Dialogue of Bullets

It's sad that Shi'ite leaders got caught in military crossfire. But I think the irony is
how their followers mustered the courage and faced soldiers who were armed with
weapons yet, they've done absolutely nothing about taking Boko Haram insurgents
out of business. A governor of a northern Nigeria state said the sect is spread across
the 19 states in the north of Nigeria... imagine such a formidable force pouring the
measure of wrath unleashed on soldiers out on Boko Haram? This is the kind of
situation that makes you ask, "What's really going on?"

You may write me up on the wall

In blood-dipped paint brush.

But I will rather die in yonder

Inferno than live in mental slavery.

I don't mind been called a hell raiser

But I think ya'll barking up the wrong tree.

While we died none broke the code of silence.

The table turns on you; you resort to violence.

If you'd expressed half the enthusiasm

From the onset of this onslaught for real,

You won't stand on the wrong side of the chasm

Acting out your spiteful hypocrisy.

Why you turn on us? The dogs are out there.

Why drop the attitude when we was bombed?

Who you fooling, why was yous acting scared?

You boldly faced the soldiers armed with slugs.

You shoulda preached that zeal all up the North;

Staged an uprising against calculated terror.

You held your peace when terror cut school kids down;

And they yelling threats from outside our walls, now?

If you wanna bring it, bring it we still here.

We never heard you hate on Boko Haram

Seems when it rains on you your voice comes clear.

Your reaction proved you to be quite an ass.

Akpan

Christmas in Sambisa

A Christmas tribute to the Nigerian Armed Forces
for their unrelenting war on terrorism

I always had a hunch you was the prototype hero.

Now that I found the unique moment to express that fact

I'm gon' ride on the track and leave none in the dark from the intro

When the tribute engage their ears n' slide down their heart.

I really wanna invest the time to take you apart

And sink my teeth into the details until I feel the heat

Of the battle waging down on the inside as you rip open the enemy

And snatch victory like a trophy from the talons of the beasts.

Bae misses her man; the kids need their dad yet this Xmas

You'll lay down on a bed of grass; rest your head on a pillow of stone

N' if you're lucky sleep will find you cuddling a people's burden in your arms.

Yet no one deserves a better Xmas than the men who went and brought us hope.

You're the one my heart bleeds for it's of you I sing

And I will fear no evil walking thro the forest of Sambisa

Cause the shadow of a soldier supplies all the solace I seek

So let me take this time and shoot you a very merry Christmas.

Akpan

Unalloyed

Recently, the Nigerian military murdered (unintentionally)
some Shiite leaders. This is so they don't lose sight of the
big picture. The fight to end Boko Haram goes on.

The temptation to agree with your critics

Is destroying you gradually

Chewing you up on the inside like cancer;

Introducing rot into your emotional liver.

You don't make progress, brother

Riding one article of other folk's opinion.

But you'll commit blunders

On the most basic of criterion.

You really ought to know better

Ain't nobody taking the fall but you.

Who gets the blame for playing the fool?

They don't give a care

How well you fare.

Just wanna use you

Then they dump you like used up shoes.

Pry your eyes wide

Open brother, gatto be wise.

The night is young

It's the time when stars shine.

Shake off the dust and rise like a song

Flung all the way up to heaven soaring free of compromise

Like a true master of destiny.

And make it your responsibility

To carve out a personal path to glory.

Akpan

Related articles

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• Latest Boko Haram attack leaves 30 dead, 20 injured
• Nigerian Military Finds Muslim Leader With Bullet Wound Hiding In 'Bunker,' Over 100 Arrested
• 10 killed in Shiite Muslims clash with Nigerian military
• Muslim Terrorists Kill at Least 30, Wound 20 More in Nigeria Attacks

Dragons of Home

This war on terror is a lot more about the victims-the dead, the displaced,
the missing-than the psychos wreaking havoc. We shouldn't lose sight of
the big picture and end up defeated.
On the side, what do you think they did to this poor girl to make her strap
explosives around her waist? This is our future going up in smoke.

You’re not here n’ how the clause spawns an electric

Arc that saturates this terrain in a wakeless gray rage

I can still hear your voices carried on the night wind,

Deep down the cove where I tuck my private self away,

Full and inextinguishable as it rides down the throes

Of cruel death and irreversible moldering of the bones;

You come to me in my quietude and unknot the knots

And as the puzzle sorts itself out a shape starts to form;

A friend’s face bending in and out of form taunting me

Begging not to be an option but a number one priority

You’re not here and I’m not there and the difference is

All the world but I won’t turn the page and close my eyes

To the heat, it’s the thorn in my flesh that only I must pick

If I must find peace. It’s all about you, it’s hi time I realize

This war aint about Shekau but you free to breathe, to be,

To dig into all of life’s peculiarities as experience hands it

Down the tube. You deserve the attention and compassion

Showered on you and the memories of you will still live on,

That is one fine article of this assurance I will never break

Until triumph busts open the gates bearing you in its wake.

Akpan

When We Bleed

If I needed someone

Would you be my redemption?

If I needed 100% and nothing less

Would you offer the best of yourself;

Spooling till there’s nothing left to give?

And would you not do it free and easy

Would you bleed when we bleed to death?

Would you freeze the Atlantic to erase the threat?

Before terror brings a nation of millions to her knees?

Won’t you help us?

While there’s still an “us” breathing oxygen?

Won’t you help us?

If I came crashing down,

Would you catch me before I hit the ground?

If I called to you on a clarion,

Would the answer in the wind convey the nostrum?

Would you walk with me thro a landmine?

Can I trust you with my heart in my darkest night?

Won’t you help us?

Won’t you help us?

Won’t you help us?

Won’t you help us?

Akpan

Soulja Story

A soulja battling Boko Haram who is also fighting his personal
demons writes his daughter about his personal struggles.

Dear Daughter,

This is not Father.

Tell you what; this war's been one tough nut to crack;

If we fight the enemy we shall hit our brothers.

There's no telling who got dragged into this joint;

Or who got paid to settle for a human bomb.

I've had nightmares where I woke up totally drenched;

Victory has never before tethered on a more slippery edge.

Who willingly yields up a daughter?

Then turns around and cries, Murder! Murder!

Who can spot the color of truth, color of a lie?

Who discerns a foe just by looking 'em in the eye?

Sometimes, I feel this is a struggle in vain.

I assume it sounds lame and probably is insane.

But can I be positive I ain't sticking out my neck for a traitor?

Can I state with certainty there ain’t secret mass burial sites?

They wear our faces and speak our tongue.

They sniff out the nitty-gritty of our minds.

If I sound a bit off the wall maybe I am.

But when we get down to brass tacks it’s Nigerians offing Nigerians.

Things are never what they seem behind enemy lines,

In this place I wage war and for same I lay down my life.

Dear Daughter,

This is Father.

Akpan

Cellphone Conversation

This is a fictional phone conversation with the maniac Shekau She-Cow, written in verse. Let’s pretend the evil genius speaks any vocabularies besides Bang-Bang! Boom-Boom! His words are in BOLD type.

Am I speaking with She-Cow?

This is Shekau...

Alhaji Abubakar Shekau

Whatever, Shay COW.

So, what's all the rage?

I said this time and again;

My mission is to cut ‘Western’ culture off this nation.

Isn't that why you're on the internet... to spread the message?

Well, yeah, I needed a medium of expression...

And a ‘Western’ medium seemed most appropriate?

That about sums it up.

That's the kind of attitude that gets people bombed.

Is that a threat?

Because I missed the part where I get scared.

I just want to tell my side of the story and be heard...

Well She-Cow, your side of the story sucks...

I blow up school kids for a holy cause...

Is that a synonym for ‘masochistic lunatic?’

You wouldn't know a thing about my cause

So I suggest you don't insult.

Are we discussing that Devil Theory which warps minds, makes

Men strap explosives all around their waists and make

Waste of everything that breathes within a 10-block radius?

My motives are strictly religious...

Sheez, you got it all sorted out, genius.

Why don’t you tell that to the dead school kids.

You're so full of shit...

Or maybe, your time is up...

This war will not be over until I've bombed you all...

Is that the stink of your corpse I smell as it rots?

That's all empty talk. And you know it.

It's over. Can you not feel...

Ha! Ha! I don't see your armed forces

Putting one dent in my offensive.

It's got nothing to do with sophisticated weapons;

We won because your toys couldn't split a great nation.

How much longer, do you reckon, would that remain reality...?

Listen hard. Don’t you hear the exploding silence of your bombs?

You should feel damn lucky you live down south....

And you really ought to make your last moments on earth count,

Start putting what's left of your household in order, militarized tout.

Because we will hunt you like vermin and we will stamp you out.

You got big mouth...

You’re living on borrowed time, traitor. I'm out.

Akpan

Who We Be

Happy Independence Day, Nigeria!
So many tribes, ethnicity, dialects yet, so much love!

In the voice of B’ Haram victims

We don’t die we multiply

Right beyond the grave we stir up a rip-roaring legacy.

Death has been reassigned;

Decay clobbers the camp of the adversary.

We’ve acquired the laurels of our sacrifice

The feat is fused into the framework of history.

We don’t die.

We was planted and we thrived.

The fluid thru our veins is green

And our voices erupt still in the street.

We heard the critical retort;

The ratata of a lethal report

Declared you have been uninstalled.

Cause you didn’t belong in the tribe.

But we don’t die.

We just flow true like that great rushing river

In which over 300 tribes wash and pass the time.

We don’t die. We’re Nigeria.

Akpan

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