Lukpata Lomba Joseph lives and writes in Nigeria.

A Song for Dele Giwa
By Joseph Lukpata Lomba

All things come alike to all:
there is one event to the righteous
and to the wicked.—Solomon

Fate taught him the arts of servitude
from the first day he knew life,
for his household was the Ooni’s beast of burden.
His childhood tales
were crafted on the pages of chores:
from serving in the art-polished palace,
to washing and drying in the rain-cleansed walls
of Oduduwa college—
an art inherited from his destitute father.

Becoming a man, he fell in love with ink-kissed papers;
he flew as far as Brooklyn College
just to know papers.
Contending with the world from the New York Times to
the Daily Times,
Dele became a bin of accusations.

I have said in every opportunity, no
one tells me what to write in my column.
Nigerians have been shocked to the
state of unshockability.

 He was unrepentant,
his vision was vague and vicious
to the members of the Nile.
Friends feared the cliff could fall on him,
he was a fern about to float on the fierce waters.

It is a dangerous trend;
in a worst case where die-hard Christians
and die-hard Moslems are dying in the streets.

His love for truth whetted violence,
his guts were admired and honoured with
a pearl-like parcel which tore him apiece!
It was a gift, it was death.
He knew a lot, he knew a little,
he opened the parcel with peerless passion.

No evil deed can go unpunished.
Any evil done by man to man will be
redressed, if not now then certainly; for
the victory of evil over good can only be temporary.