GHANA MUST GO

There was a country
and there still is,
I am a boy
born in Accra
with my placenta still buried deep
in Nigeria,
I was routed to a new land at birth
in a bag meant to pack loads..
And now,
I am a man
digging graves
behind the mystery of
Ghana must go.

Democracy,
power by the people,
for the people
and with the people -
but then,
it rested in the hands of Shagari.
And that country where he ruled
was Nigeria,
favored with streams of oil
and I was a foetus
in the womb of an Accra woman
sojourning to this allied land
for the proclamation of lost
glories.

The friendship of two countries
broken by antagonism over power
tussle 
and when the oil boomed to Ghana
no more,
safety was a word in the
dictionary.
Religion differences nested
uprisings,
Biafra was not the worst -
Maitastine was
and still is.

Old sores revisited,
then Ekwueme got in the wrong shoe
and lost his assets
but never lost his life.
And water-loo took its essence,
the faces behind the masks
were sons of my mother's home,
Ghana.

Laws are made to be broken
but when it is broken,
there is a fine
and it was exile.
Confusion..depression..indecision,
the Ghanaians fled to their nest
in millions and minions.
I was still sucking momma's nipples
then,
in the biggest of bags -

I was sailed offshore,
Ghana must go.
But today, I step on Nigeria again,
with my assets well tabled
in that bag,
that Ghana must go.
My mother is no more,
it is thirty seven years now
since this episodic exodus came to
life 
and the story still lives on,
an account I shall retell tomorrow
when Nigeria is sixty.

I am on this soil,
where my placenta lived
and this soothing embrace makes me
wonder
if this was the nation
that lived before I lived
and
still living when I lived.
But this story never tore us apart,
we are still the allies
we once were.
I can step on Nigeria
without a fear of bullet.
But -
the storyline is different in the
huts of this land.

What is Biafra ?
What is Arewa ?
What is Oduduwa ?
What is Ozubulu ?
What is Python Dance ?
What is Boko Haram ?
Why must brothers stab brothers ?
Why can't sons of a soil
not be soiled with hatred
but instead,
artefacts of oneness ?

If the epoch of Ghana must go
didn't break friendship,
why must race and belief
break oneness ?
Nigeria is sixty today,
Nigerians are just one today
and one they must remain,
to avert an apocalypse mightier
than
Ghana Must Go ?

For if it ever happens,
The Ghana-Togo boarder will never
be opened.
Nigerians,
cease being rebels
but instead,
be the labels of oneness.
Nigeria is sixty today,
Nigerians are one,
for ages.

© BALOGUN YUSUF GEMINI.

Photo credit : www.techeconomy.ng