A collector's item

A collection of poetry by Biko Agozino transports its readers to Nigerias leadership woes. Moses Kadiri reviews the new bookHis career is academic. His passion is writing and teaching. With the release of his new poetry book, entitled, Today na Today, an anthology of poems written in Naija langwej (pidgin English), a waning sub-sector of Nigerian literature gets a vent.In the work, veteran academic and criminologist, Prof. Biko Agozino, serves a collection of poetry that adds, meaningfully, to the growing body of literary works in pidgin English. The anthology is a mirror of society, with a view to building new bridges for a brighter future.In the 97-page book, divided into many titles, such as Them Them, Dialectical Dialogue, Yabbis, Capital Offence, Ego Trip, Poor People Pay More, Fire the Devil, Pepper Soup, Too Much General, Na Wetin', Coconut Crown, To be Human etc., the scholar-poet and Director of African Studies at the Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, United States of America (USA), shows that he is in touch with his roots in his native Nigeria.Agozino comes across as a voice to reckon with in capturing the bitter pills, which Nigerians and other African society, have passed through for years.The writer weaves the lost dreams of the masses in the fratricidal Nigerian civil war in the poem entitled Forgive (Nigerian Civil War). In it, he raves for Nigeria, where past hurts are kept behind to build a good future. Through it, the authors versatility in polemics, finds some expression.The anthology somewhat aggregates the writers vast scholarship experience, as a researcher, who has taught in such renowned institutions as Liverpool John Mores University, London, Indiana University, in the United States and University of West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago, leaving the reader in no doubt about his grip of socio-political realities.The poet lampoons the failure of dreams and expectations sometimes associated with democracy, especially among the elites.One of the poems in the collection, Black for Black, is dedicated to blacks in South Africa. It evokes images of black humiliation during the era of apartheid, in South Africa. The beauty of the poems lie in the universal ethos and natural phenomenon they bring to the readers mind, especially the oppressed.Agozino writes like a Pan-Africanist, who has been left forlorn by a system of colonially-inherited injustice that is reaping from where it did not sow.
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