POEM TITLE - IF I HAD A CHOICE...

If I had a choice,

I’ll choose America,

For its presumed ease and health

Or maybe the United Kingdom

For its bliss and wealth

Or maybe Paris or Singapore

Or I’ll just rather be born down south

In Johannesburg...

A POEM: Rusty Welded Edges of Love (Nigeria)

Like a tree in drought,

I'm only more stubborn and angry

But still thirsty and lanky

Like the Egyptian pyramid...

Poem - TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

Where’s the love and the peace promised?

Where’s the sanity?

How quickly so, your words turned gibberish.

Now it’s all about you, yourself and your family.

A spec is done,

A log is proclaimed.

A well done,

And a second term is aimed

For what it’s worth and for what it’s not,

For a man half a century old,

Sense we assume he has thus,

But on the contrary, his qualities grew cold.

Am sick of asking when,

When will we look up the Aso Mountains,

And find a Nelson Mandela or a Martin Luther King?

Not the usual, who’s out there for selfish gains

Let the games begin,

Like that’s what they hear when it’s time for elections

Then it becomes a do or die thing,

Hopping around from place to place, nicely, they call it party defection

Twenty years before I showed,

They were all the polity knew.

twenty one years down that road,

Only a few faces are new.

With fear of not been heard,

I fear to speak.

With fear of not been read,

I fear to ink.

But I see a Nigeria,

Flowing with milk and honey indeed.

Not a Nigeria,

Flowing with oil and money of greed.

A Nigeria lead by its head,

And not the other way round.

South, North, East and West,

All in Unity bound.

A Nigeria admired by its peers.

Accorded its due respect,

As Giant of Africa as it bears,

Not in mere words of retrospect.

But until we stand up,

Not necessarily for our rights, but for the rights of others.

But until in we gulp…

Every form of selfishness and every line of borders.

Centuries will pass,

And we would have made the same mistakes,

Generations will pass,

And our children will consider us their mistakes.

So… Arise O’ Compatriots

Nigeria’s call obey

To serve our father land

With love and strength and faith.

Deji Onadeko