by Soyombo Ayomikun

  A distraught mother rushed in

   With burnt hands & eyes spilling tears

   After her appeared men carrying two children

   Both already severely burnt

1.Just the other night I sat

   Together with a colleague in an emergency ward

   Reminiscing about life & love

   Suddenly the soft peace got shattered

2.A distraught mother rushed in

   With burnt hands & eyes spilling tears

   After her appeared men carrying two children

   Both already severely burnt

3.We were told the mother was in the kitchen

   Preparing dinner just after the yuletide celebrations

   Her stove of kerosene suddenly exploded

   Consuming her reasoning in a fiery blaze

4.Out of confusion & fear she threw the stove

   In a direction defined by her now autonomous hands

   Unknown to her two of her children were right there

   As burnt offerings the fire gutted their flesh

5.Mother screamed & neighbours poured in

   Rising to the rescue of the helpless children

   At the end of the hellish drama the children emerged

   As wounded souls from hell’s very core

6.In the emergency ward we dashed around

   Looking for equipments with which to salvage the dying souls

   As is usual in Nigerian hospitals we found close to nothing

   Our light bulbs were even asleep as power had gone

7.Thinking about all it dawned on me

   That ‘Emergency Preparedness’ is not a culture of Nigerian families

   When disaster finally strikes we go about seeking witches

   Generational enemies that must just be culprits

8.No soul prays for hazards but they just do happen

   Reason why we ought to harm our consciousness with the wisdom

   That when they do occur lives must be saved first

   Not the burning stoves,cars or houses

9.I encourage all families to have emergency plans

   That perhpaps jokingly should be shared within your walls

   Plans about what to do when fire breaks out

   Or what to do when a child suddenly swallows a coin

10.We all can’t be wise enough

     We all can’t be cautious enough

     To save our families & the palaces we laboured for

     Just a little more of preparedness for the lurking evil would do

NB:this piece was inspired by two children who were victims of a fire disaster somewhere in Ore,Ondo State on 4th of Jan,2014….one survived,the other died.

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Dr. Soyombo Ayomikun tweets from @ alabaster85

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.