Kidnappers stalk where shepherds should lead. Corruption devours where justice should reign.
Amada Paul Israel@israelamadapaul172464
18 days ago
𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗱𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗧𝗿𝗶𝘂𝗺𝗽𝗵 𝗼𝗳 𝗡𝗶𝗴𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗮
O Nigeria, my heart trembles at your name,
Giant of black soil, cradle of countless lives,
Rivers like veins carry your sorrow and your song,
Your crown of oil weighs heavy upon your brow,
Your breast filled with maize, yet so many go hungry,
Your womb bearing tribes without number, yet so many cry alone.
The world saw your multitude, yet did they see your tears?
Hausa and Yoruba, Igbo and Tiv,
Kanuri and Jukun, Gbagyi and Adara—
Fifty tongues, yet how often silence drowned your cries?
To whom much is given, so much shall be required,
Yet your gifts became chains, your riches a cruel mirage.
Your oil, flowing like lifeblood, fed foreign lands,
While your children starved.
Your gold was plundered, your labor stolen,
And your spirit still bends beneath the weight of neglect.
Colonizers carved your body with ruthless hands,
Drawing lines that severed hearts and homes.
They reaped profit from your confusion
And left wounds that festered for generations.
Independence arrived like a fragile dawn,
But the sun soon hid behind storms of betrayal.
The drum of war thundered across your lands,
And brothers became enemies,
Turning hearths into graves,
Turning laughter into echoes of despair.
O Nigeria, how my soul aches for your children!
Your youth, soaring eagles, yet their wings are clipped.
Your soil is fertile, yet barns are empty,
And the streets, oh the streets, flow with the blood of dreams deferred.
Kidnappers stalk where shepherds should lead.
Corruption devours where justice should reign.
Your daughters weep in exile,
Your sons wander lost in deserts and across seas,
Seeking a place where they might live,
Where they might be seen,
Where they might be free.
Yet still, the proverb whispers in the wind:
“The tree with many branches bends, but it does not break.
The drum of unity may be cracked, but it still calls the people.”
O Nigeria, lift your weary eyes!
Remember your covenant.
From your soil shall rise prophets and poets,
Dreamers and builders, healers and heralds.
The voices of your youth are not silent;
They are the morning yet to break.
And I Agom (Mensch) speaks:
Blessed is the nation that mourns its wounds,
For in mourning seeds healing.
Blessed is the land that gathers its scattered,
For in gathering lies might.
Blessed is Nigeria,
For though her night is long, her tears fall like rain,
She will rise, drenched yet blooming,
And her dawn shall be certain.
