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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.
Dedicated to Leah Sharibu the Christian girls still in Boko Haram Captivity and other girls held in captivity and have not been rescued by their government if Nigeria
(Holding fire and water together)

I don't know why the rain keeps writing the
name of Nigeria on the ground in every corner.
I don't know why we are this broken and
tortured like the fragments of the dust.
I don't know why the Dapchi girls returned yesterday while their chikbok friends are
still in captive.
I don't know why every street in Nigeria is
known with an imprint of good leaders.
I don't know why we cry yet point accusation. fingers back to ourselves, who is fooling who?
I don't know why the sun cry here with a
closed lips.
I don't know why we keep writing love stories
while our brothers and sisters perish in shame!
I don't just know why but I think you should know.
Are you not the one that collected a cup of rice, clean notes and Abrahamic lie from them?
I won't speak ill of this land again,  I won't!
I won't judge any one, no, I won't for  the
sake of my unborn children.
No, I won't for the sake of what happened to Dele Giwa and Saro Wiwa.
We poets are abnormal psychologically.
We paints abstraction from the abstracts creating fears that might hurt those true patriots.
My muse fell out from me yesterday night,
When my television opened to a scene of genocide.
Men on pants, women on trousers painting out the tears made for people inhabiting hell.
Their laughters and smiles were printed to be archived among themselves.
I won't speak ill  of this country, no, I won't!
Because of my unborn children,
I won't!
But I will tell just one tale for them to remember
Of how monkeys carted away with our monies!
Of how Snake swallowed our currency!
Of how good our leaders are, I think you know!
I have been holding these demons in me until last night they came out horribly in fierce protest to revisit this land again.
To tell of those girls ***** under the bridge,
To ask why boys like me are named after me,
To speak against shadows of death lurking here and there.
Nigeria is grey and black, red and violent,
Retrieving this oceans of mysteries from the hidden abyss of grave corruption is the passport tabled on the pyramid top to recreate a versatile muses of a lyrics calling for a right to write our rights.
Take a walk to memory lane pass your shadow,  that of your father,  mother & grandmas
You will see a Nigeria in another angle trying to free herself from the grip of corruption, then, revisit her tears and struggles you will know we are the cause of our own misfortunes.!

©John Chizoba Vincent
FromAPenRefusingFrustrations
Dada Olowo Eyo Apr 2019
Over two hundred girls, taken, many moons ago,
Then more than one hundred, stolen,  in the same vein,
While the politics of stupidity serenades their incompetence,
Beer parlour intellectualism fingers the minds of many keyboard warriors.
Over five years after the Chibok girls were abducted by boko haram, the government of the day grapples with the rescue of hundreds of girls in captivity. Previous government bungled any chances of rescue by jumping on conspiracy bandwagon. SHAME.
Dada Olowo Eyo Mar 2018
Over two hundred girls many moons ago,
Then over one hundred in the same vein,
While the politics of stupidity serenades their incompetence,
Beer parlour intellectualism fingers the minds of the many keyboard warriors.
After Chiboks girls were captured about fours years ago, Dapchi girls followed suit...and Nigerians are clearly, clearly non the wiser.
(for chikbok girls four years after elegies of lost)

And we opened the book of remembrance again
Tickling all ears that are designed to be deadly.
We filled the cups & buckets with tears of blood,
****** tears as the cloud rises from dark night
& the horizon of our lives radio out our prayers
in pleasure & pleas recording poetry into broken
Rhythms of the kings bird' songs singing elegies untold. We recoiled this pages of cries into folded arms. Lost is our liberty ephemeral into chaos.
This light of darkness are now printed in our
palms of history tormenting our own feelings.

they left home through the corruption of their father's land. You know, their lies ferried them
into Sambisa to go & tell a tale of their crimes.
the chromosomes of their pigments lacked the bravery within the wrinkled nose of their cheeks.
Lives are buttered fireflies &worms of mediocre...
We may not know how pains taste until untitled chapters of sorrow unfold in our lives to seek revengeful voyage of our sins towards our home.
We televised their lies on the national televisions,
tilted the head of our cocked brain into gadgets
in a ballroom of miscreants clothing our beliefs.

I opened this book of remembrance again,
For my lazy sisters that struggles effortlessly amidst leaves and shrubs of looting leaders.
for their tears composed a musical notes,
for their fight created astraying street steer
I held upto these fallin' memories in a graveyard
into the abstract demon of my noble moralities,
into black races, into an abstract journeys.
brittle of the papers written in absence of our
ourselves, in the pictures of our lost self issues.
we will gather these soothsayers to the cloud
to sooth out those prilgrim girls in the moon.

till then, let this dance be of survival &revival,
of those deaf & dumb girls kept in the ***** of emptiness. they made them voiceless like the pages of a blank books but we know all their magic tricks in the closet of their ignorance.
No chikbok, no Dapchi girls but looting politics,
Politics that has strange mouth & shadows.
Until this madness is cleansed from our souls
Point towards your chambers & crack your mind
We are mocked movies trying to be seen by all,
a documented fairy tale in the heart of all.


©John Chizoba Vincent
FromAPenRefusingfrustration

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