BIAFRAN WAR

The Road to the Map

The first time in school, we were taught the five senses.
To fight pain, to dissemble pain, & to devour an orbit socket of her eyes.
Teacher downturns a back of a note, lesson is done.
“Is that all,” we asked. “That is all for today, teacher replied,” his face false.
The next day, teacher taught us how not to read the national
Anthem, his face faced eastward.
The other day, teacher said we ask a lot of questions.
Teacher said that our future is on the mouth of a grey dessert barren of water, or maybe waters
should we continue to ask questions, just maybe.
Teacher also said that the road to the map is not in the road but in the map.
For us to get the map, we need to declutter our legs and wear a shovel, that
We need to cut our hands & become excavators.

Biafran War

I saw Jacob in my grandfather’s eyes.
Wrinkled veins, & wrinkled eyelid, heard his baritone,
traced the creases in his palm.
August 17, 1968, jotted like a granite slab on the cavity of my mind when
his portrait ran off, before him, the man of the people,
on the lion’s month, he became prey for the lion.
Trigger, the gentle trigger. His only choice, yes.

The Masses Response to The Broadcast.

President: Hello fellow Nigerians, today my
words come to you
not as person but as a whisper trite.
Masses: they have come again with same antics,
but this time with a bucket of flame lily.
President: The blood that washed the streets of Borno,
Jigawa, Kaduna
& Abuja, & shop burglaries, when we slept as a nation is
appealing for judgment.
I hereby use the power invested in me to end the protest,
even though your eyes are red, swollen with dark
circles. Your mouth, turned downward
With a weight unsung. I deride you embrace peace more than
You have made war a hobby.
Masses: Anyone telling us not to protest is not a true
democrat, an elitist, maybe.
President: The enemy of our great nation has created
blue ridges in your mind & a rope around your hands.
They are the real enemies. Ignore their siren.
Masses: we have an enemy in common!
A street pharmacist who suborned his way through the Rock to servile
& service his financial libido in exchange for our
mandate.
President: Our economy is a patient in a coma,
barely functioning with minimal signs of recovery.
Masses: Tinubu! let Nigeria breath; don’t stiffen her.
President: It is my vision for each step you take to be on
a soil decorated with marble, adorned with jade,
crystal, turquoise, and lapis lazuli, where your legs,
hands & eyes will leap, with everything
but unfettered movement, disgorging an explosive petrichor.
For you to bloom & blossom & bloom & blossom & blossom.
Masses: these words are like water off a heron’s back until Lawmaking
Merchandise becomes part time & Lawmakers
turn blind to the green tree at the green Rock.
President: But if only you can take these simple baby steps, I assure you,
Your future can be citrusy, surpassing the lush of your husbands, wives, and children.
& your hope will not scatter into tunnels of loss.
It will be Burj Khalifa.
Masses: baby steps? We have worked past for decades. Our limbs
are weary walking from Wuse to Utako to Garki to Wuse to Utako.

A Nigerian writer from Imo State, and musician— Victor Unachukwu demonstrates a fervent commitment to addressing social issues through his work. By giving voice to the challenges faced by society, he seeks to spark meaningful change in society—with a sense of amplifying the voiceless in society. He is currently a master’s student at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, USA, where he is currently pursuing his Masters of Arts in English, with a concentration in Creative Writing. He writes poetry, short stories, flash fiction and novellas.