by Salisu Suleiman
Published on: Dec 1, 2004
Topic:
Type: Poetry

We were told it would give us freedom, but got chains

We were promised progress, but returned to the dark ages

Where we expected bread, it fed fat on our hungers

While we prayed for hope, it grew on our fears

When we dared to cry, silence was enthroned by bullets.



We came back home with ambitions in our hearts

We came back home with greenbacks in our bags

We came back home with ideas in our heads

We parted ways with hosts to retrace long lost homes

But what we see is freedom supported by chains



Some stayed back because they believed the promises

As we were plied with new lies to quell old tears

We watered the bud of hope for the flower of our futures

And were slow in recognizing the demise of fast fading hopes

Because the democracy promised came in steel chains



So we watch their possessed dance, drenched in silent tears

We look on as freedom is locked up in democracy’s empty promises

And cannot protest when starvation becomes food for the masses

Even though we were promised that democracy would put food on tables

Instead we got democracy that is draped in chains



We were promised balms to sooth our open wounds

Yet we are but pawns to impress foreign powers

We were promised homes with proper roofs

Yet our children are born under the glare of naked flares

For the democracy they gave us is held up by thugs



We were promised light inside our homes and clothes on our backs

But we have learnt to see in the dark and wrap with our rags

We salivate at the hope that once promised so many dishes

Praying even as we know that redemption is only in our graves

Because the democracy we see is decked in golden chains.

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