Sampson N. Ngwuekie
LAMENTATIONS OF A PRISON GRADUATE
I
Twenty five years - two decades and half,
I; Semulu, son of Mazengong and of Tang-Mandzem
Have stood behind the bars in painful agony
And today, I have been relieved of the burden
Of chains in my feet and handcuffs in my hands.
Magnus Dei!
God is great.
No tongue can tell the gall of chagrin
Which I have known in captivity.
Incompatible diets prepared by a callous cuisine
I ate and slept naked on bare floor,
Hard labour under the ravening sun I did
With pitiless guards flogging me on my back till blood sparked.
I cried to the top of my voice,
And wept to the nadir of my soul
And, like a drowning man would cling to a serpent,
I longed for a unique opportunity to escape to safety
But the imposing prison gates stood firm against my longing.
I wished time flew as swift as a sparrow
So that my term elapsed faster
But the clock kept on ticking in its regularly stubborn pace
And today, I am out of confinement.
Praise the Almighty God!
Once more, I can be proud of precious liberty
Which I was deprived twenty five years ago.
Once more, I can see the blissful butterflies and birds fly in the blue sky.
I can hear the horses’ neigh and the oxen’s low.
I can scent the fragrance of marigold and of periwinkle.
O Magnus Dei! I am once more free ...
Free to go to the sea shore and watch the fishermen busy with their nets
And the deep blue sea sailing into the limitless horizon,
Free to go to the lush botanic gardens
And chat with charming chicks in splendid ecstasy,
Free to go to nightclubs and court sophisticated courtesans,
Free to sip champagne and savour caviar – all of my taste –
And dance to the crescendo of musical compositions of my choice.
Oh souls of joy, once more I am free!
II
My day of doom resurfaces fresh in my memory
And I remember with red wrath, that most corrupt magistrate
Who handled my case and fouled my file.
That consummate mercenary clothed clad in justice legal gabardine
And capped learned skull with unjust wig!
I remember his last words pronouncing my detention as follows:
“The defendant is found guilty of high treason
And his lawyer has sought clemency from this honourable court.
To this effect,
He is sentenced to twenty five years imprisonment with hard labour.
This, herein and thereof is the final judgment of the court.”
This said, I was escorted by two cavalier officers of the law
Into eternal sombre.
.
Why Semulu Tang-Mandzem?
Why me alone?
Where were my fellow activists
With whom we were charged with subversion?
They had bought their case in cash and silenced the magistrate
And I had to bear our burden alone.
Poor scapegoat!
Poor less-privileged!
III
That day when I was released, I returned to my village.
My land of birth where my navel was buried
And where my father’s cap of succession
Was put on my head when I was seventeen.
Sad news reached me in prison nine years ago
That my uncle; Tang-Tsop-Ngoong closed his eyes,
That my aunt; Benang-Mbong followed suit,
And that Zefack, Youtah and Fiematiah proceeded:
Without respite, without reprieve,
Death had indeed declared war on homestead
And had in turn made a vast cemetery of our farmstead!
Lonely I stood at the threshold of my concession.
Lonely I descended as everybody gaped at me.
My shaded and shrunken eyes,
My sore and sunken jaws,
My cranky and cranny ribs,
Indeed, my cadaverous outfit appalled all and sundry.
Silent among them stood my relatives with guilt written in their faces.
Steadily they stared at me like in a reverie
For, they couldn’t answer any question if I asked them.
They knew what they had done.
They had auctioned all our family land and property, sold all – pin and pipe –
And squandered pound and penny on thighs, tobacco and palm wine.
Silent they stared at me, for they thought that I was no more.
They thought that I had wasted to death in incarceration.
Of course, they never came to visit me down there in hell’s dark bottom.
It was their fervent wish that I should perish there,
So that our family name be erased from the surface of the earth.
Silent and still they stood for; their wish did not meet with divine favour.
Disappointment held their bones in in chains and their conscience in prison.
What had they to say to me and to the onlookers?
What account had they to give for the marketed land and property,
Wealth which our family once possessed in plenitude?
They had no account to give neither to themselves nor to me.
Silent and ashamed they stretched forth their weakened hands
And pretended to welcome their brother back home happily.
I embraced them all the same for, I had not come to avenge.
It could not be a ceremony if I died in prison
While our family flourished in wealth and prosperity.
It was rather a ceremony as I was alive and a free man
Although with little or nothing to keep body and soul together.
Praise the Almighty God!
IV
As multitudes came from all the nooks and crannies of the neighbourhoods,
I cuddled them with parole as follows,
“My fellow kith and kindred,
Children of Mapuoh-Ngwoong,
You are all welcome to this my hollow homestead
To receive me from my long journey into night.
A man who is alive still has one option
Which a dead man no longer has.
He still has the tongue to apologise or to grant pardon;
But a dead man’s tongue is sealed forever.
If I returned as a corpse,
You would have all come here mourning.
But since I have returned alive, you have come smiling.
I will not hesitate to declare this day my twenty fifth anniversary
Simply because I don’t have food for us to eat and palm wine for us to drink.
Even with hunger in our guts and thirst in our throats,
Let’s join the angels ancestors in celebrating this blessed day.
In his usual pipe-puffing routine,
My father once said to me,
‘Dear son, my spirits tell me that you shall be one among the great people
Who shall build this nation and one day free it from decades of servitude.’
Today, I see how deceitful the wisdom of age can be.
To what extent were those his spirits genuine?
They were certainly false spirits.
How can I spend a whole lifespan in detention
And still afford to become a celebrated nation-builder
And champion of liberty as my father prophesied?
How can this be possible?
Nevertheless, all is never lost till all is lost.
V
My fellow kinsmen, women and children,
Where do I begin from here?
All my paths are hurdled, and all doors are locked against me.
Darkness has marred my sight, and I cannot see the least twinkle.
Wax has sealed my ears, and I cannot hear the least jingle.
Had I but a threadbare shirt to wear
And a dog-chopped pair of shoe to put on,
I would have stood in line with the privileged.
Had I but tears to cry, I would had cried
But even tears which are the last consolation of an orphan
I have no drop left for, they have dried
Over twenty five years of misery and distress behind the bars.
By God’s grace, I can start here and still make the future
For, it is not how fast one runs but how far he runs.
I hereby crave your indulgence to give me a hand.
Even a widow’s mite will redeem my present situation.
Look over there.
See that my long-abandoned cubicle in its advanced stage of dilapidation.
Ruin has crumbled the walls
And wind has shuffled the roof.
There it stands like a shattered and tattered tent at the battle of Megiddo.
Fellow comrades, kith and kindred,
Be kind for, your son has returned home alive.
Consider my destitute state of affairs
For, without you, I will be no match to a dog.
Better a dog which has its kennel to lie within.
I have no hut to put my head in.
A sheet of zinc from you,
A small portion of farmland,
A hoe or a machete, a seed or a tuber
Will settle me down on my secondment.
Oh, children of Mapuoh-Ngwoong, be kind.
Be kind for, misery has put its garment upon me.
If you ever have rings of copper to give to the King; brothers, give it to him.
Don’t think that as a King, he would appreciate only Gold.
If you ever have jewellery of brass for the Queen; sisters, give it to her.
Don’t think that as a Queen, she would appreciate only diamonds.
Please, give me whatever thing you have.
It will redeem my present situation.”
VI
You dead ancestors!
What are you doing there beyond
While your colleagues are alive and constant in intercession and intervention,
Rectifying their family affairs back here in the land of the living?
You are there lingering about doing nothing,
You sleep there mummified, snoring while I am persecuted here.
Do you want me to join you there in your own land of sleepers?
Before you know that this family has been tied to the sacrificial stake?
Mazengong, Tang-Mandzem,
Are you not ashamed?
Are you happy when you look back and see your family reduced to ghosts?
Is this how you wanted us to live after your departure?
Zefack, Youtah, Fiematiah,
Is this how you wanted us to be?
No, no!
Other families have elongated to the heavens
While ours has remained behind craving for daily bread and finding none.
Living hand-to-mouth lives earned from gambling
And the marketing of family land and property.
Women, cigarettes and palm wine are our diurnal and nocturnal entertainments.
The insatiable quest for mundane joys and glory has brought plague to our house.
Benang-Mbong, Tang-Tsop-Ndoong,
Be it malediction upon this family, uplift it with immediate effect.
Uplift it else I will declare war upon you,
Uplift it else you will know the famine of sacrifices –
And you will know no offerings, nothing but offal!
Don’t think that the living cannot discipline the dead.
Rise and uplift whatever malediction that might have befallen this family.
Rise quickly for, I have just returned from prison – a house of many-natured furies,
Rise, before someone becomes a very unfortunate victim of a temperament gone berserk!
Rise, you immortal souls of Mapuoh-Nwoong
Rise, before I couple one bitterer curse to those this luckless house has drunk.
Rise quickly!