By Taiwo Akinlami
Welcome to the land of my birth,
The place, where I was a child and a youth,
Where I was only a child but never experienced childhood,
Where I was a youth, who never knew it’s essence.
Mother told me the land was rescued from the masters of the colony the year 1960;
In a battle called independence.
Now, at the count of fifty-nine,
The land of my birth is still in thick darkness,
knowing neither independence nor freedom.
This is land of deals,
We deal in all things:
The lives, futures and dignity of men and women and their offsprings;
In this land, no cost is too high for the handlers to deal in pursuit of personal kingdoms and interests.
I live in a land without citizens,
And yet many do not know;
The welfare and the security of the people shall be the primary aim of government, says the land’s grant charter;
Yet welfare and the security of the people is more worthless than the paper on which it is written and the dry ink, who wrote it.
I live in the land of passivity,
I mean the passivity of the graveyard;
Anger and her frustrations are here,
Agony and her children are here
Suffering and her vestiges are here.
Now, here is the call:
Who shall go for us,
Who shall we send to organise,
To galvanise my people to evacuate the spent old guards for the new?
To this call, there is yet deafening silences.
But could it be that there is no new out there?
I live in the land of last minutes,
Last minute shifts,
Shifts of human lives and futures
Shift of basic human expectations
Shift of meaningful existence.
And the latest shift?
Shift of elections,
So senseless
So insensitive
So wasteful
And yet, so characteristic;
This is the way of the handlers of the land.
To the land of my birth,
I give up,
I give up on your adversaries,
Not on you!
The Preacher
(C) 2019 by Taiwo AKINLAMI
www.taiwoakinlamiblog.com
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