But now the beggars are striking back. After sixty years of independence, the children of the poor and the innocent rich are fighting back, refusing to be slaves in their own country, refusing to be brow beaten, the way their fathers and mothers were brow beaten into accepting the tag of servitude by their leaders (rulers) for so long.
How long, how long will it take?
For as long as it will take.
The people will die of hunger.
They will be murdered in their beds in the dead of night by Boko-Haram terrorists.
Their daughters will be violated,
The heads of their sons will hang on spikes.
Their old men and women will wither away and the innocent rich kidnapped for ransom.
How long, how long will it take?
For as long as it will take.
Their people benefit from the criminal enterprise of running the government.
Their sons and daughters receive good education abroad.
Their headaches and stomach aches are cured in foreign lands.
They drive in security convoys to avoid the bandits and kidnappers.
Or they fly in helicopters to avoid trouble on the roads that are death traps.
How long, how long will it take?
For as long as it will take.
Their mothers and fathers shine in their elegance and splendour, made possible by their illegal forays into our public treasuries, outshining our parents whose crime was the humility of their backgrounds.
Their children, long under the criminal tutelage of their parents have long been prepared to further dominate and enslave our children the way their parents dominated and enslaved ours.
And to keep us continually bound by fear and lethargy, they sometimes show us the police, the army, and their guns.
But do we not now see the fruits of their moral degeneracy, the consequences of their concupiscence, parochialism and lust for political power and influence?
- A failing state
- Weak and compromised institutions
- A country of godfathers - like the Mafiosi
- Poverty capital of the world.
- Corruption incorporated and unbridled.
- Religious divisions and ethnic irredentism (though they practice them not when it comes to sharing the national cake)
- Joblessness and unemployment
- Insecurity
- Inequality and exclusiveness
- Helplessness and Hopelessness
But now the beggars are striking back. After sixty years of independence, the children of the poor and the innocent rich are fighting back, refusing to be slaves in their own country, refusing to be brow beaten, the way their fathers and mothers were brow beaten into accepting the tag of servitude by their leaders (rulers) for so long. These are the days of the oppressed, the period of his (her) vindication. The oppressors and the wicked have gone into hiding, indicted by the nefariousness of their acts. Those too afraid to come out are peeping through the curtains of the rock of Aso in the centre and the ASOs in the state capitals. Those who dared to come out have done so with dog-tail humility to show solidarity with the oppressed.
However this present socio-political upheaval ends, one thing is as certain as the day - Nigeria and Nigerians, especially the youths will never remain the same. The fire of political righteousness has been lit in their souls, their consciousness awoken. They have been bitten and smitten by patriotic fervour. They have from afar been shown the promised land. They can see and smell the land of plenty and abundance that is to come and have been seduced by the hope and splendour of a greater, prosperous Nigeria. They dare not look back, must not look back until that goal of a radical political change in our country's dynamics is changed. System change is the goal. We know those that will not make that change with us, those that must be displaced and replaced - they and their children, brought up in an environment of I'll have privileges, of public sleaze and graft. The day of reckoning is upon us. That, which has gone up is coming down and that which has a beginning is coming to an end. We have to, and must build a country for all, regardless of religious, ethnic, geo-political and social backgrounds, affiliations and proclivities. Those who are standing against the moving train will be swept away. It's inevitable. Let those still clutching at the pinnacles of political power in Nigeria realise that time is running out. The tide is coming inland, powered by forceful gales of wind and breeze.
Only they can make the necessary changes needed to change the direction of the inevitable final onslaught. It is their duty. But can the leopard change its spots? Or perhaps, like the proverbial fly that follows the corpse to the grave, they will miss this historical opportunity to right the ship of state. If not, then it is because of the inevitable truth that those who kill by the sword will die by the sword.
It is written!
Another deluge of tears!
