Femi Fani-Kayode
In our continuation of his recent interview with mytestimonys.blogspot.com, outspoken commentator and a former aide to President Olusegun Obasanjo, Chief Femi Fani Kayode aka FFK, speaks on Boko Haram, his trying time and writing skills.
Excerpts:
What is your view on Boko Haram?
FFK: On the issue of Boko Haram itself you can tell that these are just agents of the devil. Most of our people are reluctant to criticise them publically because they are scared. This is particularly so with most of our leaders- most of them are cowards. I don’t fall into that category because I believe that my life is in the hands of God and not in theirs. Nothing can happen to me as long as God does not will it so I will always speak the truth and speak my mind when it comes to such matters.
I live in the northern part of Nigeria. It is my home. I have lived in the north for ten years now and I am telling you that Boko Haram is the most evil force that this country has ever known. I am also telling you that the only way you can deal with it is NOT through amnesty, like some of my friends and colleagues have been saying, but rather by seeing it as a simple law and order issue and by taking the battle to their gates and eliminating every single one of them and their sponsors and closet supporters. This has been my view from day one when this crisis started and it remains my view. It took the great Kamel Ataturk of Turkey the resolve and the will to slaughter almost one million Islamists, not Muslims but Islamists, to bring law, order and sanity back to his country when it was faced with an armed challenge from those who wanted to turn it into an Islamic fundamentalist state.
In other words he slaughtered almost one million Islamic fundamentalists during the conflict and he could do this easily because he did not see them as true Muslims. He was a Muslim himself yet he slaughtered over one million Islamic fundamentalists in his country in order to make Turkey a secular state which was bound by the norms of decency, humanity and justice. Ataturk saved Turkey from falling into the hands of religious extremists and he created a modern, functional, democratic and successful Muslim state when many in the western world claimed that it was impossible to do so. His legacy in Turkey endures till today and it ought to be a shining example of what is possible in a country that is almost 90 per cent Muslim to the rest of the world and to Muslims particularly. Ataturk proved to the world that you can have a Muslim country that is secular, that is well run, that is decent, that is disciplined, that is militarily and economically strong and that has laws that are humane and civilized. He proved that you can have a Muslim country where human life has meaning, where women are treated as equals and where archaic religious laws have no place.
Turkey is the great nation that she is today because of what he did. He refused to allow Turkey to go the Taliban or the Al Qaeda way. He refused to allow her to go the Iranian way. He resisted the idea of those that believed that the rights and safety of non- Muslims should not be protected and guaranteed, that sharia law must be fully applied, that women had no rights and ought to be treated like chattel, that Taliban-like governments had a place in the world and that other faiths ought to be banned. This is of course the sort of thing that Boko Haram wants for Nigeria. It came to a point in Turkey where there was insurgency and rebellion and Ataturk resisted them forcefully and literally killed every single one of them.
Without that strong resolve and strong action Turkey would not be what she is today. We need to recognise what we are up against in Nigeria when it comes to Boko Haram. It is not just their foot soldiers that are dangerous and evil but their very ideology and world view. Their intention is to use the force of arms and terror to Islamize as much of the world as possible and to wipe out and ban Christianity, moderate Islam and every other faith on the earth. It is for the moderate Muslims themselves to rise up more than anybody else against this evil because Boko Haram is misrepresenting their faith before the world and giving the impression that Islam is a bloodthirsty religion. This is sad and unfortunate because we know that Islam is far from that and that it is indeed a great and humane religion and one of the three great Abrahamic faiths. Yet the Boko Haram carnage continues and it hurts me so much when I hear some of my friends and colleagues say that there should be amnesty for Boko Haram. It hurts me when I hear some of the elders of the land saying there should be amnesty for Boko Haram. It hurts me when I hear the government saying that they are considering the possibility of granting Boko Haram amnesty. All these sentiments are very painful to the ear and to the soul. I think those that have those views are completely wrong and ill-informed and what they are suggesting, if it is ever implemented by Government, will be counterproductive and extremely dangerous.
You don’t give amnesty to people that haven’t asked for it themselves. Worse still they haven’t laid down their arms, they haven’t shown any form of repentance or remorse, they have not renounced their Islamist agenda for northern Nigeria, they are still killing your people and they are still linked to Al Qaeda and the forces of global jihad. So on what basis are you talking about amnesty for such people? Amnesty doesn’t arrive until they have given a commitment to stop the violence, they have given up their arms, and they have stopped waging war against the state and stopped killing your people. It is after all that they can then ask for it. That is when it may be granted and that it may arrive and it should not do so until then. In the case of the Niger Delta militants, they committed to a peace process in principle and dropped their arms first and the whole thing was brokered and negotiated by their elders and their leaders including, in fairness to him, Vice President Goodluck Jonathan as he then was.
Not many people know that but it is the truth. Jonathan and all the other key leaders of the Niger Delta including Chief E.K.Clark, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor and many others actually went to the creeks to talk to those boys. How many northern leaders have done the same and have gone to meet Boko Haram? Instead they will tell you they don’t know who they are. So the question is this- why are you asking for amnesty for people whom you don’t know? Why are you pleading and standing in for people whose identity and intentions you are not sure of and you cannot guarantee? It is a dangerous course and if it is ever accepted by the Government it will backfire badly and prove to be counterproductive. It will not bring an end to the terrorism and insurgency but instead it will strengthen and legitimize it.
So we are back to the issue of where Nigeria is heading to. I will say this much today. If the government does not do its job, if Boko Haram continues killing, if Boko Haram strikes in the South, particularly the South West, that will be the end of Nigeria. The only way that will stop is if God raises a leader, what we call a biblical Jehu (and incidentally we keep picking it up spiritually), who will rise up and just effect a terrible cleansing in this country that will affect so many people in the positions of leadership. He will wipe so many people away, the land will be filled with blood and then Nigeria will start all over again with a strong leader that can hold us together and make us what God wants us to be. I am not saying that I want this to happen, that I am planning for it to happen or that I want anyone dead. I am only telling you what I believe may happen and what the Spirit of God is leading me to say. I am speaking prophetically. It is not that I know about anything that is being planned anywhere.
I am speaking prophetically now and by the Spirit of God and I am saying to you if this government does not get a grip of the situation, pull up its socks, begin to protect the lives and properties of the citizens, began to fight Boko Haram as they are meant to fight them, begin to do a better job and if the president doesn’t show virility and strength, then he is endangering his own government, he is endangering his own people, he is endangering the stability and the future of our country and God will not sit by idly. If he does not rise up to the occasion and challenge of nation-building, if he continues to show weakness and indecision, if he continues to make one blunder after the other as he has been doing in the last two years something will give and there will be a change in this country whether anybody likes it or not. I shall continue to pray for him and for Nigeria because I wish both him and our country well but I shall also continue to speak the truth no matter how bitter that truth may be.
You have been in politics for 20 years, tell me about your great faith moments; those moments when you could have run but you just stood strong?
FFK: There have been so many. Throughout my political career it has been a struggle. My first outing was very tough. It was 1989 and I was just 29 years old at the time. Right from the beginning it’s been a struggle for me in politics and I had many difficult and lonely times. Yet it is my calling and I have a passion for it. It is something that I chose to do and I have stuck at it for the better part of my life. I was in politics right from the start when Babangida lifted the ban on it in1989.
A few years later, the June 12 annulment took place my perspective on Nigerian politics changed dramatically after that. I eventually joined National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) and I was involved in the struggle. I contributed my own bit to the fight against military rule and in the struggle for Abiola to regain his mandate. I wrote articles, I gave lectures, I created awareness about the terrible situation in our country in various international fora and I formed various groups of political agitators and activists both within and outside Nigeria. I did all I could throughout the struggle against military rule and I participated in partisan politics for many years whenever the military gave us the opportunity to openly do so.
After coming back to Nigeria in 2001 after living in exile in Ghana since 1997, I went into partisan politics and I was given the opportunity to serve my country by being a part of the Federal Government in 2003. That of course is the ultimate objective of any politician- to be given the opportunity to serve your country in a meaningful way. I was Presidential spokesman for three years and then after that I became a Minister in two separate ministries one after the other. So as far as I am concerned I have achieved my objectives for going to into politics in the first place and I have had my chance to make a difference in the lives of people and in the fortunes of my country.
Once you have been a Federal Minister the only other thing you can be is either a Governor or a President or maybe a Vice President. So as far as I am concerned I have achieved that aspect and even after leaving office I have continued to contribute, I have continued to be relevant and I have continued to express my views in the same way that I was doing for many years before joining government. You see politics is my calling and it’s my passion. This is because I love my country and I wish to help make it a better place than it already is. Consequently as long as there is breath and life in me I will continue to contribute to the politics of Nigeria and I will never stop participating in politics or indulging in political commentary and agitation. Yet despite my passion and love for it there have been many challenging moments. I can remember when I fell very ill in the 1993 just three years after I went into full time politics. My illness and challenge defied all human logic and all attempts to heal me and help me failed. I almost died then and I had to be taken to Action Faith church in Ghana where I attended the bible seminary for two years. That was when I became a born again Christian because I saw the power of God at work. From the day that I got there my whole life changed. They prayed for me and the illness stopped from the very first day that I got there. A deep transformation took place in me, God delivered me from my demons and He literally changed my heart.
I became a different person and I saw and experienced the power of God. Everything that has happened to me from 1993 till today was prophesied and spoken over me by the servants of God as far back 1993. I mean everything! Including the fact that I would be delivered from my illness, that I would be hale and hearty, that I would go back to Nigeria in a few years and I would become a spokesman to a President and then after that I would become a Minister. I was told in 1993 that I would return to Nigeria after successfully finishing the bible seminary course and that after that I would flee Nigeria because of the government and return back to Ghana this time to live in exile for a number of years.
I was also told that my wife in Nigeria was not my wife and that God would give me another one that I could rely on within 4 years. Can you believe that every single one of these prophecies came to pass even though I did not believe them when I heard them in 1993 on arrival in Accra. The power of God is so awesome-not only did he heal me, He gave me a new life, new hope, new friends, a new wife and He honoured His word and kept His promises. What a mighty God we serve. He is truly faithful.
Again, it was prophesied in 1997 by the same church and the same person that Obasanjo would be released from prison and would come out and be President of Nigeria again. I was also told that I would end up serving in his government. This was something I found hard to believe because Abacha was in power in Nigeria at the time, Obasanjo was in prison, I was living in exile in Ghana and I had no idea when or if I would ever go back to Nigeria again. Apart from that I was not a great fan of Obasanjo at all at the time so I couldn’t see how I could ever end up working for him. My spiritual father Archbishop Nicholas Duncan-Williams told me that it was going to happen no matter what and that I should just wait and see. He said that if it didn’t happen I should never call him a man of God again. I resisted it, I said it’s not true and that it would never happen and yet it came to pass a few years later. Very little has happened to me in my life that God did not tell me or warn me about either directly or through his servants before it actually happened. This includes the fact that I will be in government for a specific period of time and that I will be persecuted by government for a specific period of time after that. All of these things were revealed, exposed and prophesied to me long before they happened. I also know what will happen to me in the next few years and the sequence of events that will unfold in my life and in my country but I won’t share all that with you here.
In all this I just know one thing and this is the most important point to grasp out of all that I have shared with you on this topic – that God is faithful to His own and that He always honours His word. He has proved that over and over again in my life. Everything that has ever happened to me in my life including the misrepresentations, the persecutions, the insults, the lies, the challenges in my private life, the hatred that I would attract from so many people and so much more- all of it was revealed to me between 1993 and 1999.
I came back to Nigeria in 2001 and there is nothing that has happened to me post-1999 that I wasn’t told would between 1993 and 1997. Absolutely nothing! It’s by the power of the living God not by any individual. It was through the mouths and lips of various highly anointed and credible men and women of God. Things have not been easy but God has been good to me. That is why I find it so easy to live by faith. Because I know that He whom I serve and love and I know that He is faithful and true to His own. I am not an angel or a saint but I know that God loves me deeply just as I am and I love God with all my heart, with all my soul and with all my being and I trust Him absolutely. Anyone that knows me well will bear witness to that fact.
God has been so good to me and He has been so faithful and that is why nothing moves me. When Yar’adua was trying to kill my brother Nuhu Ribadu, when he was persecuting me, my brother Nasir El- Rufai and all the so-called OBJ boys, when he determined to jail all of us for doing absolutely nothing except for breathing air and serving Obasanjo, when he wanted to arrest my wife for nothing, when he wanted to arrest my eleven year old child as she then was for nothing and just to spite me God was with me and went ahead of them. Their evil and wicked plans against my loved ones failed. What had they ever done? Their crime was to be members of my family and just to hurt me and get at me you wanted to lock them up and humiliate them. How wicked and inhuman some people in power can be! That is why I had to ask my wife to leave this country. They wanted to arrest us all. When they couldn’t get my wife and daughter they then arrested me. They scattered my family, scattered my staff, arrested all my associates and appointees in government- anybody that was so much as friendly with Femi Fani Kayode or that he appointed to any position of power, they will arrest, lock up and interrogate and say ‘’lie on him. Just lie on him if you want to save yourself”. These people are all still alive. They can testify to what I am saying and they will do so at the appropriate time. They scattered my family, humiliated me and took everything from me. They thought I would crack and come and beg them, commit suicide, have a nervous breakdown or run away by fleeing the country but they didn’t know the type of man that they were dealing with. They didn’t know the type of God that I serve and that that God was with me every step of the way.
I must confess that on a couple of occasions in 2009 I toyed with the idea of fleeing the country. I actually said to myself let me disappear before these people come to my house and kill me but the Spirit of God said to me loud and clear, ‘‘stay where you are. You will see the end of this man and you will see the end of every single one of the people that has a hand in this wickedness’’. When I heard that voice I stood firm because my strength was renewed. Immediately after that I sat down in my study and I wrote a poem on October 23rd 2009 titled ‘’A Note To Umaru- I Stand and I Fight’’.
It was published in various mediums almost immediately and I also put it on my website and it remains there till today. If you wish to read it just go there and meditate on each word and line. When I wrote that poem I was in tears and it came by nothing but divine inspiration and as a consequence of deep prayer and a powerful leading by the Holy Spirit. It was not me writing but the Spirit of God that was in me.
One month to the day that that poem was written and after it was released to the public, my persecutor, President Umaru Yar’adua fell into a deep coma. That was on November 23rd 2009. The poem had been written on the night of October 23rd 2009 and it clearly and unequivocally prophesied that his (Yar’adua) end had come and that he would soon die. One month later to the day November 23rd 2009, Yar’adua fell into a coma. He was rushed to Saudi Arabia on that day and he never came out of that coma till the day that he died. He went to Saudi Arabia for three months and he remained in a coma throughout the time that he was there. He was brought back to Nigeria, still in a coma, on February 23rd 2010, three months later, again to the day. As I said before there is a lot of significance in numbers.
He came back to Nigeria on February 23rd 2010 still in a coma and he died and was buried a few months later. That is the power of God. God honoured His word to me and to many others that were being persecuted at the time that we ”will see the end of this man”. I didn’t go anywhere, I didn’t run away, I was here in my house and I saw it all happen. And as regards all that has happened after that and since then the Lord has already told me the end and consequently I have no fears. I have no fears for my country, my family, my loved ones or myself because I know the God whom I serve. He has already determined how things will end and turn out for all of us so why fear anything? I am like Obasanjo- ”ori mi le” (meaning my head and spirit is strong). Let me put it to you in another way- ‘’ori Femi Fani Kayode le’’ (meaning Femi Fani-Kayode has a strong head and a strong spirit). It’s like Obasanjo’s.
Obasanjo is somebody that if anybody wrongs him something awful always happens to that person. Check his history very well and you will find out that what I am saying is true. If you persecute Obasanjo you are in trouble. If you try and kill him or jail him you are in trouble. Obasanjo is a very dangerous man not because he is in any way superhuman but only because God has a very special interest in his life and He guards him jealously. Just go and find out what happens to all his enemies and those that plot evil against him. I am very similar to that. This is the first time that I have ever spoken publicly about all these personal things and I may not do so again until my book comes out. I usually only write and comment on public issues of national concern and I don’t talk about what I am going through. I don’t talk about the suffering and persecution I have been through over the last four years, the wickedness that has been inflicted on me, the loneliness that I have suffered because my family have been away from me, the betrayals that I have been subjected to, the lies that people have told about me, the bitter challenges and obstacles that I have faced and so many other things. I never talk about or write about these things because at least I have good health and life and most important of all I have a mighty God who takes care of me and who meets all my needs in a wondrous way.
So why should I complain to any human being or share my pain with them? I write essays regularly but I make a point of not writing about my personal issues or challenges because that one I take to prayer and to God alone. He is awesome and He is faithful. All those that thought I would suffer in life , that thought that I would be dead by now, that wrote me off and boasted that I was finished are sorely ashamed today and have been disgraced by my God because my voice is still strong in this nation and I am still kicking strong. It’s not because of me or because I am in any way special. It is because of the power of God in me and the fact that my God has promised that He will never leave me or forsake me. That is the secret of my life and the key to my strength. I can go through anything as long as God is with me. Without Him I am nothing, but with Him I am everything. Apart from that I am blessed with a very good, strong, prayerful and resilient wife.
I am very proud of my wife and my children. They have been through so much over the years because of me. I keep them out of public glare but I love them so deeply. I will tell you that nothing moves me when it comes to my challenges because I know the beginning of them all and I know the end. That is what keeps me going. I despise the shame and I go through it all with my head held up high. There is nothing that they can do to me or say to me that will deter me or make me give up. I will continue until that which God has said will happen actually happen. And I know that it will happen because God is not a liar. He is faithful to His word no matter how long it takes. In the fullness of time and at the end of it all the Lord shall bring me to an expected end. The counsel of the ungodly shall not stand over my life and the Lord will honour His word and not cause it to fail. It is because of this that despite all I have seen and that I have suffered I am one of the happiest people that you can ever meet. I am full of joy and hope because the joy of the Lord is my strength.
Let’s talk about the poems and the essays, how does that happen, they come out so passionate and prophetic
FFK: Thank you very much. There are two aspects. I love writing articles about current affairs and what is happening in our country because I have a passion for Nigeria. It’s my calling and I feel that is important to express my opinion as freely as possible. You don’t have to be in power or be looking for power before you write. If you feel you have something to say and if you notice that a lot of people take their time to read your contributions and that they appear to take what you say very seriously, and then you have a duty to come out and speak the truth or at least express your opinion on national events from time to time. I enjoy writing essays on a wide variety of topics and not just politics. I have been doing that for almost twenty six years now.
I remember a series of literary debates which I had in the early days. The first major one was in 1996 in the Sunday Guardian Newspaper when I had a long 3 month debate with Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah about Pentecostalism and Catholicism. He was a rising star in the Catholic Church then and he was very vocal about so many things. I think that he was the spokesman for the Catholic Bishops Conference in Nigeria then or something and he pastored his own branch of the church somewhere in Lagos at the time. I on the other hand was a practising Pentecostal and I had just finished my pastoral course at the Action Faith Chapel Bible Seminary in Accra, Ghana one year earlier where I got my degree in theology. So I was power-packed and ready to go toe to toe with him.
I was a very committed and serious-minded Pentecostal Christian then with a very compelling testimony. The debate was sparked off by the fact that I took objection to a long essay that he wrote about the Pentecostal Church and their views about God. I considered his write-up to be very insulting to our faith and church and I resolved to do something about it. I wrote a full page rejoinder the following week titled ”Is Matthew Kukah A Priest Or A Politician?” and it caused quite a stir. Of course he was not in any way intimidated and the very next Sunday he wrote his full page responding to me titled ”Priest, Politician and More”. I responded to him again the following Sunday with another long article about the Catholics and that is when the whole debate about church history, the Catholic Church and the Pentecostal Church started. It was explosive and very educative for all the readers that were following it every Sunday. It was a beautiful thing and a very thrilling intellectual exercise for us all. It was so popular and closely followed that for the next 2 months the Sunday Guardian dedicated at least four pages each Sunday to it and published articles from both sides of the divide written by different people each Sunday. At a time it got very acrimonious and hostile but it was nevertheless very informative and educative. It was also very entertaining and every time I went to any Pentecostal church at that time they would announce me, encourage me and say that they are reading the debate with keen interest and supporting me. Of course Kukah got the same level of support from the Catholics and he was a very tough nut to crack. He is a wonderful man and after the debate we became good friends. We still are. If there were more formidable intellectuals in Nigeria like Bishop Matthew Kukah in our country Nigeria would be a much better place.
The second major literary debate that I had was in 2001 and it was in the Sunday Vanguard Newspaper where I had a column. The whole sharia thing was very hot in Nigeria then and I took strong exception to the essay of a Muslim intellectual by the name of Abu Jaffar who wrote a series of articles in the Sunday Vanguard disparaging Christianity and describing Jesus as ”weak”. I responded to him and for the next three months we wrote one essay each every Sunday responding to one another. We went into the history, practices and beliefs of both faiths and I had to read no less than 11 books on Islam for that debate alone. It was explosive and literally the whole country was following it. Kudos must go to the editor of the Sunday Vanguard at that time, my brother Kunle Oyatomi, because there was considerable pressure on him to stop the debate because it was generating so much heat and tension between Christians and Muslims in the country. Yet Abu Jaffar (who I never met or ever spoke to up till today) and I never saw it like that. To us it was a purely intellectual exercise and scholarly debate about the credibility and veracity of our two faiths, a detailed sojourn into the history of both and a listing of atrocities in world history committed by both sides. I enjoyed it thoroughly and evidently so did he. Most important of all both us and our readers learnt from one another and shared valuable information about Christianity and Islam that most people didn’t know. It was a wonderful thing and by the time we finished we understood one another’s faiths and their history far better. How I wish that we had more Abu Jaffars in Nigeria that could argue forcefully and eloquently for their faith without resorting to throwing insults or bombs. I have been involved in many literary exchanges and debates over the years on many different topics but I believe that those two, the Kukah one and the Abu Jaffar one, were the most explosive, the most acclaimed and the most celebrated.
So you can see from that that I have been writing essays for many years and long before I went into government. Even before I went into politics in 1989 I was writing essays for the newspapers. I remember the first essay I ever wrote that was published in a Nigerian newspaper was in 1987 and it was titled ‘A Call to The New Breed’. I will never forget it. That was the first essay I ever wrote for public consumption and I was 27 years old at the time. The second one that I wrote was titled ”Visions of a Federalist” and it was published in 1988. I was very happy with those first two essays and the responses that I got to them throughout the country was phenomenal. I have not stopped writing essays since that time.
The poems, however, are a completely different thing. I have always loved English, Greek and French literature and history and I read virtually all the great classics from a very young age. I have also always loved poetry and reading poems ever since I was at school in England as a young man of twelve years old. I did not actually start writing my own poems though until many years later in 2007 and ever since then I haven’t stopped. It’s just something that I love doing and I think that it is by far the most refined and sophisticated form of self-expression. It is the language of the deep and those that have vivid imaginations, developed minds and extreme passions. It stirs emotions up in us that other forms of prose simply cannot stir. Poetry is the purest form of expression. It comes from the soul. Only refined minds can understand poetry. Only developed and learned minds can appreciate its power and purity. That is why poetry is more celebrated in the more advanced civilizations whether it be in places like India, the Far East, the older western civilizations, the Arabs of the Middle East and so on and so forth. When it comes to sub-Saharan Africa the Yoruba of Nigeria, the Zulu of South Africa, the Igbo of Nigeria and the Ashanti people of Ghana appreciate poetry more than any other people on the continent because it is embedded in their history and folklore. It is the same with their love songs and when they sing worship songs to God in their languages and dialects. It is very moving indeed. People that come from great empires that have seen great suffering and that have great and rich histories are the ones that usually appreciate poetry. Well educated and refined people. It’s the language of the refined and the civilized. It’s the language of the soul.
Poetry can move you to tears if you are a sensitive soul and apart from anything else poetry, as far as I am concerned, is also the language of angels. You are saying and writing things that come from deep inside your spirit and soul. You are expressing your passions and your deepest secrets. These are things which under normal circumstance you would not write or say. One thing that people need to understand is that when somebody writes a poem they should forget about who wrote it or who didn’t write it. The reader should allow the poem to speak for itself and he or she should completely forget who the author is.
The prose itself, the message it seeks to convey and the passions that it stirs are far more important than the author. There was a time I was toying with the idea of writing poems without my name and using a pseudonym so that ”Femi Fani Kayode” is taken out of the equation. Sometimes it’s more effective that way so that people don’t focus on you and instead they focus on the message. I thought about it but in the end I said, ‘No’ and I decided to continue using my name. I asked myself why I should hide my name as if I am ashamed of myself or what I was writing and I therefore chose not to do so. I chose to continue writing poetry and to continue to use my name for my poems. I love poetry. I have written so many and each one, for me, is like a little precious pearl no matter how long or short it may be. Every single one of them has a meaning. Any time I write a love poem I am actually tapping into my emotions and I am writing about a particular individual that nobody knows. Only I know who that person is. It was only on about four occasions that I made it self-evident who I was writing about. For example I wrote one for my wife which was titled- ”A Tribute To My Wife Regina- Daughter of Zion” and then there was a second one which I wrote for my children. I wrote those ones in 2008 and 2009 respectively. All the other poems I have written, every single one of them, the love poems and the ones that are not love poems; usually it’s a specific individual that I am talking about. I draw inspiration from the Spirit of God, my pain, my emotions and my experiences and it just comes out flowing.
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