Libretto for the Niger Delta

 

“The players, as in the story before, are the same, namely the Nigerian State, run by the majority ethnic groups to whom Britain ceded it at independence; the economic partners are the multinational oil companies; and at the bottom of the heap, in the heart of the old oil Rivers Protectorate, the people of the Niger Delta, left squabbling among themselves by the Lugardian policy of divide-and-rule.”- J.P Clark                                                                                      

 

 

I

First, we were tagged ‘the minority’ by men who

gave names without ceremonies.

We buried our grief in shallow graves,

waiting for time to exhume carcasses of speeches.

Time did its bit. Words became actions. Vows were broken.

 

II

Rhythms of drumbeats altered when here, crude

Found a home.

Pipes raced from all cardinal points.

Sapping of strengths and fortunes silenced our songs.

 

III

Our Water­s:

Sacrosanct bodies which hosted hopes spoilt

amidst violations.

Fishes floated and denied our waters.

We questioned black liquids on the waters’ surface.

We got no response.

 

IV

Our Lands:

Terrains of noble findings, forced to sudden squalor.

Bereft of harvest, we searched for answers

 in the rising smokes from the neighborhood.

Since our earth started birthing black liquids,

Wafting of thick smokes muted our serenades.

 

 

V

 

When darkness sprouts at mid-day,

What name do we call it?

When cantilenas filter through wafting smokes

And emerge as dirges, to whom do we sing them?

 

 

VI

 

Today, a new song lives in our tongues.

Not for us only. Posterity shall sing with us:

This is the land of our birth

Nothing more shall spoil our earth!

No strange liquids shall kiss our waters

Let dust and doom visit all oil plotters!

© Echezonachukwu Nduka 2013