On the day God created the heavens and the earth,

The Almighty equally created Nigeria.

The land is rich, watered by the mighty Niger and Benue,

And a million and one rivers, lakes, streams and brooks.

All the various vegetations of the earth are present,

And the land is blessed with all animals and creeping beasts.

In the bowels of its earth are riches stored by God.

The Americans, Russians, Japanese, Chinese and British,

Saw this beautiful land of God and became jealous.

Yet the Almighty said: "Wait until you see the people I shall create on the land."

And the Almighty created the Nigerians: waifs, looters, pimps, plunderers,

And soldiers without honour; politicians without conscience.

 Lo! they wasted the riches of God's acres,

And became beggars like Israel in the land of captivity,

And drowned in the pool of bloodletting like the land of Babylon.

As sins of omission and commission sprout everywhere,

Like mushrooms in a good season.

As power-drunk vultures keep feeding its masses with pangs of hunger and death.

And shards of broken promises, like abandoned projects,

Make a mere stroll a delicate art of dodging the dangerous.

Disappointments, like old bones hidden in the cupboard, rattle the conscience.

And fragments of frustrated dreams drench the nation's name.

Now, recession and rivalry have become the Nile,

Swallowing us, making our mothers mourning mums.

Oh! Such are the bad exhibits for a giant of Africa,

Who formerly, proudly pulled the curtain down on the sun

 of the British Empire on this side of the Atlantic.

Oh! The once terrific warrior of the Black race,

Has become God's experiment in social and political administration,

That gives well-oiled theories a bad name and record.

Oh! Such a towering Iroko with no morning,

With one long stretch of a dark, starless night, full of bad dreams

Oh! Such a once fat, juicy and healthy cow,

That is milked and milked and now becomes shrunken, dry and dying.

Such a nation walking on crutches, having been amputated by leadership ineptitude,

With his face haggard and lined so deeply,

That he can pass for a Picasso painting of W. H. Auden at the age of 104.

Oh! Nigeria my love, gifted with energy via the sun and afro-offerings by rain,

What are you recently doing on the edge of a precipice?

Is the famed giant of Africa

Now a reference point in global discourse on failed states?

My nature's adorned nation now dancing like a drunkard and fan the embers of hardship?

Should we clip our tongues while we keep chanting

The untimely lyrics of dirges, bowing off the stage one by one?

Arise, Oh Compatriots! Let's change the system, our stage, our situation.

Let no one steal from our pot of honey: 

This land is for the brave ones.

Let no one come like the invaders to shatter

Our thatched roofs or crumble the bamboo walls,

Letting the enemies trample our farms on mountaintops.

Let no one sing to us, song of weak footed,

As we pluck out our nights from the hiding shells,

To becloud visions of the bats,

That our tears and suffering may be dry and forgotten

On the altar of greenness, great strides and peace,

And whole we shall recover and smile home again with victory song; 

A plundered nation springing on repaired purpose.

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Nwankwo, Chigozie Joshua (Joshua Jackson), 

Student, Faculty of Law, 

UNICAL.