Let There Be Light Poem by Tony Adah

They taxed us
To take darkness away
It embraces us like the
Air we breath,
We only see light from the rising sun
And last before we sleep
From the setting sun.

The moon that no one taxed
Comes up with its own light
We need light to grind our corn
Whet our knife,
For children to read their books
This the Moon's incandescence
Is short of supplying.

Our children light up oil lamps
That darken their nostrils
Swotting for their own tomorrow
Without any foundation laid for them
They light reeds
That the wind hardly steady
The flames for them to read.

We don't mind them
We keep planting the poles
And stringing the lines
Without the light
Power line idly sag for
Birds to perch
And sing songs of taunt.

The tariffs go up
To touch the sky
The light gives way to darkness
To blind our eyes
They call a conference to Abuja
And tagged it privatization
They sold the company to their
Cronies and gave it new names
That still could not bring the light
We waited for light
And in vain it came
Reeds gleamed
Candles and oil lamps flickered
That's how we privatize our own.

We cried
But there was darkness
And nobody saw our tears
We are black people
They must make our nights
The colour of our skins.