The Threshold of a New Dawn, Perhaps.

 The Threshold of a New Dawn, Perhaps.

A struggle it is, with a tinge of scuffle

Strife devoid of blows attributed to tussle

A mere scramble for balance with claws

Like that of a pride interrupting with alacrity,

The tranquility of the jungle

The serenity of its milieu in the quest for fame, for power and for recognition to the detriment of its sanity.

An epoch-making era in the history of a nation, a supposed great nation,

Entrusted with the destiny of a race,

A race subjected to arbitrary hardship,

Segregation,

Discrimination 

Nay subjugation, from time immemorial.

A pendulum-like destiny, dangling in the hands of desperados

Overambitious men & women 

Unambitious youths & children

Complacent with mediocrity over meritocracy

And for the sake of a spoonful of gunpowder preferring quantity to quality.

It has metamorphosed into a tug of war lately

With potent but clumsy fist looming the air, this way and that - haphazardly 

Men and women raging and fuming

Armed rather with instruments of peace - identifying with democracy undaunted

Trooping out of their covers to the battlefield (too anachronistic a word for a modern day polling booth) 

With a perturbed heart but eyes too myopic in sight 

Questioning who the messiah is and where he will come from, and when he will come 

"Must be my tribesman," the other says

"No, my religion!" 

What a beclouded mindset!

It is the crescendo of the beat danced to by the nationalists of earliest time

And would perhaps begin the manifestation of the activists' struggle and the diminuendo of a people's plight.

The future is in your hands Oh nation arise,

On your shoulder,

Your palm &

Your thumbs it rests.

Resuscitate from your slumber, nation

Emancipate yourself of the cancerous tribalism and ethnocentrism

Snatch your future from scrooges in a rather peaceful tussle

With competence, credibility and capability being a yardstick for your choice.

© Chukwunnabuikem Ugochukwu Amalu

15/02/23