#IAMNIGERIA

    Ode To The Many-Faced Race

Shall I tell a fruitful tale

of the Many-Faced race?

“There was a country”, Achebe once said…

a country once fallen on its own head

I am afraid this may be My story to tell…

a story of Nigeria, the many-faced race

Ijaw, Esan, Nupe…

I once was many names and people

living apart, yet together as tribes

Then the white master in Her ship, arrived

 and took from me my rights

She took 370 hands and made us a people

She made a People and called me Nigeria

Yet I lived, I moved, I breathed

And with my work-worn hands, I rose above the ground

I found my freedom and became Democracy

Demo… Democracy?

Democracy was meant to be my priority

but corruption has long become my legacy

I have bred a Tiger’s eden filled with thorns and preys 

Where the floors breathe and bleed

with the blood of the youths fighting for their peace

I have built a land where food for the common man

has turned a luxury savored only by the belly-filled man

“Recession”, they say, is the cause for the inflation

Yet my mouth chews and spills Democracy

My hands have birthed generations

my eyes have crowned and buried governments

I looked my yesterday in the face

yet I spat on it and birthed a worse today

and dream still of a better tomorrow

The resilience of my people gives me strength

I live on for the quest of my people’s survival

I am a jungle of two hundred million lives

I am a Giant of the Black Nations…

I am Nigeria.