'Change or Chains' by Okeme Jerome Akpevwe

What did you hear

When they mounted the stage of yesterday

To declare their promises on air?

Was it change or chains?

Maybe the lies of yesteryears

Have deposited wax into our ears

and hindered our hearing

that we couldn’t differentiate change from chains.

Please let this accent be understood.

Did we hear “we are working”

or “we are walking”?

Are we dear to your heart

Or shares in your hat?

When we laid bare our complaints

Did you say you have heard

Or you have herd?

Did you recover the loots or the lutes?

Will you give us our rights or rice?

Can you see our tears or tiers?

Did we hear ” we’ll make corruption bitter ”

Or “we’ll make corruption beat her” ?

Did you promise to make lives better

Or bind many with fetters?

Maybe the tongue twisted the truth

Only time can get us to the root.

These guys!

Can we call this “Change in Disguise”?

Is this what you call change?

Herdsmen slaughtering souls rather than cows

Only for us to hear whispers of ” Silent is Golden”.

Is that a meaningful silent?

When will change come?

When the price of fuel is more than one can bear

as it equates a bottle of beer?

Or as our Naira watch the Dollars

mount upon the wings of our very own Eagle

to soar high be called change or chains?

You feel not our pains

Yet we see your gains.

We heard of the fame

That you made with our very own name.

Is this the promise of Change

Or promise in Chains?

READ: 'My Dreams for Nigeria' by Victor Igiri