Poem To My Green Flag (Nigeria @ 56)

POEM TO MY GREEN FLAG(NIGERIA)

Let Nigeria be Nigeria again.

Let it be the dream it used to be.

Let giant stride be its name

Seeking a home where he himself is free

Nigeria was never free.

Let Nigeria be the dream the dreamers dreamed

It is so painful we can’t wake Herbert Macaulay, Azikiwe, Amadu Bello and Awolowo from their sleep

If I could you would cry a bit.

Let Nigeria be that great strong land of love,

Where never Leaders connive nor tyrants scheme,

That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was Nigeria to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty

Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,

Where opportunity is real, and life is free,

A nation where equality is in the air we breathe.

(There’s never been equality for me,

Nor freedom in this “Nigeria.”)

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?

And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor citizen, fooled and pushed apart,

I am the Civil servant bearing slavery’s scars.

I am the Farmer driven from the land,

I am the Activist clutching the hope I seek finding only the same old stupid plan

Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,

Tangled in that ancient endless chain

Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!

Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!

Of work the men! Of take the pay!

Of owning everything for one’s own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.

I am the worker sold to the machine.

I am the Civil servants to you all.

I am the people: humble, hungry, mean.

Hungry yet today despite the dreams.

Beaten yet today? O, Nigerians!

I am the man who never got ahead,

The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Our fore-fathers are the ones who dream’t our basic dream,

In the olden times while still a serf of united kingsmen,

Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,

That even yet its mighty daring sings

In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned

Of a fact our fathers made Nigeria the land it has become.

They have built a “Nigeria of the free.”

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?

Surely not me? The millions of IDPs on relief today?

The millions shot down when terror strikes?

The millions who have nothing for our pay?

For all the dreams we’ve dreamed

And all the songs we’ve sung

And all the hopes we’ve held

And all the flags we’ve hung,

The millions who have nothing for our pay–

Except the dream that’s almost dead today.

O, let Nigeria be Nigeria again

The land that never has been yet

And yet must be,the land where every man is free.

The land that’s mine,the poor men,

Who made Nigeria,

Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,

Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,

We must bring back our mighty dream again

We must bring back our abducted girls back again from bondage of terror

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose–

The steel of freedom and justice does not stain.

From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives,

We must take back our land again,

Nigeria!

O, yes,

I say it plain,

Nigeria was never Nigeria to me,

And yet I swear this oath

Nigeria will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our Heroes death,

The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,

We, the people, must redeem

The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.

The mountains and the endless plain–

All, all the stretch of these great green states–

And make Nigeria again!

A word to my green flag

Micheal Adebola Adeniyi

@9jaclicktivist

tapreadwebmaster@gmail.com