Africa; No More Chained Lions 1 Poem by Emeka GOC

Africa; No More Chained Lions 1


We stood in silence, frozen in our places,
As shadows fell across familiar faces.
We watched them take Sankara in his prime,
Cut short by a valueless friend, in scene of a Judas crime.

Patrice Lumumba, broken and betrayed,
By Mobutu's shame, the trap the empire laid.
Murtala Mohammed fell to Dinka's lead,
Though Biafran blood was dripping from the hands indeed.

And Sékou Touré faced the vengeful storm,
When he sent France packing, and broke the colonial form.
The reach of the hunter crossed the ocean deep,
To put the lions of the West to sleep.

Malcolm X was murdered when he claimed his youth,
And bound his spirit to the African truth.
They struck King Junior down, the very hour
His message broke the walls of racial power

When truth began to pierce through stubborn ears,
They silenced the voice that conquered their fears.
And W.E.B. Du Bois was cast aside,
Exiled for daring to bridge the ocean wide.

Go back to the waters where the rivers flow,
To King Jaja of Opobo, long ago.
Tricked into exile by a rotten hand,
Of British diplomacy that stole the land

A 'civilised' empire masking its deceit,
To bring a sovereign monarch to his defeat.
Then Rwanda and Burundi were left to bleed,
Fuelled by the malice of external seed;

A continent watched as brothers tore apart,
Like gladiators trapped in a Roman art,
Where blood was spilled for the stadium crowd,
And the screams of the dying were laughed aloud.

Biafra is deeply hated, for staging thirty-one years of Ekumeku war
Against a self righteous cross border aggressors, who fermented war
Aba women fought empire's tax intelligence to submission
They found out Igbos never bow, no submission

Just like Congo, they used willing Nigerians to kill Igbos
Just like Sankara, they looked for local blood to fight Igbos
Just like in Rwanda and Burundi, they set the tune by destroying Aburi Accord
And the sheepishly leadership, dances to the cord

Today the Arab Sudan is torn by fire,
As brother fights brother in a fierce desire.
For years they blamed the South for every mess,
A scapegoat to hide their own distress;

But the veil is lifted, the truth is laid bare,
It is resource control that breeds the warfare.
The kidnappings, the terror, the disguised campaign
Waged on Nigerian Christians in the rain

It is not for the Igbos or religion alone,
It is for the oil and the gas in the stone.
While coal is plundered and the land is bled,
The gold and diamonds of Zamfara are privately led,

Secured in the dark for a private hand,
While poverty shadows a wealthy land.
We must checkmate the empires that plot in the night,
We need a watchdog that stands in the light

Fearless and boundaryless, watching the gate,
To shield our visionaries from a tragic fate.
We need an eye on the wealth they misappropriate,
To secure the confines of every state.

No longer victims of a foreign design,
We stand as the keepers of the African line.
A watchdog and counter watchdog expand this project,
Draft a charter, an organizational framework

The Fearless and Boundaryless Watchdog mentioned in your poem.
To focus on the Resource Protection Unit
And the Leader Safeguard Protocol, monitored
By unidentified and unseen monitors?

How best do I address you, the sovereign watch hand(s
Beyond the colosseum from betrayal to sovereignty
Or the cost of vision, the shield of truth against known enmity
What about, the resource war and the watchmen
Just set Africa free, no more chained lions, not a weak men