' Believe ' Poem by OLAYEMI AYO

When i hear 'believe ' It makes me laugh, jump and smile because it is a fallacy designed to put us into perpetual darkness, drag us into the mud like a paper - tiger; a paper - tiger that cannot fight back and look at the oppressors eyeball to eyeball and tell them they are telling lies We are not fools born by fools in our country ' Believe ' is an understatement we watched and never saw ' Believe ' never manifested in any form or shape It is a slip of the tongue to say ' believe ' because it never was We watched and watched in vain counting the brick walls, looking at the ceiling in heaven's place We are traumatized by vain promises from our leaders, often My country - men are hungry The women are suffering and complaining The children are crying and despondent The children yet unborn hold tight unto the womb of their mothers for fear of untold hardship bedeviling our country Only to ' believe ' will never put food on the table Only to ' believe ' will never pay the children's school fees Only to ' believe ' will never make mothers deliver safely without money Only to ' believe ' will not make you have hope where there is none and prevent things from getting from bad to worse To ' believe ' is meant to deceive the masses of our people when the leaders are carting away billions of dollars of our common wealth on a daily basis and we can do nothing The Nigerian system, in essence, is run by charlatans in government for self and a microscopic few Democracy in Nigeria today is the government of the rich, by the rich and for the rich alone Although this is anti - people, regrettable we believe in this philosophy To ' believe ' therefore, is to fantasies in order to perpetually enslave the people Therefore believe with circumspection