Nineteen Fourteen - 1914 Poem by Eustace Dunn

Nineteen fourteen,
Shaw started one great thing.
Yes! It was Flora Shaw,
Even when we were not sure,
Whether it was to make a difference,
All kindred dreaded their presence.
Yet we have made a hundred
Through seeming hatred
We are told we had no name
All the names became the same
We were found restless in the Niger area
We were christened Nigeria
With a galleria of hysteria.

We are told we had hazardous leadership
And then an exodus of migration
As actions turned coercion.
We saw an exodus of migration
As they had penetrations into our local administration
We saw a legion of white tyrants
When they took out our black giants;
We saw journalists become nationalists;
We saw a herd of the wealthy
As they took out our healthy protagonists.

We noticed the relocation of the sky,
We told the keeper to keep us high.
Even as we fought to protect the name they gave us
Nay! To protect our land
It could have been the drive of unity
Valour took us up in sanity
As we understood we had a name!

They all left us overnight!
We could hear the sound of their boot
“Lead yourselves” they told us.
Gold on a platter was our grand gift
Did we ever fight much like our African siblings?
I wondered!
We still wonder whether we will keep the name
Together.
We went on to say
Go on with one Nigeria that way.