the pawns.
Magic berthed.
I saw a fair one,
Fair in form and height.
Eclipsed by the shadow of night.
She looked a mystery,
Like the gypsy with its charm.
She swayed like the Arabians,
Walking her way into the crowd and stolen staring hearts.
Her shadowy eyes welcomed wavy wishes from the enraptured,
Luring them on to its heavenly enclave.
My heart jumped to its feet and raced to ask for the first dance.
Was I blessed with the vision of a goddess?
Was I seeing true beauty from the toxic lens of my cup?
She granted me my wish,
And we had a long swish.
She danced like a true goddess,
Virgin in every step.
Her soles beat the sounds of promises that her hourly waist aptly kept.
I wanted more,
She had touched my core.
I wanted us to become beta.
But like Cinderella fearing the death of night,
She fled.
I followed.
Like water flailing from mystic falls,
she plunged into the dark crisp water and tailed away.
A silvery tail I saw,
To see no more.
I had just waltzed Iyemaja,
And she stole my heart.
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