BY EBIKABOWEI KEDIKUMO, AYAKOROMO TOWN, DELTA STATE.
Nigeria, my mother,
your wrapper is torn,
your face is full of dust,
and your voice shakes like a weak old song in the wind.
You were once a river of promise,
wide and shining,
full of fish,
full of life,
full of songs.
Now you are a dry stream,
with cracked lips
and hungry children standing in your empty bed.
Your soil is rich,
your belly is full of oil,
your hills carry treasure,
your sun is warm,
your rain is kind,
yet your people walk like shadows.
They search for food in a land of plenty.
They search for light under a bright sky.
They search for hope
in the middle of loud promises and silent deeds.
The men who swore to build you
have broken you like a china-plate.
They came wearing white clothes,
but inside them was night.
Their words were soft like palm oil,
but their hands were sharp like knives.
They climbed into power like saviours,
yet they sat on the neck of the people like heavy stones.
They opened their mouths and spoke of change,
but from their pockets came the smell of theft.
They said they were fixing the land,
but they were only fixing their pockets.
They took the yam from the barn of the poor
and filled their own rooms with harvest.
They stole the salt of the people’s soup.
They carried away the ladder
and left the nation inside a deep pit.
They ate the eggs,
they killed the hen,
and still told the people
“We are fixing it”
For many years they spoke of electricity ,
yet darkness has become our long-time friend.
The bulb hangs like a dead fruit.
The wire curls like a tired snake on the wall.
The night enters every room
and spreads itself like black cloth.
Candles burn like little cries.
Generators cough like sick old men.
The rich sleep in light,
but the poor sit in heat,
fanning sorrow with weak hands.
The roads are broken backs.
They twist and tear like wounded skin.
The schools are empty shells
where young dreams go to die slowly.
The hospitals are houses of waiting,
where pain sits on the bench
and death moves from bed to bed.
The markets groan.
The farms sigh.
The workers sweat without reward.
The youth wear bright smiles outside,
but inside them
many hopes are buried alive.
Corruption is not hiding in Nigeria.
It walks in the open like a proud king.
It wears perfume.
It rides in long cars.
It laughs in big houses.
It signs papers.
It shakes hands.
It gives speeches.
It steals in the morning,
lies in the afternoon,
and dances at night.
Corruption has turned many hearts into stone
and many tongues into crooked paths.
The leaders have eaten deep into the body of the land
like termites inside a wooden door.
From far away, the door still stands,
but touch it,
and it breaks into dust.
So it is with Nigeria.
The flag still flies.
The anthem is still sung.
The offices still open.
But inside the walls,
something precious is dying.
A slow death.
A painful death.
A death caused by greedy political hands
and selfish hearts.
Nigeria is a lamp dropped in mud.
She is a bird with clipped wings.
She is a drum with a torn skin.
She is a queen forced to beg at her own gate.
Her children cry in many languages,
but their tears speak one tongue.
Hunger knows them.
Fear knows them.
Joblessness knows them.
Poverty knows them.
Suffering knows their names by heart.
O Nigeria,
who has done this evil to you?
Who turned your green fields into fields of bitterness?
Who poured poison into your streams of hope?
Who sold your tomorrow
to buy comfort for today?
Your children are tired.
Their backs are bent.
Their eyes are red from hunger.
Their hands are empty from labour.
Their mouths are dry from asking
when this long night will end.
Still, in your pain,
a small fire remains.
Still, under your ashes,
a little heat lives on.
For though greedy politicians have wounded you,
they have not buried your soul.
Though selfish rulers have chained your feet,
they have not stopped the dream in the hearts of your children.
Somewhere, truth still breathes.
Somewhere, justice still knocks.
Somewhere, a new morning gathers its light.
This is the grief of Nigeria:
a rich mother made poor by her own children,
a living land cut again and again by corrupt hands,
a beautiful house burned from within by those meant to guard it.
The leaders have fed fat on her flesh,
drunk deep from her strength,
and left her weak, bleeding, and ashamed.
Until greed is cast down,
until conscience rises,
until leaders serve and not steal,
Nigeria will remain a wounded mother,
crying under a dark sky,
calling for healing,
calling for mercy,
calling for a new dawn.
EBIKABOWEI KEDIKUMO – writes from Ayakoromo Town, Delta State
