They Stole Ojukwu’s Body – By Rudolf Ogoo Okonkwo

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They stole Ojukwu’s body

I saw them make a run for it

Right from Azikiwe’s airport

Masked men who spat on luck

With blood stained flag

They swathe him up

Marching on thirsty soil

Their stomps sound flat

Like phantoms of a platoon.

Hidden in their borrowed boots

Are toes chewed up by leprosy.

Their right to pretend ends

When they chose to play Christ.

But no, they will trespass

To make it look as if it’s about them.

Stop pumping your fist in the air

For only the deceived are defeated

And we are not deceived.

They stole Ojukwu’s body

Ojukwu, our own Ojukwu.

Their sigh at yesterday’s screams

Flood their nursery of dreams.

Ojukwu is no ordinary soldier

He pulled the yellow moon

Half way through the bleeding sky,

Beyond the reach of their nets.

He floats over the Aburi grail

Joining the circle that started

When Equiano chronicled the tale.

From Savannah Creek off Georgia

Shrine of Igbo landing

Sprung an interesting narrative

Of the flying Africans.

Churchill’s friends rigged the salad

Tainting the waters of the lower Niger.

Then Ojukwu came

And restored the narrative.

They stole Ojukwu’s body

I listened in on their midnight chants

Nothing in it is inscribed

On the tablet of thorns.

Vultures’ tears evaporate

Before they touch the ground.

They stole Ojukwu’s body

But unknown to them

His sand is not their sand

His ash is not their ash.

They stole Ojukwu’s body

But unknown to them

He had left the body.

We encased his heart in our vault

So there is no stealing him,

Unless their steal us too.

We are not deceived