If Nigeria was a book
It will be on the recipe of how to bake breads of afflictions
From ingredients reserved for National cake
In ovens lined with greed to become furnaces of callous oppression

It would be a scrapbook
Of manslaughter, of murder,
of maligning moments, of meandering monsters,
of mostly meaningless methodologies,
and of mighty mind-blowing misnomers
Locked together in segregative intolerance.

It would be a three-part twist of insanity
One, an encyclopedia of stale achievements no one cares about anymore
Two, a dictionary that offers no insightful solution
to our situations but a wicked waste of stationery
Three, a workbook no one can solve, with
disparities that not even the smartest brain banks can account for.

If Nigeria was a book
It would have a copyright deal no one benefits from
sealed with the barcode of resilience,
But always have a review of corruption
a publishing contract no one wants to claim
It would have 150 million words suffering tirelessly at the hands of an editor who has a dyslexia of sound

If Nigeria was a book, it would be an addictive novel
Where we flip through the pages of recurrent horrors
That sit on a shelf whose woods
Are troubled by termites and ghosts like the wailing souls on Otedola Bridge
Who have become footnotes in the compendium of Nigerian disasters.

If Nigeria was a book
It would fill libraries with
Men handling unpublished manuscripts like the Biafra revolution
Our leaders will be there too, fruitless couples ignoring sex but seeking the authors of masturbation.

And if the book was made into a movie
Frankenstein would be in the senate working for the president
Majid Michael would be making out with his own death
Harry Potter will not survive his village people
The god of election violence and ballot boxes would have all the infinity stones
…but the Queen of Katwe would survive and so would you, so would Selma and Harlem and Soweto

If Nigeria was a book
I would be one of the few punctuation marks placed correctly
Helping you to make sense of this poorly edited congregation of juxtaposed nonsense

But Nigeria is indeed a book written by pencils in the hands of the creator,
Though for 100 years God was silent, the saviour will still come through
And a new testament will begin

Though there are still
prophecies unfulfilled,
promises untold,
Wars unfought,
Sacrifices unmade,
A Christ to nail
an Antichrist to expect
Jerusalem in ruins
hopelessness rambling on

Epilogue:
Victory is guaranteed still

Originally published by 60 Seconds Poetry on 27 July 2018.