Cold tapping, hot tapping?, ask the experts.

All I know is that fire burns, it burns, the fires of hell.

It envelopes you, you can’t breathe, you can’t run.

It is hot and greasy, roll on the mud, it follows you.

Fall into the river, it keeps on burning.

It does not matter whether you were the initial tapper; or you were only scooping.

The powers that be, wants all of you hanged.

The death sentence you place on yourself notwithstanding.

‘Government’s interest in meeting wider social and contractual obligations’.

Are of more importance, than a few burnt flesh and corpses.

Government employees have been chided over incessant explosions and pipeline fires.

Which has been attributed to negligence of the workers not the natives; don’t laugh.

Eight boats to patrol the Delta, equipped with oil spill detection system or fire monitoring radar?

No., the radar on board; is to detect restive youths in engine boats.

Who asks for jobs, after taking over oil platforms.

Satellites over our heads, linked to US marine trained Nigerian soldiers.

Makes your head throb.

This is the season of our discontent, and reason has abandoned us.

After killing 12 policemen, they went home to their wives;

And made love through the night.

Forgetting that the one that sent them, is expecting their return.

We were told, we had been rescued from the Eboes;

Not knowing that, what they wanted was oil.

Thirty years later, we are still paying for our rescue.

Now, we are being called greedy vandals and scavengers of their oil.

When oil burns, carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, nitrous dioxide;

And, an inordinate amount of soot, which is elemental carbon are emitted.

This smoke acts as a pulmonary irritant, and its said to be mutagenic.

Old women sneeze, conjunctivitis is rampant, children become asthmatic.

Snuff exacerbates the condition; so the sale of snuff goes down.

The snuff grinder blames the governor.

Who else is there to blame?, for you cannot blame the Gods.

In the rivers, the fishes die, the mangroves can’t breathe.

The crocodiles start migrating north, along the dredged River Niger.

What you have left is a stinking land of death.

Bodies twisting and turning, trying to smother the fire.

Yells, whimpers, agony, writhing.

A futile cry; a little lifting of the head.

The oil chokes away lives, the water becomes dark.

The mangroves are coated with tar.

The marshes look black after soaking up the oil.

The seabed is further despoiled.

Even the mud skipper has no where to go.

Crabs start sinking as the tide rolls in.

The occasional fish floats by and stares at you with that baleful look of death.

Oh rain, black rain.

We know you cannot deal with the carbon dioxide;

Come help out with the other oxides.

Stand still wind, do not blow.

Abort the self lofting thoughts.

You see when oil burns, everything just does not burn.

A little of something is left, burning flesh, burnt flesh, blackened and charred flesh.

Hmmm ..the smell, the smell of death.

Those who have watched the mai suya ply his trade;

would have an understanding., of the sweet aroma of burning flesh.

Little sparks of fire, goaded on by half hearted bellows.

Pour in some groundnut oil, sizzling, looks nice.

Wait, do not approach. Fire is fire. It will still burn you.

Watch from a distance the mesmerizing colors of the fires of hell.

And in Israel, the Rabbi Yosef Ovadia spoke:

We were sent back down to atone for our sins.

Some cried foul, but who am I to doubt, the learned man of God.

No, it cannot be, someone must have placed, ‘isan awo opa’ on the land.

Have we not been living here for years?, why is the fire suddenly more rampant?

Greed? You mean the fire or us?

No, Yes, it is the fire, he that consumes without letting.

I have looked into the eyes of hell and I have seen the fire.

Greedy, greedy fire.

Gloat not, when the vulture devours the flesh of your enemies,

our ancestors had warned us.

My elders, listen, this fire does not leave any corpse to be devoured.

You mean the remains are left on the land?

Yes, were you not the ones who taught us.,

that, ‘the person that has no grave is covered by the sky’?

Can’t you see, even the vultures are migrating west, though by passing Ibadan.

Maybe, they might settle in the north , where pipelines are respected.

And the excuse of impoverishment is not accepted.

My head is throbbing, it is the sound of the drums;

Calling us out to watch the macabre dance of the flames,

that is beginning to engulf the land.