"The Quiet Hunger Of Biafra" (Britain's Role And The Unfinished Thirst For Freedom) Poem by Emeka GOC

"The Quiet Hunger of Biafra"
(Britain's Role and the Unfinished Thirst for Freedom)

The memos whispered oil beneath the soil,
A corporate scripture sanctifying the spoil.
Britain spoke of unity, of peace, of law,
While feeding Lagos guns to fix the draw.


They mourned the famine on the evening news,
Yet blocked the aid their conscience claimed to choose.
Two faces: one of pity on the screen,
The other guarding Shell's petroleum sheen.


They feared that Moscow's shadow, cold and wide,
Would claim the oil Biafra held inside.
So strategy became a moral veil—
A calculus where human lives could fail.


And in the East, beneath the rising sun,
Stood Biafra's leader scholar, soldier, one
Whose mind was sharpened in the British schools,
A brilliant tactician forged by empire's tools.
An intellectual colossus, bold and vast,
With a financial war chest built to last.


The quiet hunger of Biafra; —never stilled;
The thirst for freedom; —never fully filled.
The shame of Britain's hand within the war
Still echoes through the delta's distant shore.


Yet Africa counted children in the dust,
And learned the West's compassion breaks for trust.
For though the rising sun was forced away,
Its light endures and it has come to stay.
The risen sun, has come to stay