A song for Nigeria’s Children’s Day, By Niyi Osundare

A SONG  FOR NIGERIA’S  CHILDREN’S  DAY*

When Hunger locks a door
Anger will open it with a furious fist.

                             I
 
     If you don’t see me in the parade today
     Do not think I love my country less

I asked Daddy for new shoes
And those white stockings
And belts with glittering buckles
Daddy merely shook his head
But a sobering sigh betrayed his empty purse
He hasn’t stepped out of the house
Since a thumb-stained retrenchment letter
Scribbled away a job that was the centre
Of the family life

Ravaging hunger has taken a permanent seat
In our crowded household

 If you don’t see me in the parade today
     Do not think I love my country less
 
I asked Mommy for those green shorts
And lovely shirts we need for the gathering
Without which the teacher’s cane
Would carve painful patterns
On my boney buttocks,
The resounding laughter of luckier mates
Biting through my tattered shirt
Mommy merely showed me her fraying wrappa
And the empty carcass of her once brimming kiosk
Now laid low by government’s emergency edicts
Which caress the rich and kill the poor

Our country’s knife is sharp on the weak
And blunt on the strong
The more you steal, the less your crime
Powerful thieves buy justice
In the legal market, and purchase divine blessings
From saintly churches and holy mosques

If you don’t see me in the parade today
     Do not think I love my country less

                                     II    

If you don’t see me in the parade today
     Do not think I love my country’s less

Our line will be short at the stadium today
Short, very short,  like our stunted dream:
Umaru vanished from the school register some weeks ago
After throwing his satchel into an angry river
One unhappy morning

Akanni now haunts the motor park
Alternating petty trading with petty thieving

Ngozi left one noon without a word
Cruelly corralled into the harem
Of a man whose youngest daughter
Is about her age

The School says our parents are poor
And our names are dirty
The blackboard has sprouted a thousand thorns
The new school gate is high and cruelly padlocked

If you do not see me in the parade today
      Do not think I love my country less

We eat once a day
When there is anything to eat.
But when the pots are silent
And the fireplace is cold
When dinner turns into dina**
And dessert ends up as a desert
We sprawl on our crowded mats
And count the stars
Through our leaking roof

My legs are straw
My head spins like a wheel
My flat stomach is
A pit for warring worms

If you don’t see me in the parade today
     Do not think I love my country less

                                     III    

If you don’t see me in the parade today
          Do not think I love my country less

Dizzy with hunger
Wasted by want
If I stumble through the Anthem
I may black out before the Pledge
Object of ceaseless ridicule
From children of moneyed folks
Whose stolen wealth has depleted the land
Whose moral plague
Has sickened our senses

If you don’t see me in the parade today
     Do not think I love my country less

But I know many of my mates will come
From those GRA mansions
Where every gate tells the world to
BEWARE OF THE DOG
Where fathers are magically rich
And entire broods squirm in unearned wealth
Where cats eat from silver bowls
And cockroaches are fat like lucky raiders

Oh what a wonder
Seeing those mates scampering
Out of gleaming SUV’s
Their uniforms dutifully ironed
Their silver shoes and golden feet,
Marching, singing, saluting
Blissfully unaware of the rot and ruin
Their thieving parents have wrought
On our common future

Oh how so amazing
To shake our nation’s hands
With such unequal fingers!

If you don’t see me in the parade today
     Never think I love my country

*First published in “Songs of the Season”, 1990; updated, re-purposed,  and re-used here with significant amendments.

**Way-blocker

Niyi Osundare, one of Africa’s foremost poets and academics, is Emeritus Distinguished Professor of English, University of New Orleans.