The Fight For True Independence Has Just Begun! Poem by Victor Okechukwu Anyaegbuna

Just yesterday before the sunshine
and after rains that washed clean
our beautiful air with candour
Cruel invaders of our freedoms,
like leopards in a herd of rams
captured us with tact and sword;
subdued, denied us freedom;
and made us their slaves.

We cried and wailed in pain
stressed and pleading in vain.
Our forebears were humiliated
like wild game slaughtered

They gagged our brains with religion
in body and in spirit they were legion
they fooled us they'd given us freedom
but we were bound deep in slavedom
.
Slavishly we celebrated and bowed
to tactical and diplomatic servitude,
only served to bolster carnage
that swept us into befouled drainage

They imposed on us the most wicked
leaders from our primitive stock; clueless, dependent, wrecked
that befouled our candour and flock

Independence became dependence
We, fooled to celebrate our doom
upped to modern glorified slaves
dependent on monetary weapons
they flew like kites in all our space
Trojans pulled us all around like camels
mouth gagged and took all we had
and gave us back only a wee little

They drilled our lands, stole our milk
stirred all the greed hidden in us
and marched us against ourselves
to maim and kill our destiny in wars.
They mined and stole our gold and minerals
Imposed harebrained imbeciles as our leaders
taught them knavery and greed
we slid out of humanity and bled

Independent, confident and rich
warriors from birth, heritage mellowed,
began to savour odium of cowardice
poverty, hunger, frustration and vice
us against ourselves glory subdued
our future paused to suppress
the elevation of our best minds.

Indeed I begin so lately to wonder
when this enlarging pool of tears
will soften walls of these awful drains
that convey to waste our best minds
E'en as voices and faces of reason
now wail across Africa

©Victor Okechukwu Anyaegbuna
May 4,2025