Jerry S. Adesowo
jesad@justice.com
(For Nigeria @ 42)
I
We need to talk
We must talk.
We need to know
We must be told.
We must disagree,
For us to agree.
We must talk,
Exchange words and punches
If the need be
Then, settle back to talk again.
We must dialogue, not soliloquize
We must ask, not accuse.
II
We will ask the Ohanezes
Why they felt they’re shortchanged
In the political scheme of things.
We must ask them
Why they clamour for an Igbo president
And not a Nigerian president
Let this industrious sects tell us
Why they swim in folly,
Out of naked and insatiable ambition
They must tell us
Why they let not the sleeping dog sleep
That they mortgage their greatest right
In the name of political alliance
These and many more, we need to know
And they must tell us.
III
We will ask the Arewas
Children of Dan fodiyo
Why they chose to remain monolithic
Believing they are born to mile
And dwell for life in the corridor of power.
We need to know their reason
For the continuous colonization of the middle - beltans.
They must tell us the craze
Behind this controversial sharia
That has maimed many for life -
While its apostles refuge in bars & brothels
These and many more we need to know
And they must tell us!
IV
We will ask the Ooduas
Sacrifying their Mandelas and Ghandis
On the altar of egocentrism.
They must define and defend
Reasons for their politics of reference,
Of bitter acrimony.
We need to know why these patriots
Abandon the path of honour
There fore fathers tread.
We ask, and deserved to be told
The justification their OPC
A Legalized hooliganism
And the incessant call for their own kingdom
Not our own kingdom, a kingdom of national unity.
We demand to know
Why they constantly crave
For a mandate they’ve sold
Out of greed & inordinate ambition
Let us ask them
What patriotic plan they have in mind
To salvage the imminent dilapidation
Of this mighty mansion of ours.
These and may more, we need to know
And they must tell us.
V
May be we should ask
Our honourables and senators
In that putrid house of woes
To tell us why they are afraid
Why they think this family meeting
Will put their job at stake
And tear this nation further apart if conveingned.
They should tell us why they think first
Of there pay packets
In lieu of billion bills before them
Fighting for furniture
At the detriment, of our already bleak future.
Tell us homourables
If truly you are men of honour
Tell us senators
If truly you are men of integrity
We demand to know
Why you chastise, not checkmate
At this era of our nascent democracy
These and many more we need to know
And they must tell us.
VI
Let us ask our executives
Why they’re more interested
In the badges and bags of office
Rather than bearing its burdens.
Why they seek re-election
When their first term in office
Is nothing but confusion?
We want to know
Why they stubbornly stick to guns not loaded
Rather than put on their thinking cap to dialogue for peace.
Why they hoarded their own children abroad
And turn the children of others to prostitutes and
child soldiers.
We demand to know why and how
Recovered loots get looted unnoticed,
Why like the khakians
They come, go and come back at will
To pick what they left in office the last time they
visited
Wasting the Midas touch of the younger breeds.
Let them tell us
What and whom they think they are
Masters of messengers of the masses?
These and many more we need to know
And they must tell us.
VII
We have not ask
If we fail to ask our fore-fathers
Why they set this nation on a tripod.
What they have done, and those they did not
What they did right, and those wrongly done
That we may diagnose our ailment
And prescribe for it a permanent cure.
Let them tell us
Whey they think only of yesterday,
Close their eyes to today
At the detriment of our tomorrow.
These and many more we need to know
And they must tell us
VIII
We need to talk
We must talk
We need to know
We must be told
We need to disagree
For us to agree
And reveal to this giant
Her desired destiny,
We must talk