Poem: “The Real Subsidisers” by Níyì Ọ̀súndáre

NIGERIAN SUBSIDY AND THE REAL  SUBSIDISERS

Here, in plain, unsubsidized language

     Are the basic facts  

About the fabled Nigerian “subsidy”

     Whose endless lies have besieged our ears

We the Nigerian people subsidize

     The rampant CORRUPTION of our rulers

We the Nigerian people subsidize

     Their fatal incompetence and prodigal greed

We the Nigerian people subsidize

     Those government budgets and their recurrent plunder

Those capital expenditures which total up

     To the execution of our commonweal

We the Nigerian people subsidize

     The Honorables who pad the budget

With frightening figures for constituency projects

     Which never veer beyond their bank accounts

We the Nigerian people subsidize

     Those countless security votes

Which have only made our lives in-secure

     And the countless fortunes of Their Ex-cellencies

We the Nigerian people subsidize

     That two-million-dollar bra* of our Oil Minister

That billion-naira budget for State House snacks

     The mounting misery which consumes our ranks

     *                             *                           *      

We the Nigerian people subsidize

     Our school-less children, foodless stomachs

Death-trap roads, crowded horse-spittles

     Murderous bandits and their blatant terror

We the Nigerian people subsidize

    Moribund refineries and their mortifying debts

Their viscous load no less crude than  

    The brains of those who control our fate

We the Nigerian people subsidize

     The endless tales about humongous ‘landing costs’

Sponsored raids by untouchable smugglers

     In this land where Thief is Chief and Law is lame

We the Nigerian people subsidize

     Oil-Block magnates from the  Power-Block mafia

Who tip the scales from their golden bedrooms

     And swim and splurge in unearned preferment

We the Nigerian people subsidize

     The crimes of rulers who think less

Care less, love less, sin more; from whose 

     Thunderous prayers minarets tremble and spires fall

We the Nigerian people subsidize

     The rampant CORRUPTION of our rulers

We the Nigerian people subsidize

      Their fatal incompetence and prodigal greed  

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*Reference to Nigeria’s erstwhile Petroleum Minister whose bra was allegedly priced at more than 2 million naira. And that was just one minor item among her numerous property and possessions whose value ran into billions of naira.