The Arts-Muse Fair

 by Paul Liam Nasiba Babale’s emergence on the poetry literary scene is not by accident, she has in the last decade remained a constant voice strutting the digital space with her whimsical poetry.  Before the publication of her debut collection, she had already established an impressionable reputation as an emerging poet of significant talent. She writes with the consciousness of a bard who is aware of the shuddering threats to humanity's collective future and prosperity. Born and raised in the ancient city of Kano, and trained as a medical lab scientist at the Bayero University, Kano, Babale is a literary administrator and brain behind the first Kano International Poetry Festival in northern Nigeria held in July 2024 at the BUK. The festival reinforced Kano’s leading role as the epicenter of world knowledge production and Hausa civilization.  Recently, in 2024, Konya Shamsurumi published Babale's debut collection of poetry, Pickled Moments to critical acclaim. The collection s

Our Country Holds A Whip Against Us:   Requiem for a lost country Book Title: Our Country Holds A Whip Against Us Author: Abdullahi Ismaila Publisher: Kraft Books Limited Pages: 60 Year: 2017 Reviewer: Paul Liam Abdullahi Ismaila’s new poetry volume, Our Country Holds A Whip Against Us is a requiem for a lost country, Nigeria. This anthropomorphic collection is a dirge that re-enacts the depravity of social justice, maladministration and the trivialization of humanity by the political class who hold the masses in contempt; the same people who elect them into power under the tiring slaps of the sun.   The country has turned its back on the people and in consequence they no longer consider her home because she no longer holds promises of a brighter future.  The title therefore captures the decay of a country at war with itself and encapsulates the dysfunctional state of the system of things and the hopelessness that hovers above the land. And perhaps the coun