ARE WE A SERIOUS PEOPLE?
We are a people blessed by God
Most of our hearts are golden
Our land is green
Our rivers are rich
Underground is gold
Solid and liquid gold
With these, life should be simple
If we were a serious people!
Our neighbours are known looters
Our neighbourhoods are unlivable
Despite the bullion billions
Of emperors in our midst
Whom we hail every morning
In cars they bought with our money.
We admit that they are bad
But argue that we’ve had worse
In words that come with price tags.
Our contractors construct roads and highways
High in cost but low in quality
Easily washed away
To unveil their perfidy.
We know them;
They live amongst us
But we look the other way
If they are our benefactors
Our party people
Or our kith and kin.
We are not keen on retribution
For the agents of our tribulation.
In China, to the gallows such evil men go;
In Naija, Government House
They campaign and are campaigned for to go!
We cry for structure instead of character;
Stomach infrastructure is in our character:
For it, we praise our joy-killers
And mock would-be-redeemers!
Our humanity suffers indignities
Our cohesion is fast eroding
Like badly constructed roads.
They’ve put ethnoreligious swords
To the things that hold us together.
In tatters, we drift apart
Our hearts in our mouths
At home and afield
Afraid of demons from afar
Plundering our people and our lands
Wasting lives and livelihoods!
Our leaders are not aware
Or choose to wear weird miens
That project insouciance
Leaving the people wondering
How they boarded this one chance.
They loathe our schools and teachers
Their children school abroad
They board their ‘private’ jets
And jet to foreign lands
To rest and treat their aches.
And we, the people:
What do we do?
We fight our fellow men
Who dare complain
About this plain anomie.
Like animals, we line the streets
To shout rankadede
And twale when they return
To seek our votes again!
Are we a serious people?
From Random Thoughts: A Collection of Essays and Poems
By Tony Ekata
You may also read: The Vampires
