Nigeria We Are Poem by Chris Jibero

Like Nigeria, like you
In image and likeness
Liberated from the stranglehold
Of an overbearing but pleasant
Womb
Into the waiting hands
Of parents ill-prepared
For her advent

Like Nigeria, like you
Hastily weaned
From her Mama's milk
To make way for Papa's
Nipple-loving mouth that tugged
Tenaciously at them, asserting
His eternal possession
And dumping her into rickets

Like Nigeria, like you
That lost her parents
At a tender age
In the hands of young
Wicked wolves without
Vision and direction

Like Nigeria, like you
Torn apart by selfish
Hawks selling tribal sentiments
In dismal packages
As elixir lacking in potency

Like Nigeria, like you
Robbed daily by her children
Relatives and friends
That vouch themselves
Lovers

Like Nigeria, like you
Decimated by intrigues
Eating many of her children
And resources raw

Like Nigeria, like you
Rich in human and material
Resources
But poor in welfare
And bled white by heirs
Whose storehouses quickly wax cold
At strange cities whose foundations
Are borne by her wards' dry bones

Like Nigeria, like you
That wobbles and fumbles
As the impotent man
At Bethesda
Expecting a savior
That is long in coming

Like Nigeria, like you
A big brother to her African
Brothers
That turn to lions
After helping them get
Healing
And they come calling
Making her weary walls
A graffiti of bad names
Instead of tons of appreciation
In testimony and thanksgiving

Like Nigeria, like you
In image and likeness
Loved and hated apiece
Mindful of friends
That salute her blessing
And progress
And detractors that wag tongues
And raise roadblocks
On her path of honour

Nigeria we are
In truth and spirit
Once loved and wooed
Now spurned
But for a better future
She strives tirelessly
To remove all crookedness
And repair all breaches.


(C) Chris Jibero. 2010.