#Sankara

Once there was a beautiful and peaceful home
From Benue northeast was a holm
Of a boisterous and vibrant people
Men who sweat through their hoes
And women who kept vigil at market
A yam paradise that kept the foodbasket full,
Bringing diverse people from far and near
To trade and consume
Here life was simple, cheap and merry.

Until 1999 the return of politricks
Men in search of power
Raped her innocence from within
So she cried but no one knew her pains
All they saw was the bruises strew on her face
From tears of widows and children
Whose father's blood cried for help
Politicians soon sowed evil in innocent seeds
Seeds that have germinated to untamed monsters
Monsters they now fear to reap
Who have been baptised with new names of: hoodlums, bandits and militias
Forgetting too soon how they ones dined
And sent them on errands.
Errands that sought to annihilate the serene ambience we ones enjoyed.

Bloody tears of a people left to fend for themselves
Of children who roamed the streets fatherless
Fathers who were pretentiously rounded up for Rendezvous but inhumanly ripped apart,
Rounded off and riddled with bullets.
Like I count the tip of my fingers Gbeji, Vasae, Anyiin, Ugba, Zaki-biam and others in 2001
These memories hold fresh in my cranium
For when Olusegun and TY commited pogrom
By marching their foot soldiers o weren a revenge Mission of 19 slain soldiers with no identity
It was no longer to settle the Tiv, Jukun crisis
A zygote filled with vendetta, hate and vengeance was rising in the horizon.

Vicious politicians empowered idle youths
Idle because they made them so
A honey well they built around themselves
Like bees the jobless youths
Keep hovering about the scam
The youths fall deep in love with the new schemes
Of terrorising, maiming and eliminating
They hunger and thirst for more
Because they had become addicted
Wisdom and caution must be used.

But how long before all these fizzle
How long will bajah and ducknyash
Be chasetized for human crimes
How long before we reach a compromise
For a people now suffering in hinterlands
for what they didn't create
How long before we trust an amnesty again
For fear of been executed by the road like Gana
How long before we understand
Quenching the fire is not the use of force
Least we birth another
Jamāʿat Ahl al-Sunnah li-l-Daʿawah wa al-Jihād
How long before we forgive the political elite
For a bargain they couldn't hounor or keep.
How long before we stop spewing these blood
Gushing from innocent bodies.

We can't rebuild the broken pot
But at least we can mend it
So together let's all make it happen again
Let's lay down our arms and extend a sincere palm
For a shake and a hug that will not leave us with a Bitter taste in our mouths or breed doubts
Romancing the corners of our corneas
For if we don't end this amicably
Then none of us will bury another
In this pot that boils with intense ire.






#prayforSankara
#Lettherebepeace

Sankara is a place Benue North East Nigeria, that has come under intense banditry of later, it has witnessed the killing of high profile citizens as well as the average citizens. The poem "Sankara" elucidates the origin, cause and way forward.

enjoy!
@bravotwice
(C)iAkim2021
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