The Guardian Online - http://www.ngrguardiannews.com

Poem

My dividend of demokrazy

Today 

My country-folks rejoice

 Over two seasons of nascent 'demokrazy'

Politricktians blow the trumpet of their deeds

 Which find expression in fat tummies, posh cars,

 Ultra-modern mansions, and swollen accounts;

 Workers salivate over jumbo take home pay

 That can no longer take them home;

 Businessmen drink of a diseased economy,

 Hoarding too much money that buy little;

 The common men painfully behold the price of garri
                                                                              
 Soar incongruously above their heads:

 The former staple is now gold

 That adorns the table of the affluent;

 Again, the masses take stock of the little crumbs

 That scarcely fell from the masters' table

 Under which they squat, salivating like humble dogs
                                                                            
 Always ready to chant the praise

 Of any politrickster

 That dangles the carrot:

 "Na you we know, Ebe ano".
 
 

Truly, the dividends of my fatherland's 

Twenty-four month old 'demokrazy'

 Dot some corners of our clime:

 Few rickety roads here and there

 Electric poles without wires

 Crowded classrooms without tutors

 Universities for rodents

 Few jobs for relatives of the players

 Several projects in pipelines 

E cetra 
 
 

Today

 As my country-folks rejoice

 I comb myself most carefully

 Seeking my dividend of 'demokrazy'

 But nothing do I see

 But my churning and growing tummy

 A wardrobe full of tattered clothes

 A cupboard housing my asambodo

 Declaring me Best Graduating Student

 In "the Queen of the human mind"

 After a most tortuous journey

 Through God's Own State Miniversity

 Which churned me out

 Before the fall of Khakitpkrazy

 And the rise of demokrazy;
 
 

The asambodo looks beautifully eksalient

 But employers shun it as if an ugly woman,

 Making my dividend of demokrazy

 Nothing but a long tie and empty stomach

 As I walk the streets,

 File in hand, sweat on brows

 Seeking my dividend of demoncracy
 
 

_Chikaodiri 'Macpherson' Okpara