"The flag and the river" by Olanihun Opeyemi Joe

(On Boko Haram Insurgency)

A torn flag

rippling in the wind

its green white

driven to a stitch,

tortured and taunted

by every wind passed.

A finger of river flows down from

the North's desert

its colours – a piper pied –

a white and wine of red wine...

And racing for the south, this river

courses through the

fangs of the delta

into the flanks of the ocean.

Olanihun Opeyemi Joe is a 400-level student of the Department of Geology, Faculty of Science, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun state.