PRESS FREEDOM DAY:
I AM A NIGER DELTA JOURNALIST, BY ASIAYEI ENAIBO

Lips locked up with padlock and they said it is a world Press Freedom Day and those who have spoken are in cage, so I am not willing to speak.

I have seen my colleagues who are in grave without freedom and you expect me to speak?

Yes our once greener environment is gone and the waters sprinkled with crude while our children Played with the black waters, what my mother told me, that those children who drank from the water started coughing blood, because there was no doctors in the village, the children died. They also tried to rush Ebiakpo to the oil company hospital but the gate was locked while khaki men barricaded the entrance.

Should I also speak on the River rural education, no I will not speak because if they jail me, my wife has no work to feed my children so if you are not afraid you can speak.

In the Niger Delta region, lines of waves on the sea, creek fishes splashed to me for their dying condition bobbed out of the deep as the acquatic lives are no longer safe, but now as a new facelift through the code lines of Tantita. Truth be told not because my neighbors are crying, when the fishes could not breathe and their dead bodies were floating to and fro on waters of Gbaramatu and Forcados river what did we do?

Children in nude images and shattered uniforms canoed to school in far away villages, some echoed my name as I appear in odd times and day to tell the Niger Delta story, GbaramatuVoice! Talking Drum, help us! Am I a Journalist? I have to hide my words and feelings in poetry so that it will be difficult for people to accuse me as not a friend to the Government.

Under the rain and sun I wear a smiling face but pains within from my people, swamp full of oil consumed by poverty, it is leadership failures. keep quiet they said to me, then I could not say anything even though flood is coming to submerged Bobougbene community that innocent children followed the tide to death, then my voice is silent, am I a true journalist? Many could castigate me and rudely imposed their thoughts on me to silent my Voice, but I have love and passion in my voice, without fear because I am a Journalist, I have to use my brain too.

No, no! Let the world know that this man made condition of Young girls and boys on canoe to go to school in a long canoe of sorrows in the means of plenty and nothing to assist them, let this Cross pass me by Oh Egbesu!

I am a Journalist and I must not open my mouth to tell you I am a Journalist but you should know through my perception and opacities on issues at GbaramatuVoice as the voice of the people.

Talking Drum is coming to your community as the Niger Delta Journalist at all times, we must refined our ways to balancing this caving in of our lands and houses to the sea.

Now the flood is coming and those in Government have no measures in place to help our communities, let them give us canoes so we can count the dividends of Democracy on canoes in the Niger Delta region, we are in pain of shield mouth to this freedom of press.

Asiayei Enaibo
The Talking Drum
Writes from GbaramatuVoice