Nigerian Spring Poem by Ike Bismarck Oji

As I roused, angels I did behold
at the centre of Y-shaped river nation.
A great funeral pyre they were making.
Six, their number and effigies they burned.
One had seven, the other had five
but six effigies, the others all had.

A nation of finished leaders is burning,
they said, that from the ashes shall spring
freed nations with fresh mandates pursuing.
Not fettered by a marriage colonially artificial
resulting in a land of milk and honey
that is blessed with hunger and disease;
wisdom and foolery in embrace locked.

What shall be done to save this nation?
Fire, fire, was their fiery response.
To consume finished leaders and cleanse the land
that the nation may have its greenness back.
To conflagrate the nation and free the peoples
that each may seek their separate destiny.
To every nation a destiny is entrusted
to be fulfilled when in a free state.

Surely, the fire is on course
unless your leaders reject their course.
Realizing for once that the people own them.
That Office is to uphold the people's welfare
not to withhold and siphon their wealth.
On ascending office, into the dust the masses
they thresh rather than lifting them higher.
Surely, a season comes when anger shall germinate
into anarchy to destroy and heal the land.


Mazi Ikechukwu Bismarck Oji (B.Eng.)

04-11-11