Biafra Mourns Nigeria

By Chudi Okoye                                                                                   

Part I
They took us back with noble lies brandished
Insisting there was no victor and no vanquished
But here we are, alas, lost and languished
We the defeated, lorn, perennially anguished
What once we owned now owed or relinquished
Assets claimed by compatriots, simply vanished.

But no longer shall we, the defeated, be ambushed
By a history, a victor’s knittery, cynically garnished
With splendid lies, our bondage gloriously lavished.
Now, to us, their promises stand bald and tarnished
Our lingering credulity completely banished
As we rise to render our truths, unvarnished.

Part II
As the bite of Biafra stiffened, they spawned a song:
“To keep Nigeria one is a task that must be done!”
They yelped, prompting one poet’s practiced pun:
“To keep Nigeria one, justice must be done!”
Just so. But how, pray, can we expect such a turn,
Seeing Nigeria dying slowly from a war it won?

To keep Nigeria as one could yet be done
If no region is reviled, and none left to burn
If all peoples, to a one, can have their turn
But if we merely Grind On With Odd Nigeria
Whereupon the country rocks in mass hysteria
Then surely we cannot Go On With One Nigeria.

Part III
The bodies of Biafra’s fallen may be interred
In shallow graves left unmarked or now marred
And their survivors may be sullen, deeply scarred
But their spirit is yet abroad, righteous and restless
Awaiting, from aggressors still rigid and remorseless
Atonement for atrocities levied on Biafra’s defenseless.

Until Nigeria repents and faithfully propitiates
Biafra’s helpless hordes hideously annihilated
In a war, chroniclers recall, it brutishly instigated
It will remain a voided victor, a vaunted vagabond
A predator pinioned by prey, morbid and moribund
Unless it concedes Biafra or conceives a fairfull bond.

March 20, 2020