Waiting For Someone Poem by Tony Adah

I am a citizen
That which should attach me
To a country
Or attach a country to me
Not that I don't have a country
Or my country does not have me.

Our meeting point is not met
While I own a country
A country does not own me,
I have done my own bit
To have been birthed here
Drank of the Niger and the Benue
Weathered whirlwinds of the sahel
And the storms of the Atlantic.

Here I am
With a piece of paper worthless
Than a spent corn cob on the ground
But I have a hoe, I have a knife
I have a trowel, I have a hammer
My country think that I am mad
Still I want to be made.

I am swallowed by fear
I am absorbed in my tears
The drops that have fallen from the sky
Of religion
Rolling through the hardened ground
Of tribalism
And nepotism has divided my country.

Wait for him
He who holds the spectre of change
And a tapper
Of the silent palm trees
Where the titre of new wine
Drops into old receptacles.

And yet another
And yet another
And yet another, another, another
Those who had made the change worthless
And those coming
We await
Some countries have crossed the river
We fret here waiting for someone
Who could be ourselves.