Finished

My people are being sidelined

My people are overlooked

We are like that distant relative -

That obscure, forgotten cousin

Seated somewhere, far in the back

Gatecrashing your birthday party

Hoping for some crumbs

Of the national cake -

My people are being finished.

 

My people are being forgotten

My people are ignored

Our voices do not carry

Down the corridors of power;

Our leaders do not hold

Ministerial posts and parastatal billets

My people are feeling stateless;

We do not ‘have a flag’;

My people are being finished.

 

My people are wasting away

Our youth have no jobs

Running water
Is but a pipe dream -

Or the nearest stream -

Which, incidentally, is also the only place

Current flows around here…

It’s lights out when night’s in;

My people are being finished.

 

My people wallow in ignorance

Girls only go to school

Till they start flowing

And mounds start growing

At the earliest sign of womanhood

Their parents cash in…

Chang’aa dens are where the dropouts drop in

Nearest hospital has half a doctor and no nurse

My people are being finished.

 

My people have had enough

Their people have held the power,

The riches, for too long…

Now we want one of our own

On the throne -

We vote, we fight, we rape, we kill

We take what is ours

Via the ballot or the bayonet -

My people have had enough.

 

Now we are victorious

And one of our own is in State House

We get out our napkins

Sharpen our knives

To dig into the national cake -

But as soon as the campaign money dries up

We rarely see our ‘flag’ any more

’Cause the roads are atrocious

And the choppers cost too much to be worth it…

 

It wasn’t meant to be like this

In spite of all the promises

Nothing has changed -

Except, of course, for the three-storey mansion

Our ‘leader’ built for his mother

And the smooth tarmac road

That leads up to her house

And the new electricity wires, and water pipes

That terminate in her compound

And the profuse, profound promises

That they will extend into ours, soon…

 

Our youth who went to war

To usher in this change?

Forgotten, jobless.

Our clansmen are Ministers

Our tribesmen Directors

But we won’t see them

For another five years

The stream still trickles on

The school is still bare

The hospital cabinets, still empty.

 

My people are being finished.

 

Finished by whom?