Psalm Of The Betrayed Youth

Your Excellency,

they said you were the lion of Lagos,

the master strategist,

the bridge between generations,

the man who held the map of tomorrow.

I came to join them,

to clap,

to lift my voice

in the anthem

of your greatness.

But my hands froze,

because

how do I clap

for hands blackened

with gangrene,

dripping poison

into the nation’s bloodstream?

What is this your legacy?

A naira that faints at every sunrise.

A fuel price that strangles fathers

before they reach their workplace.

Children trekking miles to school,

only to faint from hunger at the gates.

Hospitals where nurses improvise

with candlelight and prayers.

Graduates lined on the roadside,

their CVs yellowing in their hands,

while their futures rot in your mouth.

You sit in Paris,

wrapped in agbada heavy with loot,

while mothers stand in queues for rice

measured in ml.,

fathers bury sons lost to kidnappers,

and streets snatch ears with generators,

since NEPA tore Genesis 1:3.

They said you are the builder of bridges.

But we cross no bridges here,

only graves;

young graves, fresh graves,

sized graves, oversized graves,

graves that multiply like weeds.

And still, the wind carries

more and more misery;

roads that drink blood daily,

villages where herders’ knives

outnumber the cries of children,

markets where people barter shame

for crumbs of survival,

a country where laughter

tastes of mourning.

Ti-inu-ibu,

you have buried the last of our illusions.

Hope lies face down, lifeless in the gutter,

its pockets turned inside out.

Even prayer has lost its voice;

pastors, imams—those ones—choke

on their own sermons,

their words falling like broken glass.

What is left for us?

We do not dream anymore;

dreams are luxuries for the living.

We do not plan anymore;

plans are ornaments for the secure.

We sit in the dark,

counting the stabs of hunger,

listening to our stomachs

compose dirges for the nation.

Hear me, Mr Pre$ident:

this is the psalm of the betrayed youth.

We will not dance at your carnivals.

We will not bow to your portraits.

We have seen your rot.

We have inhaled its stench.

And no anthem of praise

can bleach your hands clean.

I came to praise you.

But your name is a wound,

pus thick in the nation’s throat.

Your rule is decay,

maggots fattening on foetuses

buried before birth.

Mr Pestident,

we are the generation

that will not clap for gangrene.

So take our curses,

wear them like garlands.

May the wealth you guard

turn to ash in your mouth.

May every night you sleep

be haunted by the bones you buried.

May history remember you

as a rogue who touched a nation

and left nothing

but carrion and ruins.