LAMENTATIONS @ 60 (Nigeria we hail thee)

What manner of child?
still born?
Three score years since that birth,
suckling flattened tithers,
gloating
in mystique of decadence -
crass of class
class of babes toddling still.

Should I throw you to the wildings
in oke ofia?
Should I blame the gods
whose bidding it is to give and take?
That your existence rests on a quota system,
feeding bottle even with grey hair,
infant formulae stifling growth,
merit a seasoner
one course meal poisoning:
circumstance!

O elements of the universe
nekwa nu nwa unu!
Certainly not of this world!
Take him and do your enchantment,
undo the bewitching,
trade this goblin fit only a gobbling lot.

Lo! See!
He basks in stunted form:
see his fractured parts,
like oil on water -
parallel line of forced joints;
giant in world of ants,
whose anthills are serially ravaged
by pangolins in power.

Steaky tongues tangoed in treasury,
decades mass of tanglement;
silos once full now emptied,
famished from head to hem,
and we carry the cross,
crown of thorns adorn our wrinkled brows!

Can you hear our wailings?
Behold our scorecard:
stockman weaponized,
crimpers prowling round the clock,
pilgrimage of malefactors,
Covid-19 irresistible sucre -
competition of churning numbers,
one Panadol for a few dollars more,
fourteen days of pretentious isolation,
and they bullion their ways to the banks!
One baby bound in freedom, peace and unity?

O let me lament!
let us merry in this lamentation;
60-year old toddler toddling to a century!
Let us hip to our hurrayed death,
and arise to a bounded freedom.