For Nigeria @60 Poem by Osazee Dankaro

Dear Father,
That you are 60 now is not strictly true
That is only the period since you parted ways with the pale skins
Who 46 years earlier brought us all together to embark on this journey.
For hundreds of years before, each of us journeyed alone
So, you are as old as the skies giving you cover.

But it is not age that is weighing you down Father
Permanently bending you at the waist
Such that for every tottering step forward
You take two backward: perpetually smothering our existence
And yet you shield us, for we breathe (though laboured)
so that we are yet alive, even though we daily die.

It is not age Father, for you are yet young
When put side by side with your straight standing peers.
It is a combination of forces Father
Frightful conspiracies by the rumbustious for them and their own
Beginning with the imperialists who pillaged and left only hate in their wake
Hate and the sole need for personal profit.

But this is not the end Father
For I dream of the day when you will stand up straight again
Ramrod straight with military precision like our fathers before us
Those who conquered the earth and made it theirs
The day when the weight on your back will plummet
And be trampled by our collective will to advance
And finally elude the demons that have kept us in reverse.
Only then can we claim to be truly stronger together.


Osazee Dankaro
29-09-2020