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  • In my head
  • It’s all in the past –
  • The continent brutally wronged
  • by the villains of the past
  • whose children are still ahead
  • with no regret

  • The race is left for dead
  • still breathing – albeit difficult
  • Putrefying but packaged
  • like a corpse left on the street
  • The people still offended
  • And the wrongdoers still make orations with no guilt

  • Who will avenge the man of colour?
  • Whose is it to do what is right?
    • To whom is justice and reprimand?
    • The self-imposed superior or the sell-out?
    • Whose idea is it to be wicked?
    • Who were the merchants?

  • To whom is the anger of the almighty to be kindled
  • if not to the coloured evil merchants?
    • Cursed men of greed whose belly is their god
    • Was that a time to receive rum, guns, clothes and beads?

  • The people haven’t recovered
  • We need to face it.
  • The pains still abound,
  • The nations yet hurt
  • The stench of the carcass oozes unabated

It can no longer be deodorised nor hid under the mat

  • Heal Africa, almighty, I plead
    • For the nations still hurt
    • The lady of justice is not coloured
  • The powers that be determine her sight –
  • The common wealth continues to be ransomed
  • And the ruins go on unrepentant
  • Houses and yacht everywhere, money stashed abroad
  • and their own people mourn.

(To the memory of Patrice Émery Lumumba: 2 July 1925 – 17 January 1961)


Ope Afeni © 2-7-22

In addition to being a creative writer, Opeyemi Afeni is a lawyer based in Edmonton. He has a couple of published titles: The Game that never was; The Difference we can make amongst others.

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