Poet of the week

Sylvanus Ebiegberi Nabena has a BSc from the University of Port Harcourt and an MSc in Information Systems from the University of Sheffield, United Kingdom. He has over five years’ experience in supporting governance interventions in Nigeria. He is most interested in empowering citizens to influence governance processes in Nigeria. Nigeria Wake Up They come […]

Poet of the week

Sylvanus Ebiegberi Nabena has a BSc from the University of Port Harcourt and an MSc in Information Systems from the University of Sheffield, United Kingdom. He has over five years’ experience in supporting governance interventions in Nigeria. He is most interested in empowering citizens to influence governance processes in Nigeria.

Nigeria Wake Up

They come to us in times of election

But flee from us afterwards as though we have infection

Excuses are their steady companion

Devious so we resolve with prayer but no action

Wake up my people!

Their mistakes have become law

They are always never listening

Stolen wealth, they gladly harbour

Only sweet doom is beckoning

Wake up!

The condition of ‘before’ is clearly not the same as ‘now’

Yet they stick to an unending doctrine of lies and tricks

Night and day, eternal pain, our future has been strangled bleak

Yet they dare to flaunt their elegant crown so everyone would bow

Wake up Nigeria!

Do we have recurring amnesia?

Or we want to sleep and not wake?

Is the solution always militia?

Why must we allow them to take our cake?

 Wake up!

Remember who you are for Nigeria’s sake

Citizens. Born royalty

Renowned bedrock of any society

With the power to make and unmake

 U-turn my People!

Our passports are even screaming

Can you not hear the restless banging?

Raging and thundering shouting. Not sweet Bob Marley singing.

Violent party chanting. Not soothing lovers’ whispering.

U-TURN!

Out of breath, our citizenship gasps “ROYALTY!”

Surely if we listen and not bend

Oga them go get sense

Surely if we engage them, their jonsing go end

Wake up!

Cherish the ever-faithful insomnia

Stay awake, and know more

Death to the ever-loathed amnesia

Stay active, and engage more.

 

Passive No More

Every day we sing praises to our kith and kin

Our local leaders who seem to have no sin

Brothers of before, but cruel gods of now

Have we been placed under a spell? How?

We cherish their tight-fisted charity

Give us peanut and we go dey ‘jaiye’

The remaining loot, feel free to steal

Unwillingly given. How can we challenge them?

Wake up!

We have refused to recognise trickery

Even from wolves with authority

Who sandwich deceit in piety

Haba, when will we see people as they are?

We rather blame others for our demise

Those whose crime is that they are not ‘one of us’

Country men or not, we can’t but despise

Stage 3 cancer. Is there no cure to this virus?

Wake up!

“This country will never get better”. A passive man’s mantra

We complain unending and do nothing

“Our opinions do not count”. Another blasphemy,

Eternally Indifferent. No will to act.

Na so common sense dey hard? Na so?

Who be the true baba and oga boss? Where them go?

Kilonshele! We shouldn’t be our own foe

My fellow citizens, haba! wetin dey do us? No more!

Wake up!

We must endorse individuals only based on merit

Monitoring them, if they fail – we vote them out

We should not rationalise eternally and stay inactive

But vow to be active citizens and nothing without.

For the ‘us’ of today is now reborn

We are citizens. Forever highborn

We refuse to stay idle and worn

But agree to engage our leaders as one.