Let Nigeria be Nigeria again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let giant stride be its name
Seeking a home where he himself is free
Nigeria was never free.
Let Nigeria be the dream the dreamers dreamed
It is so painful we can’t wake Herbert Macaulay,
Azikiwe, Amadu Bello and Awolowo from their
sleep
If I could you would cry a bit.
Let Nigeria be that great strong land of love,
Where never Leaders connive nor tyrants
scheme,
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was Nigeria to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
Where opportunity is real, and life is free,
A nation where equality is in the air we breathe.
(There’s never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this “Nigeria.”)
Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the
stars?
I am the poor citizen, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Civil servant bearing slavery’s scars.
I am the Farmer driven from the land,
I am the Activist clutching the hope I seek
finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying
need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one’s own greed!
I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Civil servants to you all.
I am the people: humble, hungry, mean.
Hungry yet today despite the dreams.
Beaten yet today? O, Nigerians!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
Our fore-fathers are the ones who dream’t our
basic dream,
In the olden times while still a serf of united
kingsmen,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so
true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
Of a fact our fathers made Nigeria the land it
has become.
They have built a “Nigeria of the free.”
The free?
Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions of IDPs on relief
today?
The millions shot down when terror strikes?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we’ve dreamed
And all the songs we’ve sung
And all the hopes we’ve held
And all the flags we’ve hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay–
Except the dream that’s almost dead today.
O, let Nigeria be Nigeria again
The land that never has been yet
And yet must be,the land where every man is
free.
The land that’s mine,the poor men,
Who made Nigeria,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the
rain,
We must bring back our mighty dream again
We must bring back our abducted girls back
again from bondage of terror
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose–
The steel of freedom and justice does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people’s
lives,
We must take back our land again,
Nigeria!
O, yes,
I say it plain,
Nigeria was never Nigeria to me,
And yet I swear this oath
Nigeria will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our Heroes death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain–
All, all the stretch of these great green states–
And make Nigeria again!
A word to my green flag
@9jaclicktivist
Michael A Adeniyi
tapreadwebmaster@gmail.com