Weep, Nigeria

By

Chinedu Nnadi Nwangwu

Weep, Nigeria—
For the soil is heavy with blood,
And the sky hangs low with despair.
A land where godfathers pull strings in dark rooms,
Turning the law into a puppet on fraying threads.
In Rivers, a pipeline is breached,
And in the blink of an eye—State of Emergency!
Yet where is this urgency
For the lives buried in Benue’s fields?
For the soldiers fallen in Borno’s sands?
For Sokoto and Zamfara’s crimson dust,
Where bandits write their will in blood?

Weep for Rivers State,
Where politics wears the face of tyranny,
And the Constitution trembles at the sound of ambition.
A state of emergency declared in haste,
Not for lives lost,
But for pipelines broken.
Is oil thicker than blood?
Is property dearer than life?

Weep for Benue’s farmers,
Cut down where they stood—
Machetes singing death into the soil,
While the earth drinks deeply of their pain.
Weep for the soldiers of Borno,
Whose boots march into battle,
But never return home.
And for Sokoto and Zamfara,
Where the fields bloom with graves,
And the wail of widows is the only anthem.

Weep for Lagos,
Where the Assembly turns into a theater of shame—
Two speakers, two gavels,
And one house split by greed.
They mutiny and install each other,
Turning the halls of governance
Into a marketplace of ambition.
If leaders cannot lead,
Then who shall steer the ship?

Weep for the Senate,
Where the halls of power stink of shame.
Where hands meant to pass laws
Instead reach where they should not.
Sexual harassment plays out on the nation’s stage,
And the people watch in disgust—
A spectacle of impunity.

Weep for the East,
Where Mondays bring silence,
Not by choice but by fear.
Where the streets are empty,
And freedom is held hostage.
The sit-at-home echoes louder
Than the government’s voice,
Yet where is the state of emergency here?
Is the pain of the people so easily ignored?

Oh Nigeria,
How many wounds will you bear before you break?
How many tears must wet the ground
Before justice rises from the soil?
They kill our sons,
They bury our daughters,
And in the corridors of power,
They laugh.

Yet we weep not in defeat,
But in fury.
For the tears of the oppressed
Water the tree of resistance.
And though they declare emergencies
Only where it suits their greed,
The true emergency is the awakening of the people.

Weep, Nigeria—
But not for long.
For dawn is coming,
And the day of reckoning is near.

Chinedu Nnadi Nwangwu©️
18/03/25