I used to live in the grandiose hall of gullible hope,
My daydreams showing me fragments of paradise.
I saw the dawn of better days in the land of dreams,
So, alongside my dying people, I reechoed the chorus:
‘Better days will soon be here.’

When the despicable leaders whipped us with the cane of oppression,
I hoped.
When my people competed with dogs for leftovers,
I still hoped.
When we embraced penury as our daily reality
I hoped.
When suffering became our norm ’cause we had no alternative,
I still hoped.

When they pummeled our stomachs with savage hunger,
I hoped.
When our spirits sagged and convulsed beneath terrorism’s weight,
I still hoped.
When ‘nappers slaughtered our loved ones ’cause we couldn’t afford ransom, I hoped.
Even when our quivering, worn-out lips failed to spark their pity,
I still hoped.

But now? Hope no longer lives here.
It’s all gone.
Gone into the dark web of nothingness,
Where feelings are numb and expectations die slowly.
The unrepentant rulers killed my spirit;
They snatched my hope, replaced it with alien feelings.
And now? I’m lost.
Who can find my lost, wandering soul?

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For years, we craved nothing but sanity;
We only wanted to live in a safe and sane space.
Is that too much to ask?
Tell me, why do you delight in the agony of your folks?

You pretend to care, while you make a mockery of our misery.
You pretend to care, but you push us at the point of our pain.
You laugh behind our backs,
Yet you still pretend to care.

You cut off the fabric of our unity with your selfish ambition;
You sold our sanity and gave us insanity.
We are the monsters you made, the barbarians you bred.

You are no stranger to the game of selfishness:
You lie, steal and kill with cold-blooded gusto.
You desecrate our motherland with the blood of the innocent ones,
And you are not moved a bit ’cause it’s part of the game.

Your slaves told Asake not to vote ’cause she ‘looks like a dot in a circle’.
Chike thought he was among his kin, but they crushed his right to vote
and told him to go back to his village.
The land that welcomed his infant cries now sees him as a stranger.
Don’t you know that a country that fights itself is on the runway of implosion?

You hired filthy thugs to compel your will against the people’s wish,
Because our united will alone cannot stop you.
You mock us with silence while you sit in your gated mansions built with the people’s wealth, laughing at the game you started.
As usual, you won again.

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The people wanted a better nation,
Where the high and low have an equal share of the national cake,
But we got worse than leftovers.
We wanted democracy,
But we got a demo of crazy dictators.

The millennials could not escape the curse,
And like those before them, they resigned to fate.
Gen Z tried to reject same fate but the bondage can’t be broken.

So, tell me,
What is hope in a country that cannot escape its curse?
It is an illusion, foolery fixated in the quagmire of delusion.