I Believe Poem by Martin Ayanbare Ayankola

Don’t blame me if my song is lifeless
Like a dead and forsaken body on the street of Lagos
Don't blame me if I sing sad songs
What is there to cheer?
In this endless cycle of political sleaze


Don’t blame me darling if I sing hollow songs
Don’t blame me if my rhythm is dry like the Sahara desert
Don't blame me if my song sounds like the rickety molue bus bumping into big potholes
On a dilapidated Lagos road


Don’t blame if my song tastes like meatless soup
In the mouths of kwashiorkor ridden children
Don’t blame if my song smells like the rotten teeth of junkies
In Lagos Streets

Don’t blame me if my song looks like the faces of these blind deaf and gluttonous leaders
Who defecate on the destiny of the Nation
And spend endless times fighting over sharing of booty
Rather than building a virile Homeland

Don’t blame me if my song is forlorn
If it sounds like the sad stench that assail the nostrils in the ghetto of Ijora Badia
Darling, we cannot continue to hide our sore thumbs in flowing agbada
We cannot continue to pretend when living becomes torture

I am only stressing the need for you and me,
To look into the mirror
And create an oasis of happiness in this desert of despair
To wake up from this endless slumber


I know we can
Build a tower of prosperity from these rubbles of poverty
I know we can build castles of happiness from these ruins of want

I know we can snatch our destiny from these dashers of hopes
I know we can make Nigeria work,
I believe.

End.

Note

Agbada, is a big gown worn in Nigeria, Ijora Badia is a Lagos slum and Molue is a mass Transit bus in Lagos, the commercial nerve center of Nigeria.