Sylvanus Ebiegberi Nabena has a BSc from the University of Port Harcourt and an MSc in Information Systems from the University of Sheffield, United Kingdom. He has over five years’ experience in supporting governance interventions in Nigeria. He is most interested in empowering citizens to influence governance processes in Nigeria.
Nigeria Wake Up
They come to us in times of election
But flee from us afterwards as though we have infection
Excuses are their steady companion
Devious so we resolve with prayer but no action
Wake up my people!
Their mistakes have become law
They are always never listening
Stolen wealth, they gladly harbour
Only sweet doom is beckoning
Wake up!
The condition of ‘before’ is clearly not the same as ‘now’
Yet they stick to an unending doctrine of lies and tricks
Night and day, eternal pain, our future has been strangled bleak
Yet they dare to flaunt their elegant crown so everyone would bow
Wake up Nigeria!
Do we have recurring amnesia?
Or we want to sleep and not wake?
Is the solution always militia?
Why must we allow them to take our cake?
Wake up!
Remember who you are for Nigeria’s sake
Citizens. Born royalty
Renowned bedrock of any society
With the power to make and unmake
U-turn my People!
Our passports are even screaming
Can you not hear the restless banging?
Raging and thundering shouting. Not sweet Bob Marley singing.
Violent party chanting. Not soothing lovers’ whispering.
U-TURN!
Out of breath, our citizenship gasps “ROYALTY!”
Surely if we listen and not bend
Oga them go get sense
Surely if we engage them, their jonsing go end
Wake up!
Cherish the ever-faithful insomnia
Stay awake, and know more
Death to the ever-loathed amnesia
Stay active, and engage more.
Passive No More
Every day we sing praises to our kith and kin
Our local leaders who seem to have no sin
Brothers of before, but cruel gods of now
Have we been placed under a spell? How?
We cherish their tight-fisted charity
Give us peanut and we go dey ‘jaiye’
The remaining loot, feel free to steal
Unwillingly given. How can we challenge them?
Wake up!
We have refused to recognise trickery
Even from wolves with authority
Who sandwich deceit in piety
Haba, when will we see people as they are?
We rather blame others for our demise
Those whose crime is that they are not ‘one of us’
Country men or not, we can’t but despise
Stage 3 cancer. Is there no cure to this virus?
Wake up!
“This country will never get better”. A passive man’s mantra
We complain unending and do nothing
“Our opinions do not count”. Another blasphemy,
Eternally Indifferent. No will to act.
Na so common sense dey hard? Na so?
Who be the true baba and oga boss? Where them go?
Kilonshele! We shouldn’t be our own foe
My fellow citizens, haba! wetin dey do us? No more!
Wake up!
We must endorse individuals only based on merit
Monitoring them, if they fail – we vote them out
We should not rationalise eternally and stay inactive
But vow to be active citizens and nothing without.
For the ‘us’ of today is now reborn
We are citizens. Forever highborn
We refuse to stay idle and worn
But agree to engage our leaders as one.
