Fly High, Our Silver Bird: A Poetic Tribute to Governor Bassey Otu’s Leadership and Honour

Fly High, Our Silver bird:Fly High!

(For Governor Bassey Edet Otu, Silverbird “Man of the Year,2025 and The Sun Newspaper, Man of the year 2025”)

Cross River is proud of you,

Fly high,our Silver-bird,

Fly high,

Sail on by,

Your time is on.

Like a bridge over troubled waters,

You are to ease our minds,

Your time has come to shine,

All your dreams are on their way.

You were energised to do more for us:

You spread your tentacles,

You spread your wings,

The celestial bodies saw your deeds and strides

And could no more blink nor look away,

So The Sun led the eulogy with an embrace.

Then you ended the Year 2025

As a SilverBird.

Cross River is proud of you,

Fly high,our Silver-bird,

Fly high,

Sail on by,

Your time is now.

What do you say to a man who stole your shadow,

Just to prove a tribal point?

Same unpatriotic megalomaniacs that Stephen admonished;

“Which of the Prophets did your fathers not persecute?(Acts:7:52)

And they even killed those that foretold the Promise.

The story of the ground is better narrated by the cricket.

They called our state “Paradise”,

A place to be,

We all know why.

But some people came and raped our land,

Nobody stopped them,

The shadows of the past still hung,

Heavy in the air

And our people were no more smiling.

The chilly winds blew down,

From the hills of Obudu and Obanliku,

Through our Forests and Plantations,

To the creeks of Calabar South and Bakassi.

Helplessly we had stood, with bated breath,

And watched the sad Sun sinking into the Bight of Biafra.

Cross River is proud of you,

Fly high,our Silver-bird,

Fly high,

Sail on by,

Your time has come,

In the name of destiny,

In the name of God.

Fate never rushes revenge

And God lifts his servants silently.

In silence you have toiled,

And created a ‘Season of Sweetness’.

Then they open new frontiers

And attempt to create a division,

To satisfy their endless greed

To stymie our State’s needs:

We have to remain the “Peoples’ Paradise”,

In the name of Destiny,

In the name of God.

We are proud of you,

Fly high,our Silver-bird,

Fly high,

Sail on by,

Your time is on.

Like a bridge over troubled waters,

You are to ease our minds,

Your time has come to shine,

All your dreams for us - are on their way.

Rt. Hon( Chief) Orok Otu Duke Ph.D

Duke Town

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