Take Us Back To Yesterday Poem by Raimi Babatunde

A generation altered beyond repairs,
ensnared by pornography, laxity and crime,
amplified by tribalism, nepotism in high places,
but from the begining, it was not so...

I'm glad I was of the golden generation,
where respect was sewn in our fabric,
and you could eat 'Eba and Egusi' in my mother's pot,
and your mother was my mother.

In love and unity we played in the rain;
in torn knickers and skirts carved from remnants,
Until the sun recedes and paves way for the moon,
with echoes from our mothers to retreat and allow the spirits their time.

How we looked into the skies for 'Lekelele's' insignias,
we dreamt and believed in a tomorrow so colourfully promised,
and planned our future during 'suwe, tente' then police and thief.

Did we not master our alphabets in slates?
where even foreign gods bowed to our wits.
With our books tucked in sacks, from slates we mastered our words,
until gradually the world began to know our name.

Take your religion and give me back my culture,
because in finding you, I lost me and an entire generation.
Take me back to yesterday where morality shaped our actions.
Yesterday, where the god of thunder answered by fire.

I just want to close my eyes and tell my story. A story of perseverance, believe and triumph.
I wish we can roll back time against all these ills.
If we are not cursed, why so rich yet so poor?
Please take us back to yesterday, because from the beginning, it was not so...