Nobody has claimed responsibility

By Odoh Diego Okenyodo

Nobody has claimed responsibility

The night is quiet, until it’s not,
A crack in the air, a city shot,
Bandits rise, inscribed in dread,
Holding banners of blood

They step forward, boldly claiming fire
and brimstone
They say it’s theirs,
the chaos they sow
But in the halls where power sleeps,
Where promises die, and hope unrenews,
No voice emerges from marbled rooms
To claim charred people

Nobody has claimed responsibility

Roads crumble, children starve,
Corners of cities built on dreams
Are filled with screams
As power shrugs,
The bandit stakes his claim on pain
So also do the other bandits,
governance without a name

A dawn is bleeding,
It will bleed because power says no
Nobody has claimed responsibility
For their crimes, none speaks aloud
justice is hiding behind a cloud.
But all will be consumed by the crimson dawn
All, including the silent innocent ones

The young are claiming responsibility
for the opportunity of treason
They are taking the seat of blame
When neither man nor state has shame
Those who can should pour libations
to Aminu Kano, Azikiwe, Herbert Macaulay
Ones who did not claim destruction’s prize, ancestors who did not lead with lies.

Somebody should claim the task
Of healing wounds, of peeling masks.
In the ruins, we seem to stand alone,
With only pregnant silence as our own.
But because power in marbled halls don’t read
The past shall repeat itself before we are free

Somebody has claimed responsibility