By Niyi Osundare
Can a country of wise wo/men
Be ruled by a Confederacy of Fools
How foolish must those Ruled be
And how wise the Fools?
Africa’s Sick Giant
Laughing stock of the world
Nigeria thrashes around the jungle
Like a snake with a trampled head
This odd, accidental assortment of
Fierce, dangerously unequal parts
Riled by riot, threatened by rift,
Legatees of a Dubious Imperial Mandate
Too dim, too divided, to RE-make History
And UN-make its errors
Scared of that tough, regenerative Vision
To RE-build this House and make it stand
Every nation is nothing
If not a-work-in-progress
RE-thought, RE-shaped, RE-calibrated
In answer to a noble necessity, a moral imperative,
From Lord Lugard’s lemon
A jar of regenerative lemonade
For if we let this House fall
We all may fall with it
Victims of a map
Which forgot its compass
Unable to live with one another
Because we cannot live with ourselves
(Concluded)
Leave a Reply