OH NIGERIA MY MOTHERLAND
Nigeria, O Nigeria,
A land of endless soil, green fields rich with oil, cocoa, gold, and the stories of ancestors who walked barefoot yet planted wealth beneath the earth.
You are a treasure chest, yet your riches leak through broken hands,
not because the land is barren, but because the keepers have forgotten how to guard the keys.
Your rivers still sing, your skies still glow, your youths still shine brighter than morning suns.
But what happens when the brightest of stars pack their bags,
seeking safety in foreign skies that never bore them?
When homes are emptied not by old age, but by desperation,
while those in high towers point fingers and call them lazy?
Lazy, they say,
when dawn breaks and youths rise with hunger gnawing their bellies,
when they fight for crumbs beneath inflated prices,
when hope is taxed and survival is sold in black markets of despair.
Lazy, they say,
but the truth drips heavy from their own lips,
for it is not laziness that runs in our veins,
but a fire, a refusal to drown in silence.
Yet, how do we speak when our voices are muffled?
How do we march when the ground itself quakes with neglect?
How do we stand tall when, across the years,
girls stolen in the night are still unaccounted for,
eleven years gone, ninety-one names still echoing in the wind,
their mothers’ tears uncounted too?
Every October, we raise our flags and sing,
we dance in colors of green and white,
chanting freedom, freedom, freedom,
but what does freedom mean when the chains are invisible?
When freedom itself has grown into a stranger,
its meaning shifting like the sandbanks of the Niger,
its promises postponed like salaries unpaid,
its song muted in the throats of dreamers?
Still,
O Motherland,
even in your wounded silence, we love you.
Even in your scattered pieces, we gather you.
Even in your neglect, we dream of your rising.
Because hope, though bruised, does not die.
Because love, though tested, remains.
So I will lift my voice in this,
not as praise for what is, but as prayer for what may yet be.
I will stand in this hour,
and whisper to the land of my birth:
Nigeria, we are not done with you.
Nigeria, we will not give up on you.
Nigeria, we will love you into healing, even if it breaks us.
And as the drums beat in this Independence Month,
as fireworks crack the weary sky,
I will still say it,
with a smile heavy with tears,
with a heart trembling with hope:
Happy Independence , O Motherland.
May your freedom one day mean truly free.
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