The paradoxes of a nation, by Michael Olatunbosun |

The book before me today is not a collection of poems per se. It is rather a book of poetry, because it is just a one-poem in a long chain of lines. It was published in 2016 by Topseal Communications. It is titled: “Scented Offal,” written by Sam Omatseye.

Omatseye is a multiple award-winning columnist and one of Nigeria’s leading journalists. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Letters. He has written novels: The Crocodile Girl, My Name is Okoro, and Juju Eyes: volumes of poetry, namely Mandela’s Bones and Other Poems, Dear Baby Ramatu, and Lion Wind and Other Poems. Omatseye is the Chairman, Editorial Board of The Nation Newspaper.

Scented Offal is Sam Omatseye’s fourth book of poetry. Like I stated earlier, it is a one-poem work which is essentially a verse of history — or history in verse. It is a grand wedlock between history and literature, brokered with the powerful pen of a willing wordsmith. The poet himself stated that  the work is his “own way of coming to terms with the many-sided grind of Nigerian history, especially since the nineteenth century”. Thus the work is the poet’s perception of the nation’s trajectory, as it is intermittently punctuated by fights and tribal discord.

The poet starts out (p7) by probing into the much touted unity of  the nation, querying the so-called jelling of all the tribes and groups. “We could swear that our loins never joined/From old times/In the rhythms of dances/Or in accents/Or in songs…/Or the pithy moments of surrender…”

The poet persona is rather bothered by the nation’s hypocritical affirmation of unity in diversity but which is denied and rejected at all times. “But not so for us/We have inaugurated a confusion…”

In Scented Offal, Omatseye praises the valour of our ancestors who fought to keep their land and pride, and our national heroes too, including Herbert Macaulay, Nnamdi Azikiwe and Obafemi Awolowo, Sir Ahmadu Bello, as well as his account of the Civil War, and so on. He also lashed out at them for wanting to build a nation by cannibalising it at the same time. This is indeed a paradox of history.

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In this work, the poet discusses the nation’s paradoxical history. Thus, you would think that in this work, Scented Offal, Omatseye is preoccupied by the contradictions that define our country’s past. Indeed, the work is a montage of paradoxes that have come to typify our fatherland, Nigeria.

In the work, the poet wonders why we continue to live in denial in this nation. “By lying about our bloodties/We inhabit a blood of denial,/Thus we have inaugurated confusion.”

The poet persona laments: “We were a race until war made us,” and hints at the fact that Nigeria is a creation of foreigners.

On Nigeria’s independence, the poet writes: “People penned together in forced destinies/By outsiders who knew little about us but knew enough/To profit and prop an empire on our backs.”

From those lines, you could possess the poet’s mind — he feels Nigeria is a product of foreigners who only wanted economic benefits, not for Nigerians, but for the imperialists.

It appears like there is yet no closure on the Nigeria-Biafra war. The poet chimes that in the war, “Reason was debased” as “Each lay  the blame of murderer/At the other’s door.” Rather than resolve the issues amicably, the tune of division was all that seemed to unify them.

The work, Scented Offal, is indeed a historical excursion into both the dark and illuminated history of Nigeria. 

The poet has held our hands and taken us through the chequered history of a nation of paradoxes. He has indeed done a good job with his work.

. Olatunbosun can be reached via 08023517565 (SMS and WhatsApp only) and email miketunbosun74@gmail.com.