In-Dependence
Listen, my people,
I have seen the dancing in the city.
I have heard the loud speeches on the radio,
The big men shouting about Independence!
I ask you, my people,
What kind of independence is this?
I am an old man,
I remember the meaning of words.
Independence was the hawk flying alone in the wide sky!
Independence was the elephant who walks where he pleases!
But you, my child,
You call it independence
When you wait for the white man’s ship to bring you rice?
You call it independence
When your son licks the boots of the man in the big car?
This your In-Dependence!
It is the independence of the mouse
Who depends on the crumbs from the lion’s feast!
It is the independence of the river
That depends on the poison the factory pours into it!
My father’s house was built with our own hands!
We ate the yams from our own soil!
Now you dance and sing
For the freedom to beg for jobs from strangers?
For the freedom to buy back your own fish from the foreigner’s canoe?
You have become a laughingstock, my people!
Your chiefs wear the skins of leopards
But their hearts are the hearts of sheep!
They have sold the jawbone of the village for a sweet candy!
You say we are free?
Tell me,
Is the stick free from the hand that holds it?
Is the song free from the mouth of the singer?
We are the stick!
We are the song
For other men’s dancing!
Do not sing me this song of In-Dependence again!
I will go back to my hut.
I will listen to the old stories.
I will wait for the true sun to rise,
When the child remembers his true name,
And the land is no longer a widow
Waiting for a husband who sleeps in another man’s house.
Majekodunmi 0. Ebhohon is a poet, media practitioner, and playwright. Author of the Black revolutionary play ‘The Great Delusion’, he writes from Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria 🇳🇬._
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