The Woman called Nigeria

by Hannah Kumadi Wakawa

Have you met the woman called NIGERIA?  She lives west of the coast of Africa. How beautiful she is that tongues talked about her far and near, some say she’s one of God’s favorites like David, but this time she’s the “woman after God’s  own heart,” and that is why he has made her so beautiful, so rich. Others simply described her as, “milk and honey”.

Her neighbors will look at her in so much admiration. God had in fact taken his time to create this and endowing her where ever necessary. From the flat greens of her plateaus in the mambila,  the feet sinking desert sands of Tulo-tulo, the beautiful  sounds of the birds singing at the Ogbudu, the oils of the Niger-Delta, the groundnut pyramid in accent Kano, the Yankari park, the rivers that flow through Niger and Benue, name it. She has been endowed in minerals, she was never to go hungry, but to flourish, to blossom to glow like a lily.  

Her beauty had called on men far and wide, everyone desired to experience  her, to see this woman whose name has remained glued on the lips of many,  but little did she know that her beauty was a blessing and a curse.

She prayed like Hannah, speaking life into her womb that she will one day bear children; children who’ll  be known across the world. The heavens heard her plea, sent her abundance,  she bore them many, held them in her hands with so much love, gave them the best of food from the pounded yam and gbegiri, the oha, the taushe  and kuka, she gave them her kernel, made oil from it too. They were happy, laughing, ignorant of what was to come…

Then came the man, the man who spoke his superiority over her in a thick bassline voice. She knew nothing,  just a mother who knew how to feed her children, to keep them safe, a lesson she was desperately trying to learn. Her children were stolen away from her, she never forgets them when she looks at that one thin route in Badagry, her kernel and oil  taken forcefully. Her prayers never stopped, her children were strengthened,  fear taken away and like lions they roared, shaking the earth,  demanding their freedom.  

Again, she prayed to the heavens, let her womb continue to bear fruits. Today she is known as the mother of many, her children known across the world, she makes the headline too, just not in the way a mother would be proud of. How has she fallen this low, countries look at her and shake their heads, mouths no longer speak of her beauty, but her wrinkles and her pain. How can a woman be betrayed by her own children, crippled and left on the floor to gasp for breath,  trampled upon by the same children she’d  feed, she’d  prayed for, she’d  given her all. Did she ever know she would bear Cains and Abels? Brothers killing their own brothers, in the sands of Sambisa, the chirping  birds have been silenced by the loud cries of her children hidden in the forests waiting for a ransome to be paid, “Mummy please  save us, help us, protect us, we’re dying.” 

Recovering from the heartache of the Chibok girls, she was broken by the Dapchi girls, she still asks about her daughter Leah and wonders if she’ll  ever again return, then again the girls in Kebbi. Thousands of her sons are slayed everyday trying to protect their home, trying to give hope of survival  to their siblings. Hiding their own fears in the groping  of their feet, their own tears in the sweat of their face, silencing the voices in the head with the sounds of the guns. “The General is Gone Mama”. How loud can a mother’s wail be? How broken can a heart be? Her hands are soiled with the blood of her own children, murdered by their own siblings. Her waters carry the body of her own children, o! She remembers  Baga, she’ll  never forget ENDSARs, not Kaduna, not even Bokkos. She’ll never forget those whose stories never made it to the headlines. 

Even the rains are deserting her, “wash away the blood of my own children from my soils”, but even the rain fears the Pharaohs and Nebuchadnezzars she bore. Dining, laughing and partying while everyday she mourns. Looting,  traveling while the other is starving to death. 

How much more pain can the woman called Nigeria bear?

When does it end? 

When does she get to stand like the woman she was without any smoke rising from within her?