The Emperor Of Tribalism Poem by Chinedu Dike

A cold numbness blankets the land
as a second promise starts to die.
Across sharp lines of divided tribes,
an eager crowd turns its eyes away,
pulled toward a new, shifting vow,
trapped by the weight of past deeds,
as the voters wake from a deep sleep.

Conned by the safety of a quiet mask,
they see the leader who rose high.
Dressed in a coat of fake honour,
he was just a choice made in a rush,
a sudden panic born of wild hope.

Now the high pedestal starts to crack,
yet the fierce defenders fight blindly.
Deaf to the public's roar against their idol,
they rage in the cold, empty spaces,
forced to battle this looming ruin.

The heavy crown is pinching now.

The inner mind shapes the world outside,
and his thoughts live in a locked room.
A rigid passion rules his narrow view,
blind to the varied colours of the state,
unable to build a home for all people.

Trapped in the darkness of his own kind,
a bitter fighting spirit guides his hand.
He seeks a single, ancient dominance
and measures the vast earth by a small line,
giving the common wealth only to kin.

He pours the roads and the silver coins
deep into the soil of his own kinsmen.
The high seats of power hold none
but the chosen faces of his tribesmen.
The soldiers, spies, and keepers of secrets
all speak the exact same native tongue.
The watchmen of wealth and the law
bear the singular stamp of his ethnicity.

The masters of votes and border guards
belong to the few who rule the many.
Though they rise from a small minority,
born where the schools are cold and poor,
they hold the keys to each golden door,
while the rest of the nation looks on.

The strong shields of law are given away,
leaving the rest in cold neglect.
Most guardians of the peace now worship
at one lone, northern altar of power.
When old fires of conflict flare again,
their judgement bends like a rusted blade.

They treat children of the same rich soil
like strangers inside their native home.
A ruler may choose his closest watchers,
the quiet men who guard his private sleep.
But to dye the entire army one colour
in a land of hundreds of ethnic tongues
is to sow the seeds of a quiet war.

It stirs the ancient anger in the hills
and wakes the bitter ghost of tribal blood.
He failed long before the work began,
wasting his dawn in heavy doubt.
Then from the darkness of blind intent,
he built a house of unequal pillars,
and raised a cabinet of skewed loyalties.

Never had such an uneven circle gathered
within the troubled memory of this land.

The old promise of the common line,
built on fairness and an equal ground,
was cast aside like an unwanted coat.
These choices, born of bitter faith,
proved the loud fight against corruption
was but a mask for a tribal kingdom.

He turned a vast and varied federation
into a narrow fiefdom for his kin.
These stark facts are only a shadow
of a deeper, more bitter truth.
A blind devotion to one northern sky
stains the clean name he claimed,
mocking the virtue he loudly flaunted.

Even the foreign exchange is warped,
rigged to enrich the favoured traders
who hold the keys to the public purse.

The crown of division found its master,
naming him ruler of a fractured state.
History long remembers his rise,
reaping the harvest of a midnight coup.
He stole the seat of a peaceful leader,
cast the young republic into a ditch,
and brought sixteen long years of silence
to the path of a stalled democracy.

That old betrayal of the people's choice
stripped his clean clothes down to rags.
A strange luck blessed his later years,
for it makes no sense to a sober mind
why a nation broken by his iron hand
would invite the old dictator back to rule.

Under his leadership, the stagnating country
has plunged deeper into financial hardship.
A land of great potential carries heavy burdens,
holding the title of the world's capital of poverty
through three long years of unmoving gloom.

The many voices of this crowded land
mourn the ruined spirit of their home,
watching the bad slip toward the disastrous.

The hard-working children of the rising sun,
who fuel the lively pulse of local trade,
are cast deep into political neglect.
Never since the dawn of the free nation
have they known such bitter exclusion,
denied a voice in the shared assembly.

The state turns its face from their cry,
rejecting the quiet paths of reason,
meeting their deep complaints with stone.
A sharp, unyielding word is spoken—
then comes the march of boots.

The peaceful protests are deemed a crime,
as fierce soldiers march into the region
to silence the dreamers of an old vision.
A single law brands them all as outlaws,
creating a shield for the heavy hand
that strikes without fear of any punishment.

The only offence was a constant voice
raised against a bitter, unequal rule.
Now the old longing wakes from its sleep,
calling for the free shores of the past—
that eastern soil which broke away,
only to be dragged back by iron chains
after a time of deep and terrible loss,
where two million souls turned to dust.

An army garrisons the Eastern region,
spreading a reign of terror and silence.
The long night swallows the innocent,
and the land is choked by iron gates.
At every crossroads and narrow path,
the guards demand an illegal toll,
turning the highways into markets
of fear and bitter, daily shame.

The high captains from the distant plains
assign these posts to their younger men,
who extract a fee from every traveller.
The common driver is stripped of dignity
for the simple act of moving goods,
while the gold flows back to the north,
leaving a deep bruise on the open road.

Look how the hand of power works
when the trouble touches his own kin.
In the old days, before the crown was won,
the herders walked with simple sticks,
moving through fields with quiet bows,
living in a slow, peaceful balance
with those who tilled the heavy earth.

The cattle left their richness upon the soil,
and fed upon dry stalks of the harvest.
A mutual respect bound both their worlds,
solving disputes beneath the shade of trees
before the blood could turn to fire.

But that ancient peace has been broken,
and the old ways are scattered by the wind.

When the new crown was placed on his head,
the old wooden sticks were traded for steel,
and quiet herders carried assault rifles.
Now they enter the fields with raw fire,
turning the old pastures into war zones,
leaving a trail of smoke in the grass.

The changing climate dries the northern plains,
pushing hungry cattle across open borders.
Bound by shared blood to the halls of power,
armed herders stream through state lines.
They travel south through hundreds of miles,
searching desperately for fresh green fields.

They grow bold from a quiet approval,
a heavy silence that speaks from the top.
They drive their beasts through young corn,
while the farmer watches from the dark.
His hard work is turned to fodder,
the clean water muddied and ruined
under the heavy stride of impunity.

A deeper cruelty descends upon the villages,
as entire towns are burned to ash.
Homes and holy altars are destroyed,
leaving the vital harvests ruined in the soil.
The attackers murder everyone in their path,
forcing thousands to flee into the dark,
leaving a trail of death and permanent ruin
across the mourning face of these vast regions.

The catalogue of crime grows longer;
women are snatched from their doorways,
and the deep water wells are poisoned.
Yet through seasons of endless slaughter,
no hand is stopped, no killer is bound,
and a fierce hatred for the chosen tribe
takes root in every corner of the state.

This new storm rises on a fragile land,
already broken by rampant corruption
and generations of bitter decay.
In the dry spaces of the distant north,
a black flag tries to build a caliphate,
murdering thousands in a holy name,
while the state stumbles in the dark,
fighting two wars with a broken sword.

The law stands silent before the killing,
and no court is called to judge the blood.
A strange division splits the world:
global reports name the herders as killers,
yet the ruler turns his eyes away.
He saves his loudest anger for the East,
branding the peaceful people outlaws instead.

Global lists rank the armed cattlemen
fourth among the world's most deadly threats,
yet they remain untouched by any law.
The land slips down the ladder of safety,
named the second most dangerous nation—
a place where life is cheap as dust,
and the doors of the world are shut.

The leader sits as patron of the guild,
the cattle breeders of the country—
the very union where the killers meet.
He will not whisper a single ban,
though the name of the nation is ruined,
and billions in gold are swept away,
leaving the crowded streets to mourn
the endless harvest of the quiet grave.

The ruler walks above the written law,
mocking the high seats of the judges.
The pillars of justice bend like straw,
and the halls of government are cold—
locked in a bitter, frozen silence,
where no peaceful law can ever pass,
and the protesting voice is met with steel.

He stands as a lasting sign of tyranny,
a quiet king who does nothing for the weak,
his desire for the throne matched only
by a cold disregard for human life.
Armed with a perfect set of iron teeth,
he crushes his enemies into the dirt,
leaving a deep and lasting trauma.

The old ghost of that midnight coup against him
is answered now with an endless revenge.
A former National Security Adviser
is locked away behind heavy iron bars—
denied the freedom that the courts decreed,
sacrificed to a long and stubborn malice
under the false name of the public good.

The iron hand reaches to the dark runway,
where the chief challenger stands frozen.
Armed guards ransacked the private plane,
a raw display of unprovoked malice,
meant to cast a shadow on his name
and keep a potent rival far away.

The cold gears of power turn again,
freezing the silver in a quiet account,
striking the wife to wound the husband.
They seek to ruin a clean reputation,
hurling a cruel insult at the man
who walks with an honest stride.

He is a son of the eastern plains,
a rising light in a dark theatre,
armed with a quiet, steady courage.
The Harvard-trained leader stands tall,
lifted by a nationwide wave of hope,
built on wisdom and on clear truth.

The sudden hatred shows a deep fear,
the panic of a ruler growing old.
He beholds the rising name of his rival
with a bitter and a jealous eye,
knowing the dark injustice of his deeds
is plain for any honest mind to see.

The grand elders of the old tribes
have blessed the coming of the new path.
To a casual eye, his days are numbered,
yet the history of this land warns
that a tyrant will use each dark trick
to keep his crown at any human cost.

He breaks the highest seat of the law,
removing the chief judge with a swift stroke,
placing a loyal follower upon the bench.
A grand and desperate plan
to shut the heavy doors of the courts
when the coming vote is bent and stolen.

The foreign observers prepare their ships,
complicit in the hands of power.
They arrive to mock the name of freedom,
casting a short and shallow gaze—
calling a rigged theatre clean and fair
shielded behind a few quiet gates.

Their honesty has withered away,
their proud stamps of approval overturned
by the highest courts of other lands.
Yet they will surely bless his return,
washing his stained robes for the world,
while a bold fraud is done in daylight.

The people will be left to lick their wounds,
forced to endure another four years of ash,
watching a blind circle of friends and kinsmen
plunder the rich veins of the native soil,
leaving a great land in deep peril.

He may escape the judgement of the living,
but the great book of time does not forget.
History will sweep his memory away,
casting his name upon the filthy dunghill
where the broken crowns of tyrants rot.