NO VICTOR, NO VANQUISHED

NO VICTOR, NO VANQUISHED In Nineteen Hundred and seventyWhen General Gowon declared an endTo years of secessionist Biafran warWith the slogan: No victor no vanquishedYet, millions lost their lives and homes Most returnees came back in ragsI celebrated my father’s returnWith a shot of kai-kai, our local ginAt a tender age of eleven or thereaboutThis turned my world upside down I misbehaved as I was told by friendsIn this drunken state, I pissed on a babyAs a custom, boys pursued to beat me upI ran into the bush and fell into a pitThen took ill with fever for seven days I dread our local gin from that day onLike I dreaded soldiers in camouflage uniformWith all the atrocities they committedConscripting young boys to fight their warAnd commandeering women to warm their beds  But of all the war stories told from either sideThere is no sign that lessons were learntAs we repeatedly beg for another warIn our utterances and the things we doIn election riggings and religious riots Looking at the way history repeats itselfWe are but a country with stiffed-neck peopleWho are like a herd of untamed buffalosHeading in one direction to their perilWhere our ‘victors’ will be vanquished