You make your bed and sleep too deep in cradles of diamonds and ore

Indeed, you slumber too deep in couches of silver and gold.

 

With wheedling lullaby, you lounge too deep in divans of bauxite and oil

You do not stir to confer the worth of your possessions

Neither the charge of your merchandise, to concur.

You leave the doors to your wherewithal to many a stranger to unlock

On hinges well oiled, you do not hear the intruder despoil your birthright

You hear not the plunderer.

 

And if you should awaken, you harvest for them your priceless heritage

In pain of disease and pangs of starvation, with your mouth packed

With pacifiers for consolation, so you would not whimper in remonstration.

 

This land of Africa, you are ensnared by many a lender’s hand, heavy on overheads

You propel downtrends, swayed by dissident winds, you feast with saboteurs

Indeed, your refined subversion against your own verily astounds.

With ravenous bandits you collaborate, appending your seal for tithing percentages

You reward patriotism with palliative wages, and thwart the counsel of your sages.

 

For ineffectual hand-outs bestowed, you hold carnivals, shaking hands to dislodge arms

They smirk, and you beam, failing to spot the blight of flattering applause

So you least detect your odum and sapele growing wings of flight

Likewise cocoa, of which trees you tend with endurance, and of seeds you sell for pittance

The resultant luxurious refined sweets you rarely savour.

This land of Africa, this land lying fallow, awake, you sleep too deep.