Poet of the Week: Adekunle Adewunmi
Benz Tell me, why the race to fame? Why the rush for craze, to hades? You pace around, running through the curvy maze Looking for the cheese you didn’t make. Remember Temple run game? No matter how you run that package, You’d still end up being trapped in mirage Exactly when you’re enjoying the […]
Benz
Tell me, why the race to fame?
Why the rush for craze, to hades?
You pace around, running through the curvy maze
Looking for the cheese you didn’t make.
Remember Temple run game?
No matter how you run that package,
You’d still end up being trapped in mirage
Exactly when you’re enjoying the rampage
Remember Abacha – mighty men fall without notice.
Today,
The coaster has rolled to the ladies
There’s now a refrigerator in their inside
Where robbers of sweat mixed with blood are hidden
A quick source to Mammon, the mother of doom!
Wild wealth ends up as whirlwind.
Let’s reason, youth of my motherland.
This is not the way, let’s begin to make a U-turn
And labour the smart way –
The beginning to life anew.
Selah!
Fatherless Nation.
Depression, suppression, corruption, election
All addictions including seduction
Yet, no solution.
Fathers they say, give feathers
Even with the covering of the mother,
His absence, massive disaster!
Shall we explain that the absence of our father,
The sudden death of heroes past
Has blessed this entity with bastards?
Probably, Mother Nigeria re-married
To give birth to tyrants – wolves,
That govern their mother’s children like goats.
Oh father,
Your early departure has made a wreck
Of the family you left for mother to handle
For the handle got broken due to the weight
of its content.
I remember how you trained us, even my seniors
To serve your land with trust, strength and faith
Not to make your labour waste away
But build an empire bound in freedom.
Freedom withheld, peace slaughtered.
Daily, the blood of your children in the North weeps loud
All they’re after is power, justice thrashed.
Like Malcolm X, I will rage
Who’s #Ganduje that I may fear
Or #Jagaban to make me dread?
I know mother is powerless and my
siblings with spear-ed boldness
Yet will I scream for the woes
You’ve created.
Make amend and let us feel created.
You treat us like Negroes before the Whites
Do remember Fela has taught us to fight.
We’d stand in our might until you vomit our rights.
Dear father, help the beautiful Mother Nigeria
For her efficacy is dwindling fast
Robbers have looted her treasury
Where we boast of Africa’s Daddy.
Mother’s strength has gotten struck
By the Refiners and subsidy sharks
Who have swallowed the returns
In their pothole bellies.
Father Nigeria, arise from your grave,
Whistle Blowers have been silenced
The money your enemy stole from you
I’m the days of your youth
Though recovered, has also disappeared.
I walked down the street
A family man begged for 100 Naira
This has happened to several people
Nigeria is in trouble!
Is this how we’d be destroyed?
Yet they kept returning to Office
Old men with no result – Like
Old snake shedding off its skin
2019 may be bloody.
Arise father, save Nigeria
The suffering is becoming ever.
Adewunmi is the author of a poetry collection, ‘Arise Nigeria’. His works have been published on Ynaija, Pulse NG, Ojalart, The Novita and other platforms. He is also a member of Poets in Nigeria (PIN).