Prayer By Unborn Nigerian By Salisu Suleiman

I am not yet born, but can
see clearly the land that will
one day be mine, the
streams from which I will one
day sip, and the citizenship
that will shortly become my
millstone. I can hear directly,
the dissonance of dialects I
will one day speak and the
divisions that will be mine to
inherit.
Even now, I can sense my
future fellow citizens
shuffling and hustling to
mosques and churches with a
fervour that burns hot and
runs deep, their faces etched
intensely by godless fervour,
but hearts swathed by the
shallow shrouds of deceit.
I am still in my womb, but
can smell the putrefaction
that pervades public life and
perfidy that prevails in
private practise. I see a ruler
totally disconnected from the
pervasive reality of poverty:
unable to grasp the enormity
of his obligations and
incapable of nurturing hope
in the millions of hearts
whose burden I will soon
share.
And so while others are born
into beauty and bounty, I
know, before I am born, that
my yoke will be one of lies,
fears and tears; one of
colossal debts, bone crushing
poverty and heart-wrenching
despair.
I am still to stare at the
sunlight that shines on our
savannah, but its shadows
have shown my soul the
similitude of the shack where
I will be born, the untrained
hands that will be the first to
seize me and the bush lamps
that will shine my steps.
Without being told, I know
what the growling sounds in
the distance are: they the
intestinal rumblings of the
diesel generators that will
shatter my solemn silence for
all eternity and strum the
arpeggio of my eardrums
every minute, every hour,
every day. I know that my
solitary serenity will only
return when I come back to
be interred in the wombs of
Mother Earth.
My eyes are still closed, my
breathing shallow, but I
sense the seething hatreds
that shear the soil on which I
will soon stand. I see a land
where Muslims regard
Christians with suspicion and
where the latter regard the
former with scorn. I see a
land where the south feels it
has been treated shabbily by
rulers from the north and
therefore see nothing wrong
with being treated even
worse by an idiot from the
south, regardless of how
profligate, pernicious,
pedantic.
What I can see, but my living
compatriots refuse to
recognize is that Muslim or
Christian, north or south, the
elite eat together in private
and carve up our heritage
while the common man is fed
doses of hatred, bigotry and
false hope. And so they
wallow in poverty and regard
the theft of their birthrights
as the culmination of divine
destiny, a prophetic mission.
I am not yet born, but
already repulsed by the
schools that I will one day
attend. I can feel the cold
bare floors, the shattered
window panes, the peeling
paints and crumbling
masonry. I shudder at the
cold stares my teachers will
soon direct at me to and the
volcanic anger that seems to
spring from some deep
seated hatred of a trade they
despise, but cannot depart.
And because our leaders steal
monies meant for public
schools to educate their
children abroad in select
schools, I discern that I will
go to school an unlettered
ignorant and come out a
certified ignoramus; no
school will admit me for
further studies, no employer
will give me a job and no one
simply has my time.
I am not yet born, but detect
that I cannot change the
scam they call freedom. I
cannot exercise the liberty of
choice because my
democracy is a sham; I
cannot evoke real change for
the baton-wielders will rush
out to kill and maim; I
cannot flee to other lands
because my passport is my
shame; I cannot confide in
my imams nor confess to my
priests for they are part of
the shame. And I cannot
share these fears with friends
as we are not from the same
zone, nor voice the truth
since I speak a different
tone. I cannot be myself
because I have no right to
be.
I am not yet born, but can
make out the shock of bomb
blasts, the staccato of gun
fire and spurting torrents of
blameless blood – spilled by
mindless, heedless zealots in
the name of beliefs they
neither symbolise nor
comprehend – blinded only
by the bonfire of the self-
righteous.
Dear God, I am not yet born,
but pray thee: when I draw
my first draughts of breath
and see my first sights, birth
me not in the Nigeria of
today; berth me not in a land
sheared by lies, tears and
fears. Confer me not with
countrymen corralled by
corruption and complacency,
nor rulers dense, drab and
drunk, unh

#CONSENSUS 2015