Elegy For A Dying Nation Poem by Martins Akhoeneto

The vultures feast where golden harvests bled,
While hope lies shackled, counted with the dead.
The drums of grief invade the silent sky,
And mothers teach their children how to cry.

From Auchi's road to Agenebode's way,
The sun now kneels before the guns of prey.
The traveller bargains not for bread but breath,
For every mile now wears the mask of death.

The forests nurse the kidnappers with pride,
As justice, bruised and bleeding, tries to hide.
The winds recite the names of those once known,
Yet every echo answers, 'They're now gone.'

Benue has watered fields with human pain,
Where crimson rivers mock the promised rain.
In Jos the mourning bells refuse to sleep,
Their iron tongues have learned to only weep.

Owo remembers bullets dressed as fate,
While Borno bears a century of hate.
The earth herself grows weary of the blood,
Still tyrants toast beside the crimson flood.

The throne wears silk while barefoot children crawl,
Their empty stomachs louder than us all.
The market mocks the poor with rising cost,
As every coin confesses all is lost.

Fuel burns like gold beyond the poor man's hand,
Yet wealth still blossoms in the robber's land.
The cooking pot has forgotten how to sing,
While palaces applaud another king.

Corruption, that fat serpent crowned with lies,
Still coils around the nation's fractured ties.
It drinks our dreams with undisguised delight,
Then blinds the dawn and christens darkness light.

What oath was sworn beneath the nation's seal,
If hearts can neither pity, mourn, nor feel?
What hands protect when folded in disdain,
While citizens inherit endless pain?

Must every widow marry grief once more?
Must every orphan knock on Heaven's door?
Must every village count its sons by graves,
While power crowns the silence of the slaves?

Yet hear this truth beneath the ashes glow:
No endless night has chained the dawn below.
A people's voice, though buried, still shall rise,
Like thunder tearing open faithless skies.

For history sharpens justice like a blade,
And every tyrant fears the debts unpaid.
Though Nigeria now staggers, bruised and scarred,
No wound escapes the judgment of its guard.

So let this poem burn like living flame,
To brand each guilty conscience with its shame.
For nations die when truth is left unfed—
But rise again when fearless words are said.