They Did Not Return With Chains. Poem by HAZEEM OLADIPUPO OLUWATOBI KAZEEM

They did not return with chains.
They returned with maps that smiled,
with clean shoes and dirty agreements,
with hands stretched forward
and knives folded behind contracts.
They called it investment.
We heard rescue.
But the soil understood first,
every signature tasted like rust.
They did not raise flags;
they raised offices.
Glass towers watching the land
like landlords pretending to be guests.
The eagle hovered,
the dragon coiled,
others circled quietly,
all speaking the same language of profit
in different accents.
Loans fell like rain
during a long hunger,
but the rain was borrowed.
Each drop asked for interest,
each flood demanded ports,
railways,
mines,
and patience.
This continent,
this ancient granary of the world,
is called poor
while feeding empires.
Its oil runs engines abroad,
its cobalt lights foreign cities,
its cocoa sweetens mouths
that will never know its farmers.
And our leaders,
tailors of betrayal,
stitch foreign promises
into local laws.
They sell tomorrow
in air-conditioned rooms
and return to announce development.
Briefcases grow heavy
while villages grow light.
Accounts bloom overseas
while classrooms decay at home.
They bow to foreign tongues,
but bark orders only at the poor.
The eagle brings conditions.
The dragon brings roads
that lead outward.
Others bring aid with invisible chains.
Different flags, same hunger.
This is the new conquest:
no gunshots,
no marching boots,
only debt tightening its soft rope
around the nation's throat.
No anthem changes,
yet the wind obeys distant capitals.
No borders move,
yet the land keeps leaving.
Still, the soil remembers.
A granary that knows its value
will one day lock its doors.
And when that day comes,
no power,
East or West
will pretend it only came to help.