They Forced Us To Miss The Road Poem by Kingsley Egbukole

The 'Umunna' are the members of senate
The village square the senate chambers
Where laws are made
Cases adjudicated
The innocent acquitted and discharged
The offender found guilty
Appreciate punishments are meted
There is no atom of bias
In a constituent assembly fashion
Laws and order are maintained
'Umunna' was power, justice and all
And no one goes against their decisions
True peace reigned over the land
Long before the colonisers came

They came with bizarre alien rules
We resisted and were forced and killed
With the use of superior technology
Taught us very strange things
We knew not and understood not
And under duress we adopted a system
We cannot explain nor implement
At the expense of our gifts and talents
Accepting what cannot work
In place of tested cultural values
Which they treacherously termed barbaric

Many, many years after the conquest
We are still grappling with exotic values
Which we knew not and still cannot comprehend
Our true values are now messed up
Cos we abandoned the ways of our fathers.

(Sunday,13/11/2023,10.55pm)