Somewhere,

Nestled in a land of ancient tribes and many tongues—

A cradle of ancient civilizations

History stretching from the Kanem-Bornu plains,

To the thrones of Oyo, Ife and Nok art

Somewhere, nestled in this heritage vast,

Our ancestors sowed seeds of hope into the earth,

Planting seeds that would bloom into family trees,

Their fruits: ebony-skinned, strong, and free,

Wild with visions for a brighter day 

We are the fruits of this seeds

Ripened in a world full of trials,

Rising like phoenixes through the smoke of protest,

#EndSARS, a cry sharp enough to split history.

Through acrid smell of Tear gas,

the sound of bullets and million screams 

Dead bodies falling like confetti on dust

Still, we marched—undaunted—Unafraid

For truth. For justice. And for every stolen dream of youth.

With ours pens, 

we expressed our voices, 

O! poem after poem

Song after song! 

We fabricated stories with radical fire of a change

We should all be feminists, Before the half of a yellow sun, Be no longer at ease with that thing around our neck, 

We set foot at dawn before, become like the Girl With The Louding Voice to For our daughters who would work this part.

We marched in a great procession,

Challenging thrones built on bad leadership  broken backs,

Those shriveled leaves revitalized at fancy hospital in India,

whose hearts hardened like rocks, ears deaf as echoes, faces shaped like masquerades and lips savored with lies. 

Our voices rang like church bells at dawn:

End Bad Governance.

Let unity drown out the fear.

We, the inventors of local poetry 

too uncivilized to suit your sophistication words mined from the Nigerian spirit of hustle,

beneath the scorching market sun 

“Na mumu dey go boutique”,

Na rihanna dey buy my market”

This is poetry at its finest.

Hear and make strings of this words in your head and ring the miraculous metaphor, irony and onomatopoeia and all the ways they invoke a certain amusement of a remarkable creativity.

And so not to boast but I tell you;

My strength flows from the confluence of River Niger and River Benue,

I rise like groundnut pyramids of the North,

Stand tall like The cocoa plantations in the West,

Shower in the rains of the south,

and bloom like the light of the rising sun in the East.

My skin is the cradle of milk and honey 

like diamond speckled on dust 

and my hair tells the story of resilience, 

look at how it disobeys the wind 

Take a look at me and see yields of my ancestors,

light on my fingers, writing fire like rage—I drop bars like soviet bombers.

So when you ask me where I come from, 

There are things I want to tell you that are longer than this poem, 

Than epistles 

Eternal Ode to My mother, 

She, Mama Africa.

I am the seeds my ancestors planted, knowing that it would one day bloom, 

That every act of their hope and fight

Becomes tomorrow’s guiding light.