03/10/2018
OCTOBER FIRST
Should I tell my children the truth?
It pricks my conscience son! Son!
Do you know I shouted UP NEPA
More than 30years ago?
Today both of us still shout UP NEPA
Like children in the countryside do
Whenever new moon appears at night
Should we celebrate October 1
When our hospitals are ill-equipped and ill-staffed.
When our leaders still travel across the sea
For medical check up
Should we celebrate when banks deduct
And charge me for ATM maintenance
ATM card in my pocket?
Should we celebrate when I have to cover myself
With Odighi Eshi charms just to protect my vote
Yet,my choice is rigged, when i can cast my vote
At the comfort of my phone
Should we celebrate when cost of foods are so high that minimum wage cannot afford them.When baby in the womb knows life is hard here.
Should we celebrate when snake and monkey could be more corrupt with loots.When recovered loots are looted again and again.
Should we celebrate when individuals provide their own water,electricity and medical,government still collect taxes.
Should we celebrate when pensioners are not paid after many years of meritorious services.Some died without honour.
Should we celebrate when workers are owed salary for months running into years.When seat of power is drenched with debt and evil.
Should we celebrate when our soldiers beg their enemies for water and food. Some died needlessly without honour.
Should we celebrate when we are more divided by hunger and joblessness.Religion and ethnicity only prosper in our hunger and want.
Should we celebrate when national television sweeps the truth under carpet.Judges are harassed in their sleep, locked up in cells.
Should we celebrate when our security personnel see bribery as status Quo.When security personel are partisan.
Should we celebrate expired educational system.Where teachers live above their means.Where strike is a status quo.
Should we celebrate more poverty rated in overpopulation and hyper-inflation.
Should we celebrate politics without ideology
Leadership without vision and mission.
Should we celebrate when our youths still cross atlantic ocean for a better life, only to sleep forever under the ocean.
The ones left in the country are political thugs and cultists.
Should we celebrate when prostitution is now a profession, most patronage comes from elites.
Should celebrate when best brains are rewarded with yam, while s*x promoters are rewarded with jumbo packages.
Should we celebrate when we have Internally Displaced People,when we are not at war.
Businesses are crumbling, no road, we live in hell. This country defies finest economic policy, nothing grows here.To survive you must be a religious rogue or political merchant.
Should we celebrate when telecom companies could steal my data when I am asleep at night. Because no company can survive in this clime without stealing.
Should we celebrate when children are hopelessly begging for food on the streets. Future generations for that matter.
The list is endless.......I am tired...
......
I am tired ......I think i have to cross the atlantic.
© Chinedu Udehani
Muse: Amaco Nwamama
