THE PAINS AND GAINS OF NIGERIA: A REFLECTION AT 50 YEARS OF INDEPENDENCE
In the heart of the terra-incognita tropical rainforest
Was rooted the grandest of all trees;
Nursed with great dreams, visions and hopes;
Accompanied by indispensable resolutions
Of a pursuit of surest realities.
The seasonless and unrelentful labours of our heroes past
Saw her breaking forth.
Through the early seasons of leadership rule
Were displays of her indomitable, alluring beauty,
Blossomed like a tree planted by the rivers of water
Bringing forth desirable fruits in due season;
With her flamboyant tentacles branching
From the north to the south and from the east to the west
Across the confluential rivers - Rivers Niger and Benue…
Long before remedy and prescriptions,
In season and out of season,
The luxuriant leaves of this tropical evergreen vine
Resoundedly fell apart painstakingly
Like an aborted baby – a shattered dream;
Like an angry torrential downpour
With its hypertensive thunderstorm.
The winter bugs and worms, cankerworm and spiteful pathogens
Have infested her with colossal wounds,
With insidious effects gangrene.
Causative organisms such as religious and ethnic intolerances, and crises;
Disharmony, egocentric dominance, political disparity;
Diverse inequalities, maimings, injustices, prejudices, hatred;
Corruption of esteem hierarchy, sclerotic economic miasma...
Defensively they invaded and polluted the great vine.
Some corrupted branches were grafted into her
Through restless, bloody and nefarious labours
Of the succeeding visionless uniform and non-uniform tenders.
What else will a corrupted vine bear –
Other than corruption, bribery, egocentricism, retrogression, social decay;
Depression, under-development, economic meltdown, pseudo beauty…
What a painful, heart-aching episode,
To see our scrupulous leaders trading our
Golden creeds for their greed,
Sowing seeds that may lead to division;
Seeds of corruption, hostility, hatred, prejudices...
That only God can permanently weed.
What a painful, heart-aching scene,
Like a congregation of people
Sobbing out their heart uncontrollably
For the demise of a cicero;
Or a mother that just lost her preemie;
Like an oak tree shedding thick, sticky tears profusely.
What a painful abortion of the founding dreams!
The founding dreams, visions and hopes that initialized her;
The painful cries from her differing parts
Resonate loudly through the woods seeking for a salvage.
Amidst all these,
From great and optimistic minds
Cognizant of the shattered past,
And ready to live above it;
With a passionate pursuit of rejuvenated dreams and visions;
Blossoms reality of unspeakable potentialities
Of incontestable beauty and great splendour.
Out of the pains that escribed eternity with hellish countenance
Emerge a convincing, unparallel, aromatic, indomitable, idyllic beauty.
A beauty symbolized by myriad of treasures;
Unquantifiable brilliance, greatness of entrepreneurial spirit;
Tolerable differences across ethnic groups, tribes, tongues and states;
A beauty of unimaginable, colossal and dynamic abilities
That makes her appear cinderellic;
That dispels blasts of the past from her heart.
A beauty which announces the dawn of a neo-Nigeria,
Dawn of a reality of hope.
The beauty of different tongues, tribes, cultures and people,
Like the tendering of the labyrinthine corridors;
Yet with a single vision, faith, dream;
One great and grandest voice that breaks cedars of Lebanon;
That enthrones her as the giant of Africa.
The beauty of the largest cluster of giant Negros
With oneness of understanding and commonality;
Living together in peaceful coexistence.
What a great beauty that needs to be discovered
As such to make our nation a better place to live in,
To realise the dreams of our founding fathers.
The discovery calls out to a duo, YOU and I;
You and I, to help discover and manifest her beauty,
The beauty of our great nation, Nigeria.
I BELIEVE IN NIGERIA...I BELIEVE IN HER DREAMS...I BELIEVE IN HER UNITY AND PEACE...
GOD BLESS NIGERIA! PEACE TO HER WALLS!! GROWTH TO HER LANDS!!!
