Ezra Bature
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Ezra Bature
Tuesday 6 January 2026

A Lamentation for the Poor Man in the Days of High Prices

Lo, behold the poor man as he walketh at dawn,

His sandals worn, his purse made light
The sun riseth upon his laboring brow,
Yet his wages answer not the cry of his need.

 

For bread hath become as treasure,
And a measure of rice as silver refined.
The pot upon the fire waiteth in patience,
But the cupboard speaketh famine and delay.

He laboreth from cockcrow unto nightfall,
Yet his reward is swallowed by the market’s mouth.
The price thereof riseth like a proud tower,
And his earnings bow low like grass in drought.

 

Rent knocketh hard upon his door,
School fees lift their voice without mercy
Oil and fuel cry, “Pay thou more,”
And the poor man’s heart fainteth within him.

 

Once did his coin suffice for many days,
But now it endureth not till the morrow.
Inflation hath stretched forth its hand,
And pressed sorrow into every household.

 

O Nigeria, land flowing with promise untold,
Why is the common man clothed in sighing?
The earth yieldeth abundance beneath thy feet,
Yet hunger sitteth at thy tables.

 

The widow counteth her last naira in silence,
The laborer divideth one meal into two.
Children asketh bread with hopeful eyes,
And their father turneth away, ashamed.

Yet still he hopeth, though hope be weary,
For hope is the last garment of the poor.
He lifteth his eyes beyond today’s trouble,
And prayeth for mercy to rain once more.

 

O hear the cry of them that toil,
Remember the backs bent by survival.
Let justice walk again in the streets,
And let compassion lower the cost of living.

 

For a nation is weighed not by its riches,
But by the peace of its least among men.
Blessed is the day when the poor shall rejoice,
And their labor shall no longer be in vain.

 



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Ezra Bature
Tuesday 6 January 2026

Northern Nigeria: Home of Hospitality

In the wide embrace of savannah skies,

Where dawn pours gold on ancient plains,
Northern Nigeria rises gently
A homeland shaped by grace and open hands.


Here, the wind carries greetings before names,
And doors remember no locks of fear.
A stranger is a guest of honor,
Welcomed with smiles as warm as the sun.


From Kano’s bustling, timeless streets
To Zaria’s walls of patient history,
Voices blend like woven cloth
Hausa, Fulani, Kanuri tones
Singing unity in difference.


Tea steams softly at the break of day,
Shared beneath neem and acacia trees.
A bowl of tuwo, a seat in the shade,
Offered freely, without question or cost.


Hospitality here is not a gesture
It is a language learned at birth,
Written in the careful passing of water,
In elders’ prayers for travelers’ peace.

Mosques rise calm against the sky,
Calling hearts to humility and care.
Faith teaches hands to give,
And patience to bloom like desert flowers.


In moonlit nights and festival days,
Laughter dances with talking drums.
Stories circle the fire like kin,
Binding generations with warmth and respect.


O Northern Nigeria, land of open hearts,
Where kindness is a heritage kept,
You teach the world a gentle truth:
A home is not walls or earth alone,
But the love that welcomes all who arrive.

 



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Ezra Bature
Tuesday 6 January 2026

Northern Nigeria: Home of Hospitality

In the wide embrace of savannah skies,

Where dawn pours gold on ancient plains,
Northern Nigeria rises gently
A homeland shaped by grace and open hands.


Here, the wind carries greetings before names,
And doors remember no locks of fear.
A stranger is a guest of honor,
Welcomed with smiles as warm as the sun.


From Kano’s bustling, timeless streets
To Zaria’s walls of patient history,
Voices blend like woven cloth
Hausa, Fulani, Kanuri tones
Singing unity in difference.


Tea steams softly at the break of day,
Shared beneath neem and acacia trees.
A bowl of tuwo, a seat in the shade,
Offered freely, without question or cost.


Hospitality here is not a gesture
It is a language learned at birth,
Written in the careful passing of water,
In elders’ prayers for travelers’ peace.

Mosques rise calm against the sky,
Calling hearts to humility and care.
Faith teaches hands to give,
And patience to bloom like desert flowers.


In moonlit nights and festival days,
Laughter dances with talking drums.
Stories circle the fire like kin,
Binding generations with warmth and respect.


O Northern Nigeria, land of open hearts,
Where kindness is a heritage kept,
You teach the world a gentle truth:
A home is not walls or earth alone,
But the love that welcomes all who arrive.

 



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   134 Views

Ezra Bature
Wednesday 17 December 2025

Northern Heroes

From Sahel winds to savannah wide,


Where dust remembers every stride,
The North stands old, with stories deep,
Of crowns and caliphates, awake from sleep.


Ahmadu Bello dreamed of light,
A Northern star, a guiding sight;
With Tafawa Balewa, calm and wise,
They spoke of unity beneath one sky.


But history cracked with thunder’s sound,
Coups like storms on shaken ground.
Ironsi fell, and chaos grew,
Till Gowon swore to hold things through.


The land then bled, yet still stood tall,
Through civil war’s consuming call.
Then Murtala rose, fierce and brief,
A flash of hope, a soldier’s belief.


Years rolled on with mixed decree,
Babangida’s smile, uncertainty;
Abacha’s rule, a clenched tight fist,
Where fear and silence coexist.


The North grew heavy with silent cries
Of almajiri dreams, of mothers’ eyes,
Of fields that dried, of schools undone,
Of youths with futures on the run.


Yar’Adua came with a softer tone,
Ailing body, earnest bone;
He spoke of peace, of rule and law,
But time withdrew what hope once saw.


Then Buhari, forged in discipline’s fire,
Promised order, promised higher
Yet still the villages asked for bread,
And graves kept growing for the dead.

Insurgents tore through faith and farm,
Turning prayer to fear, and night to harm.
And politics played its endless game,
While hunger wore the people’s name.


O Northern land of scholars and sand,
Of Qur’an, cattle, and calloused hands,
Your plight is not from lack of worth,
But broken trust since nation’s birth.


May future names not wound but heal,
May power learn what hunger feels.
For history is watching still
And justice waits the leader’s will.



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   267 Views

Ezra Bature
Wednesday 17 December 2025

The Wisest King Solomon

Solomon sat crowned in silence, gold upon his brow,


Yet wisdom was his scepter, not the throne somehow.
He spoke with God at nightfall, asked not sword nor gain,
But eyes to judge the heart of joy and pain.


Women came like seasons, each with beauty, song, and fire,
Queens of distant kingdoms, flames of deep desire.
They taught him love’s soft language, its comfort and its cost,
For even sacred wisdom can wander, bent or lost.


Between their whispered counsel and the Lord’s clear voice,
He learned that wisdom trembles when desire makes the choice.
For wisdom is not knowing, nor cleverness alone,
But guarding truth and purpose when the heart is drawn.


So Solomon stands written in eternal lore:
The wisest man who learned that wisdom must be more
More than words or insight, more than riches given,
It is faith kept whole between the earth and heaven.



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   317 Views

Ezra Bature
Wednesday 17 December 2025

Nigerian Leaders

In the cradle of the Niger, where rivers learn to speak,

Rise leaders clothed in promise, strong and yet so meek.
From dusty roads of power to chambers carved in gold,
They walk with dreams of millions, heavy tales untold.

Some came with fire in their eyes, with courage sharp and true,
To stitch a torn republic, to make the nation new.
They spoke of hope and unity, of justice standing tall,
Of lifting every child, not serving few, but all.

Some ruled with iron silence, with orders etched in fear,
Their shadows long on history, their echoes still too near.
They taught us hard-born lessons, in pain and bitter cost,
That freedom, once forgotten, is never cheaply lost.

There were those who tried to build, to pave tomorrow’s way,
Planting seeds of progress for a brighter day.
Yet storms of greed and chaos often crossed their path,
And power tested mercy, wisdom tested wrath.

O leaders of Nigeria, both living and the gone,
Your names are sung in praise and blame from dusk till dawn.
For in your hands lay futures, fragile as new rain,
Capable of healing, capable of pain.

May those who lead tomorrow learn from yesterday,
That service is a calling, not a throne to stay.
For the land is rich in people, in spirit, voice, and flame
And history remembers not power, but the name.



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   321 Views

Ezra Bature
Tuesday 16 December 2025

Fear-mongering

The days are loud, yet truth whispers.

Knowledge multiplies, but wisdom grows thin.


We scroll faster than we pray,
speak more than we listen,
and call noise progress.

Love grows cold in crowded places.
Neighbors pass like strangers,
and mercy becomes a rare language.

Wars rehearse without rest.
Rumors travel ahead of peace.
The earth groans fires, floods, shaking ground as if creation itself
is tired of waiting.

Good is renamed outdated.
Evil is polished and reposted.
Darkness wears confidence,
and light is asked to explain itself.

Children teach rebellion,
elders are mocked,
homes lose their altars,
and faith is traded for comfort.

Hunger walks with technology.
Rich tables grow longer,
poor hands grow emptier.

Prophets speak,
but ears are busy.
Truth stands at the door,
but distraction guards the gate.

Yet still!
the sky holds its breath.
Grace delays the final page.
Mercy counts another sunrise.

This is not the end yet,
but the warning before it.
A call to wake,
to return,
to remember what matters
before the trumpet replaces the alarm.

Blessed are those
who keep their lamps lit,
their hearts clean,
and their hope anchored
for the night is deep,
and dawn will come suddenly.



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   279 Views

Ezra Bature
Tuesday 16 December 2025

Social Zoom trend

The phone lights up before morning prayer.

A screen opens,
and modesty is the first thing to lose signal.

Girls learn the algorithm early.
less cloth, more reach.
A dance becomes a demand,
a body becomes content,
and applause replaces protection.

Breasts are no longer private language, they are thumbnails,
paused, zoomed, shared,
consumed by strangers
who will never know the cost.

They call it freedom.
But freedom should not need exposure to survive.
It should not trade dignity for data,
or self-worth for views.

The comment section feeds louder than parents.
“Go harder.”
“Show more.”
And silence greets the morning after.

Social media does not raise children
it markets them.
It rewards what shocks,
not what sustains.

Young girls watch and learn,
that attention is currency,
that the body is a shortcut,
that value disappears when the camera turns away.

Where are the elders in the feed?
Where are the voices saying,
You are more than a trend?

This is not about blame alone
it is about hunger:
for validation,
for escape,
for relevance in a loud world.

But when breasts become public property, and shame is renamed confidence, we must ask, who truly profits, and who is left exposed when the screen goes dark?

This is a warning, not a stone.
A mirror, not a whip. Because a society that consumes its daughters
will one day wonder why nothing sacred remains.



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   306 Views

Ezra Bature
Tuesday 16 December 2025

Hunger and Insecurity

Night no longer sleeps in Nigeria.

It stands guard with one eye open,
listening for engines without plates,
for boots that do not knock.

Hunger wakes before the sun.
It sits on the table like an extra child,
counted but never fed.


Soup is stretched until it forgets its taste, garri argues with the stomach,
and tomorrow is cooked with hope alone.

We lock doors, yet fear enters through the radio, through WhatsApp voice notes, through names of towns we once knew.

Farmers abandon their ridges, hoes rust beside empty barns. The land is ready, but the roads are afraid.

In the North, markets close early.
In the South, mothers bargain with shame.
Everywhere, salaries arrive late,
or not at all.

Gunshots interrupt evening prayers.
Kidnappers price human breath.
A journey is now a gamble,
and home is no longer a promise.

Children learn silence early, how to eat less, how to ask nothing, how to sleep through fear.

We are tired of counting the dead
while the living starve.
Tired of speeches that do not stand watch, of assurances that cannot escort us home.

Nigeria, we are not asking for miracles. We are asking for mornings without fear, for food that does not require courage, for roads that lead somewhere safely.

Let security mean more than sirens.
Let leadership feel the weight of an empty pot. Let hunger and bullets
stop deciding who survives the night.

This is not poetry for applause. It is a record of breath still breathing,
still waiting, still hoping not to be forgotten.



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   283 Views

Ezra Bature
Tuesday 16 December 2025

Pilgrim cry

We speak from rooms with tired walls, from ceilings that drip promises, the rain never keeps.

Kaduna hears us
in Rigasa dust, in Barnawa nights,
in rent receipts folded like prayers.

Landlord, do you hear the cough of the house?
Its doors know hunger.
Its windows blink from sleeplessness.
We pay before we breathe,
before children learn their sums,
before light remembers our names.

Agent, you stand between roof and mercy, measuring shelter with profit’s ruler. You add years to rent
but subtract repairs from duty.
You knock only to collect,
never to ask if the house still lives.

They say, Pay two years.
They say, Pay three.
As if tomorrow is guaranteed,
as if salaries grow like neem trees,
as if survival is not already rent enough.

We are not refusing responsibility
we are refusing strangulation.
We are not asking for free rooms,
only fair ground to sleep on.

Kaduna sun already taxes us.
Fuel bites.
Food argues with the pocket.
Must shelter also become war?

Hear us before anger learns to shout.
Before families scatter like dust.
Before eviction becomes our only address.

We cry not against ownership,
but against forgetting humanity.
Let the house be shelter again,
not a weapon,
not a noose,
not a debt that wakes before dawn.

This is the voice of tenants
many mouths, one breath
asking for justice
to share a room with profit,
and let both survive.



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   309 Views

Ezra Bature
Tuesday 16 December 2025

African Marital Vow

Before elders and unborn names,

before the drum that remembers us,

I take your hand.


I vow you to the soil that raised me,

to the river that taught me patience,

to the fire that shaped my voice.


I will walk with you in the market of days,

counting not coins but seasons.

When the granary is full, I will give thanks;

when it is empty, I will stand guard.


I vow you my labor and my listening.

My back in the sun,

my shadow in the heat.

I will not leave you to carry silence alone.


Before ancestors who lean close to hear,

I vow to mend what breaks,

to speak truth even when it trembles,

to keep your name safe in my mouth.


If storms scatter our path,

I will be the roof.

If night forgets the moon,

I will remember it for us both.


This vow is not mine alone

belongs to the clan,

to the drum,

to the dust that will one day receive us.


I take you,

not until comfort ends,

but until our footsteps

become one story

told to children yet unborn.


If you’d like, I can



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   193 Views

Ezra Bature
Tuesday 16 December 2025

African Marital Vow

Before elders and unborn names,

before the drum that remembers us,

I take your hand.


I vow you to the soil that raised me,

to the river that taught me patience,

to the fire that shaped my voice.


I will walk with you in the market of days,

counting not coins but seasons.

When the granary is full, I will give thanks;

when it is empty, I will stand guard.


I vow you my labor and my listening.

My back in the sun,

my shadow in the heat.

I will not leave you to carry silence alone.


Before ancestors who lean close to hear,

I vow to mend what breaks,

to speak truth even when it trembles,

to keep your name safe in my mouth.


If storms scatter our path,

I will be the roof.

If night forgets the moon,

I will remember it for us both.


This vow is not mine alone

belongs to the clan,

to the drum,

to the dust that will one day receive us.


I take you,

not until comfort ends,

but until our footsteps

become one story

told to children yet unborn.


If you’d like, I can



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   195 Views

Ezra Bature
Tuesday 16 December 2025

Never Go Far

What I place in your hands must bear no wound.

Draw it near

fasten your sleeve against the wind,

quiet the space around you

as the Shunammite once prepared a room

for what heaven would pass through.

This is for your night

a rose that knows no withering,

the Son of Man who chooses silence over song,

who writes instead

a living letter unfolding,

descending gently into your depths

and leaving you whole.

Do not exchange this for lesser weight;

small coins cannot purchase what time itself respects.

Cradle every word.

Leave space

something sacred already waits

at the threshold of your door.

You know it.

You carry a healer within reach.

Let me be the remedy.

Let my herbs rise and sway

to Solomon’s ancient wisdom

upon the resting place of Eden.




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   136 Views

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