LEKKI TOLL GATE POSTSCRIPT

By Babatunde Alaran

I

blood was chaste

into the sky,

before the camouflage men

sent her flag to a cannoned stain

what a rhetoric!

was it a genteel circumstance

or the scene was grotesque

for this gruesome killing?

the sky was indeed a monochrome

with misfortune — 20–10–20

when the camera was unware

of the horrendous event

that sent a viral notice to the world

as the moon mocked us for anomie

and kept memory

without an unquestionable word

but death was proud enough to take

our patriots for a vigil and their

soul sang solidarity within

the shore of this palpable preamble —

but the military was brave enough

to shoot —

pulled trigger to a terrifying history

that fratricide was calling at bay

although, we think holding flag is honour

but, Lekki massacre dishonoured it,

yet, we hope it is treason,

still, the military men said: ‘’ felony

is nowhere to be found ‘’

while the governor said,

military didn’t shoot:

was it the footage that lied

or the malady flickered itself

to us with angst.

II

The day was still infertile

to us than previous calamities

that had put the nation

to her injustice

but the protesters’ cenotaphs

was lost at the camera before

the Minister took himself to

a clarion duty to metamorphosis

lost camera- shame!

while Lekki Concession Compay

was absent at the scene —

III

this day was big enough to

mourn itself after independence

and the president made a quirk speech

to the youths

as Police brutality made the

memory to become valid

than a Pandora’s box

at her 60

still, this event is pulse

bullet was silence

while the silencer

made the attorney to say

hoodlums were in uniform

Sigh! was this the beginning of

a new Nigeria or the one

that was left with wound during

Biafra?

IV

death of her citizen

should not be her strength —

because Lekki has now become our

Tiananmen square that massacred

Our voices. Grief! Genocide! Tragedy!