I am Leah Sharibu
I am Nigeria
I am a captive
Taken from my home
Away from love and care
Now I live in fear
In the midst of the unknown
I am Leah Sharibu
I am Nigeria

I am Leah Sharibu
Oh! You have forgotten me, probably
I wouldn't blame you
I am just a girl, you thought
But I am Nigeria
And I could be just your girl
Yet you go to bed with both eyes closed
Because I am just a girl.
How do you sleep?
How do you find peace?
How do you laugh with satisfaction
And Find rest?
Knowing I am Leah Sharibu
And I am Nigeria

I am Leah Sharibu
Who is she? I can hear you ask.
Oh! You've forgotten?
I am that "Dapchi girl"
Kidnapped with her school mates
But they are free and I am not
They gained their lives back
Because they are what I am not
That's what some people thought
But I am not just "that Dapchi girl"
I am Leah Sharibu
I am Nigeria

I am Leah Sharibu
I am Nigeria
And I am a captive
I am in chains
I am in bonds
I am in pains
And I am not free
I am still missing
I am Leah Sharibu
I am Nigeria

I am Leah Sharibu
I am a Christian
That's what you said
But I am more than a Christian
I am a girl child
I am a woman
I am a daughter
I am a mother
And I am a wife
But I am more than all these
Yes! I am
I am Nigeria

I am Leah Sharibu
I am Nigeria
Though you called me a Christian
Undoubtedly I am
Was that not why you left me behind?
Was that not why you've left me till now?
How callous? How unpatriotic?
You swore an oath to protect me
But you lied
You think calling me a Christian
Will clear your conscience
But you lie!
I am Nigeria
That's my identity
I am Leah Sharibu

I am Leah Sharibu
I am Nigeria
I have been betrayed
By Deceivers parading themselves as leaders
By cowards parading themselves as heroes
By liers who embraces you with a dagger
I have been betrayed
By enemies camouflaged as friends
I thought they cared about me
But all they want is a piece of me.
So they don't care if I bleed
I am Leah Sharibu
I am Nigeria

I am Leah Sharibu
I am Nigeria
I am not missing
You can see me
But you've refused to free me
You've made me your slave
Everyday you **** me
Everyday you **** me
Everyday you brutalise me
Everyday you torment me
Despite the oath you swore to protect me
You have become my terror
My Kidnapper
My tormentor
My killer
My captor
My destroyer
I am Leah Sharibu
I am Nigeria

I am Leah Sharibu
I am Nigeria
I can see, you don't care, who I am
You think I will just pass away
Like a shadow in the night
Another figure among the many lost
So you hope
But you lie
I am your fear
I am your shame
I am your story
Ugly but true
I am your cross
You must bear
I am your pain
And I won't go away
I am Leah Sharibu
I am Nigeria

I am Leah Sharibu
I am Nigeria
You can **** me
But I won't die
Though ****** with many swords
And bleeding on all sides
You will always hear my cries
Because I live on....
You can try to hide me
Like a woman's nature call
But I won't go away
I will be your nightmare
And walk the night in your sleep
I will be your nemesis
And follow you to your grave
I will be your infamy
Lay you bare for the world to see
I will be the truth
That topples your lies
And I pray that I will be your end
So you'd be no more
I am Leah Sharibu
I am Nigeria

I am Leah Sharibu
I am Nigeria
Another night has come
And I pray for sleep
Not knowing if I will see the dawning of a new day
You expect  me to be weak
To break down and fall
You expect me to be feeble and frail
But I won't
Everyday I see the sun
I will grow strong
Everyday I take a breath
I shall be agile able
Don't expect me to give up
For I shall win at last
I am Leah Sharibu
I am Nigeria.

I am born with a purpose
And I live with a focus
Grow with a vision
Survive for a mission
I got a reason
To live for a season
Through the trials
I have to triumph
‘cos my mission
Is to humanity
To add quality
And meaning to life
So I strive
To overcome the storm
That seems so tough
But for my purpose
I shall not lose focus
No thought of giving up
When I have not done all
That humanity demands
For it is a command
I must obey

I love her
I desire her
More than anything
I can imagine
But I am unsure

I dreamt of her
I weep for her
I struggle with myself
But I never conquered
‘cos I am unsure

And at night
I hug my pillow
In my sleep
I held her tight
But I couldn’t keep her
For I was unsure

She kept coming
She kept smiling
But never opened her hands
To give me a warm embrace
Which is all I desire
And the more I am unsure

I never told her
I love you
I’ve never held her
In my hands
But I love her
Though I am unsure

The wound remained unhealed
The vacuum remained unfilled
The tears flow unstopped
And I’m losing her
Who is the remedy
‘Cos I’m unsure

And I’m losing her
Fast than I expected
Though she still smiles
The fear increased unmeasured
She loves me
I don’t know
For I am unsure.

Passion
The oil
Behind the force
That drives
The heart crazy

Passion
The force
Behind action
That sets the
Heart in motion

Passion
The fire
Behind vision
So strong and clear

Passion
The cause
Of the tension
Deep in my heart

Passion
The reason
For the madness
Tearing me apart

Passion
The force
Behind the motion
Within my veins

Passion
The reason
Behind the sunrise
At dawn

Passion
The vibes
Behind the tremors
Of the nightingales

Passion
The words
Behind the pen
In my hand

Passion
The cause
Of my passion
Is you!

Lying on a borrowed bed,
With no pillow to help the rest.
I let my mind on a crest
and set on a dreamy night.

Dreamy night
indeed I do have.
A giant Cherub,
seated on a Crescent Moon
Playing on a Violin
A baby's lullaby
On a dreamy night.

Called to the music
My Soul travelled on;
with the sound of the music
Embedded with much hallucination.

A falsitude of life!
All seems to be a lie.
But it will last
only for a while;
as a dreamy night I lost
at the bite of a bug
cruel enough to share a bed.

Where every touch carries love
Every hand carries help
And a tiny crumb satisfy all
That is home

Where every tear is shared
Every hug carries a warmth
And every word carries laughter
That is home

Where I find strength to fight my wars
And courage to face my fears
Not because I am strong
But because I have helping hands
That is home

Where despite my faults
I still find comfort
And the cold hands of failure
Does not win it all
That is home

Where hands are joined together
To help each other get the victory
And they never stop trying
Until everyone is smiling
That is home

Where you run to
When all the world reject you
Like ***** rags with no more use
And you find a hug, a warmth and a word
That is home

My home
A place I always want to be
My home
There is none other like you
When every wall carries freedom
That is home

Home
Every step away from you carries fear
Everyday away from you seems so lost
I miss all the love all the warmth
The smiles and the laughter in my home

From the ashes and dust
We rise again
Bearing the scars of death
As we count our lost
From the bones and graves around
Many have fallen
And the sword is red

We march through the village square
Bearing more corpses
Looking for a place to rest
From the raging sword of the invaders
We seek the face of the gods

Why do we dance on their graves?
Like masquerades in the village square
The kings come from afar
And we take them to the shrine
The invaders helped us built
And none shed a tear…
None raised a wail…
And none grieved
Because it’s not their lost

They said we wail too much
For the lost was small
A tiny drop in the ocean of blood
That has flooded the land

Our contribution was small…yes, small contribution
Or how else could we justify this ceaseless carnage?
So they took more
More women…more children
More boys…more girls
Some pregnant…some suckling
A sacrifice to make up for the rest

We thought our shrine was big enough
To pacify the gods and save their wrath
But we were wrong
Their white regalia is not red enough
The blood is not deep enough for a swim
But why desire blood as one seeks for water in the desert
Oh sword! When will you rest?

The king is coming
Maybe he will see the mountains of graves
And the waiting dead—candidates for mass burial
Maybe he will say it is enough
And the priest can take the blood
And pour on the altar of the gods
So the living can rest
And the land will know peace
And the sword be no more red
May the gods be pacified
This sacrifice is enough

Though I don’t know
Exactly what to say
Still I must respond
To the undying impulse to write
Meaningless be It may
Still the flames I’ll sustain
And reward myself with the joy
Of a holding a pen
This is a call
A duty I must perform
So when the urge comes
I allow my heart to flow
Into the streams of many generations
Yes, generations yet to come
So when my torch burns out
My life will still glow
Like a many thousand lights
Long after I am gone

The bloodsuckers of the night
Invaded my abode
And with their unsterilized pipe
Draw my blood
******* the life
Out of my viens
Injecting death
Into the stream
And in my pain
I fight back
Taaah! A clap, a slap
But it ends in my pain
For the invaders escaped
Making a mockery of my counter-attack

In the dark
Upon the couch
When my head
Her rest do seek
Then came their scout
And huuuummmm goes my drum
This is worst than a bite
For insomnia do invite
Another alien to my home

So with teary eyes
And shivering bones
With lost appetite
And a sour taste in my mouth
A body feeble and frail
Went I to see a doctor
In the heat of my body
Hot like a dozen furnaces
Went I to the clinic
But my testimony was not enough
To convince the doctor
That the invaders have left a stranger
In my blood stream
A parasite feeding on my life
So the lab man I must see
For the foreigner must be identified

Home I went and back I came
To see the doctor
But I have thought what to do
To these foreigners
Both the invaders and the aliens
For my health and my rest
Are worth more than gold
And now sitting before the doctor
Wandering what they must have found
Hoping it’s not going to be grave
“Malaria parasite”
Malaria?!
“Yes malaria” the invaders left it in your blood stream

Home I went from the doctor
Armed with arthemether,  lumefatrin and paracetamol
To fight this war
Raging in my world
Still I wonder
What do I do?
To end it all
Once and for all
For the invaders
Still hide within my walls
In my wardrobe and in my clothes
Under my bed and in the closet
In water left uncovered
And the ***** pool outside my home
In the gutters and uncut lawn
They seem to be everywhere

The “wipers” could not **** them
They seem to make them strong
For everytime they bounced back
More angry and fierce
No! one more pain, one more bite
And my senses returned
I have heard of ITN
Insecticide Treated Net
Convinced I was of just one try
At last I found my warrior
To defeat these aliens and invaders of my world
Oh! How I love this net….
Gleefully I crawl under the net
To take my sweet beautiful rest
And no more of these alien care
And my war against mosquito won
And malaria defeated from the source
Prevention and better than cure.

I appreciated your beauty
But denied the pleasure
And to make up for my failure
I give you this treasure
Words from my heart
Describing your splendour
Which gives beauty to the earth
Queen of the galaxies
What are you doing among men?
For yours is a splendour above splendours
And your smile is desired among angels
And your deceptive innocent looks
That melts the stone-hard-heart
And sends the sons of men
On a journey of day dreaming
Wishing you were theirs.

You, a perfect symbol of the Creator’s creativity
You give me a picture of his paradise
And send me on a journey of day dreaming
Praying you are mine.

But reality most a time is deceptive
Like love within the verse
I pray for the day I will hold you
And feel you
And your beauty
Then I’ll recount your wonders
To all men
As love within the verse
I profess.

On sandy land and muddy plains it appears
A mark left for succeeding generations
Carved with hands, sweat and blood
Indelible a mark that cannot be erased
You can find them on the various paths of life
For very few have been careful to leave them behind
And many careless if they mark their path
They are heroes and heroines of songs
They line the pages of books and poems
They grace the walls of museums and temples
Some are men and others are gods
And all of them have walked the earth

They discovered the heights of the sky
And the depths of the seas
They found the distances of lands
And lengths of deserts
They carved their names on stones and monuments of rocks
With their blood, sweat and hands
Marks the walls of earth with their names
Heroes of wars
Lords of science
Kings of nations
Queens of kingdoms
Loved and hate, doubted and scorned but none was a fool
Lords of art
Kings of songs
Telling their stories in pages with age
Prose, Drama and Poems
Today we sing memories of them

And we have heard
How they made war
How they caused war to cease
And we have heard
How they shed blood
How they saved lives
And we have heard
How they fought death
And overcame reproach
Great and small but none was a fool

Some and have been found and their stories told
Others are lost and the search is on
But diligent as we may be
Forever they may be lost
In the heights of the sky
In the depth of the sea
In the dark alleys of the cave
In the heavy sands of the desert
In the deep belly of the Bermuda triangle
And in the racist and hateful heart of men
But still abide their footprint on the rock
And the sands of time may tell it all
Or never will their footprints reveal.

Here they come
On their high horses
And white regalia
With the pretense to mourn
Long after we cried and wailed
For the blood that has stained our land
Long after we cried and wailed
For the blood that has stained our land
Drawn by the sword of their brethren
From the veins of our brethren

How deceptive...how audacious?
Their mockery of our pain
They never felt it
They only felt threatened
Because others came to give us succour
They didn’t come with balm for the wounded
And no bandages for the bleeding
They only came to see
How deep the wounds are?Are they deeper than the valley they seek to possess?

How deceptive...how audacious?
Their disdain of our sincere tears
They came with no tears
To shed for the buried dead
Neither did they come with handkerchief
To wipe away our tears
They came to see
If the graves are as they expected
And if not...how well to inflict more wounds
Even as we mourn
They are killing more

How deceptive...how audacious?
Their mockery of our sensitivity
Instead of sending the lion to roar
And chase the wolf away
They sent the cat to run
To where? I don’t know
The cat is been running
Yet the wolf is stilling killing
And the head of the pack
Is coming to see
How red the River Benue is

Edumoga is crying
Guma and Logo is still bleeding
Makurdi has not been spared from the flames
Nigeria is being deprived of herchildren daily
From Maiduguri to Adamawa
From Zamfara to Yobe
From Ekiti to Ogun
The Land is full of graves
From Southern Kaduna to Taraba
From Enugu to Delta
From Nasarawa to Benue
The land is bleeding red
And the stench of death is no longer offensive to perceive

When will this end?
When has the maiming of children?
And slaughtering of the pregnant
Become a culture of pride?
When has it become our culture?To protect the murderer
And accuse the victim?
The eyes that pretends not to see
When the vultures are plucking out its neighbours eyes
Should not forget that when they are done
They will come for his own.

Now what can I do?
I bear no guns
I carry no swords
But I still have my words
I will not cry only with my eyes
But I will cry with my pen
Until I **** this fear
This fear that wants to make me a slave
Until the peace be restored
Through the tears of a pen bearer.

Where is God,
In the deep abysses of the soul
Or in the glowing
Enlightenment of the mind?
Is He found, in the emotional
smile of the heart?

Where is God?
Is He in the morning breeze
that blows as if
to chill the soul?
Or can He be found
in the rays of the sun
so fierce and bold
like the sword
of a fearless warrior
through a succulent rock?

Where is God?
Is He in the morning song
that comes in resonance
with the drumbeat of the heart?
Can He be found
in the feebleness of a sick bed?
Or in the silent face
of the dead?
Bold as cast iron,
only stained with a grin.

Where is God?
Is he in the frantic---
Frenzy face of a village priest?
Breathing fire and brimstone
Like the furnaces of hell?

Where is God?
Is He in the fatlings
of a rich table?
And a treasure chest
Filled with blood?

Where is God?
Can He be found
in the simple-docile-smile
of the child next door?
The epitome
of a wretched world.

Where is God?
Is He found
in our guilty conscience
that died
spoiling His world?

Why can’t I see Him?
Why can’t I find Him?
How much do I have
To stretch and scratch
Just to know
Maybe, for once;
That I’ve done the right thing,
and not failed?

Where is God?

Truth is dead
Men murdered it
At its young age
Blinking like fading lights
They lie with their eyes
The tongue is tied
And the cords
We do not see
And when it rises
Like bouncing *****
On barbed wires
The words are deflated
And truth is murdered
Because trust has been buried
In the dark background of their hearts
And the offspring of truth
Are thought to be an outcast.
But always triumph
Because truth never dies.

Aaaaa!
How I hate my life
My fears I wrap in my tears
As my burdens I bear alone

The hurt and pain so fierce
They tore away at my heart
And pierce my viens with fear

Who will hear?
Who will listen?
Who will bear…?
…this cross with me?

I searched the dark
alleys of my heart
For loved ones far or near

I screamed in silence
In the midst of a crowd
But none could pick up
The scent of depression

I stretch my heart
Across a furious road
But none could see
The drench of suicidal thoughts

Was I invincible?
Was I unseeable?
Was I unlovable?
Was I untouchable?

All I needed was a hug
A touch…
…a call
Even a whisper
would have been enough

But I found a rope
Tighter than a hug
…a bullet
Stronger than love
A poison
More feelable than a touch
And I hung…and hug my death

Now I’m gone
Am I visible?
Can you now see me?
Can you now hold me?
Can you now love me?
Suicidal!

It Pains the Body and Soul It Wounds the Heart.
It Kills our Joy and Murders our Happiness.
It Showers sadness on us when it Rains.
It Shines sorrow on us when it Appears
Though we can't foretell its coming.
Though we don't see it.
It Happens when we least expected!
It Happens to the Ones we love so dear.
But, can't we stop it?!
I mean can't we Fight it?

Oh! Sorry, for it is inevitable. Sorry, we can't Fight it.  
Yes! The Reaper that Reaps All Whether Ripe or Not.
Whether Bad or Good.
Oh! Death! You are a Wicked Master.
How I Wish You never Existed, For I Know I'll meet You some day.
For Every man is Destined to meet You at a Point.
You at a Point.

Many met You at the Wrong time.
many at the Right time.
I Pray I meet you in Good time, But if I can see You, If I can hold and touch You, I'll fight You to the last drop of my BLOOD!  

Oh! Reaper that Reaps All Though it's appointed that Everyman should bow to You, Know this!
That you are not the Ultimate, For beyond You lies a Place where your Presence is terminated.
Where you shall shower no more Your Sadness.Where You shall shine no more Your Sorrow. Eternity you lead to!
A Door You are.
Making You a Slave and not a Master Oh!
The Sorrows of Many at Your Sting.
And the Joy of Multitude at Your Sting.
Sting On! Sting On! Sting On! But Remember!
As You Sting, You shall be judged.

Words are golden
So I consider them costly
I don't say they easily
I have to tread carefully
So I won't have to take them hastily

Like bullet in a gun nuzzle
Taking back is impossible
When they hit their target forcefully
All that's left is tragedy
When we speak not carefully
For words are powerful.

When spoken wisely
They heal instantly
Averting calamity
That destroy totally
Watch your mouth carefully
And speak not hastily
For words are powerful
And can **** instantly.