THE STATE OF OUR NATION

…and the state of our nation

They had come en masse

Promising gold and silver

Harassing the walls of our very streets

With lavishly furnished posters

Extolling the obdurate ones

…and the state of our nation

The sycophants and propagandists rent our air

In verbal elevation of the virulent vipers

Masqueraded messiahs

To wobble on the relics of the khaki miscreants

…and the state of our nation

The D-day had come

On the battlefield we had queued

Ignoring the sun’s scorch

To make a choice for our sucklings

Hmmm… a needless exercise

As the figures had long been generated and shared

…and the state of our nation

On us, ‘militicians’ were imposed

The renegades mutilated our economy

Christening it:

 “Deregulation, subsidization, alleviation, privatization…”

And other debilitating nomenclatures

As dictated by our modern-day colonialists

Across the seas

…and the state of our nation

To the concerned statesmen who dared to ‘burn’,

Mangling committees were set up

To get them ‘probed’ and ultimately ‘extinguished’

While the ‘true democrats’ were

Given leprous hand shakes

In the name of national honours

…and the state of our nation

Then the pigs began to sleep in beds

Our lips glued and sealed

In melancholy we sat, young and old.

Amidst plenty, we suffered in want

Thence our opportune brothers mocked us:

“HAPPIEST NATION ON EARTH”

They renamed our soil: “most corrupt, poorest,  plagued, Third World …”

Yet, from whence they tap their livelihood.

OUR GENERATION IN COMATOSE

Our generation in comatose

From ‘he’ in the  ‘Rock’

Who rains on us poverty

Enriching his Swiss purse

Even from our own toil.

Our generation in comatose

Obituaries every nooks and cranies

Doctors turn butchers

Now and then, scissors

Hands are inserted

And…bloody blood! Wailing!

The extinction of foetuses.

Our generation in comatose

Vicious shrines are ubiquitous

Bestial bald-heads are priests

Innocent souls are the rams

A true relic of a lost age.

Our generation in comatose

Flaunting arses are everywhere

Provoking tits are advertised

For patronage

Stories of virgins are mere fairy tales

Behold, naked youths on rampage

Doing injustice to their Holy Temples.

Our generation in comatose

The clergy in sheepskin

Lo! A façade !

Yet pulling an unflinching crowd

An opportunist or a frustrated lot

An egocentric money monger

Who offers nothing but vague expectations.

SIX FEET DOWN

Six feet down, we are homeward bound

Hey! The man in ‘Agbada’!

Don’t be power drunk

For someday in a single cell

We shall all be lowered.

Six feet down, we are homeward bound

Hey! That damsel!

Halt the havoc

Hide up that amoral structure

For down there it will go when the time chimes

Six feet down, we are homeward bound

Hey! ‘Oga officer’!

That naira is someone’s sweat

Here, with mortals, no litigations

But someday…remember our black-eyed dictator?

Six feet down we are homeward bound

Hey! That doctor!

Hold up your scissors

Though a week old,

That thing has life

Why uprooting for a peanut?

What He has planted

His wrath will sure do the visit

When you least expected.

Six feet down, we are homeward bound

Hey! Buddies in black!

Sheep in the day, lions at night

Dangling axe and machetes

In extolment of the devil

But a short time this life

And the finale-SIX FEET DOWN!

OUR BROTHERS

...and he was gone….

Earlier than his days should

The ululations that broke the loud silence

Wails and tears from his widows

In all their numbers, his fatherless gathered

To welcome the sorrows that descended his habitation

….and he was gone…

His rusty, dry and fry remains

Held for sixty suns and sixty moons

By his six-spring stretcher

Had hope to remain yet breathing

At the sight of the tiny white and red caplets.

Who could tell they were but white and red chalk

Our brothers’ manipulations!

…and he was gone...

Nay of the white man’s incantations

Either expired or under dose.

Never themselves, administered

Brought in by our brothers

Endorsed by our brothers

Advertised by our brothers

Prescribed by our brothers

Patronized by the poverty stricken

.

..and he was gone...

Beside his cold structure

The youngest had looked at the eldest:

“But drugs save lives?” he asked

And he responded:

“Yes, only when the numbers are truly NAFDAC’s

The customs refuse to compromise and be customized

The men in black refuse to be short off filthy lucre, the people can litigate and….”

He paused allowing the stream of tears freely flow

“When the beasts atop become humans

Then our drugs shall begin to save lives”

INTOLERANCE

Arrows held aloft

Down they descend

In my brother they pierced

Ha! I saw it, yes I saw it!

The red life that flowed.

Lai Lai, Hei Lai Lai!

In a twinkle, brutality!

Our cathedral, the victim

Fire! Fire!

Where is the service?

Ha! Injustice!

Where is the Daniel?

Arise, God of Israel!

Oh! Our women

My mother, her suckling

They wept, yes they sobbed

Swollen faces, swollen eyes

 AGONY!

Widows and orphans so made

In their hundreds, they wail

Losers of everything

A hopeless tomorrow

Victims of tribe and religion

Yes! The villains have struck!

Ha! Why, why the bad blood?

My ethnicity, my creed

Yardstick for viciousness.

Who’ll carve me their effigy?

Ha! Who’ll exhume them?

Herbert, Zik…?

An infinite list of those who toiled

Fought tooth and nail

For our today

The love and harmony they achieved

Ultimately, have been mangled

Oh! To us the swine, they threw a pearl.

Stop the aggression ‘cause it’s no solution

Remember a statesman’s note of warning:

“It’s no monopoly of one tribe”.