By Frank Okojie

For someone who is more at home running figures rather penning words, authoring a collection of poems is a no mean feat. Trained as an accountant and working as an auditor, OgunliGlory Oritseweyinmi in her collection of poems, Echoes of Africa showcases her diverse temperament for her continent as well as questions the position of the western explorers who claimed to have discovered Africa. 

In reading Ogunli’s poetry, the mind leaps back to the era when Africa was the centrepiece of the world identity discourse – when her warriors at home and in forced displacements kept her name on the lips of her traducers. 

Ogunli’s literary forebears pioneered Negritude in response to Western pejorative commentaries. 

Leopold Senghor, Cesaire Aime borrowed a leaf from the wise men in of the Harlem Renaissance to paint the rainbow colours of this beautiful earth. 

The onslaught against colonialism and the derogatory observance of the continent were pushed back not by canards but by practical truths. 

Ogunli returns to that ancestral pot and gulps copiously from a reservoir that nature designed never to end. If you don’t hear WEB Dubois or Marcus Garvey, if time has shift Kwame Nkrumah and even Nnamdi Azikiwe to the side, pin an ear to the ground and hear the shrill sound of their scion as she sings in “Africa Stand” thus

Let them see the light

The light of day has come

The dawn of the black nation is nigh

Can you feel the warmth from the rising sun?

It is coming…

The sun from Africa!

The lines rendered above continue in the great tradition of positioning, eulogising, honouring and a longing to return Africa to her status as the birthplace of man and the ground plan around which all human activities ought to resolve. 

Musicians from Bob Marley, Maskela, Lucky Dube, Majek Fashek, Yossou Ndour, Akon, among others have romanced this theme. Yet, each new voice picks only a slice, and in doing so, as Ogunli has, they enamour Africa in a way a caring child dresses its aged parent in appreciation. 

In Bloom, she harps on why Africa should be our heartthrob. She says when others speak of her imperfections, she chips in that it is only work in progress, a grand piece awaiting completion and perfection. Call this patriotism. 

Yes, but it is rendered in perfect lines – each word falling like a boulder to erect hope, beauty and love. Ogunli’s poetry nibbles on the skin, like an ant finding bonbons for self-preservation and communal survival. She is the kind of messenger who makes poetry a delightful medium.

The stories in this poetry collection are rooted in Africa. But it is their uncanny specialty in speaking to the individual that grips me most. It is possible to read poems like “How Children Learn to Eat Their Mother” and feel a sense of de javu. A pressing call to rising crime wave and faithlessness in society. 

The offspring “who became the gods/began to crush their own brothers/With needy and greedy fingers/They kept taking what was left/and left the rest impoverished. Disdainful but real.” 

The collection is a testament to Mrs. Ogunli’s love for the creative enterprise. Echoes of Africa follows on the footsteps of Voices from Afar, Just Like Waters, Alero among others that she has accomplished.