On December 8, 2001, Festus Madukaife of Awka North Local Government Area in Anambra State was reportedly murdered inside his Lagos apartment. The reports had it that his assailant, who resided in the same residential complex, went to Madukaife’s place, and without any justification, doused him with pure acid, disabling him. His assailant then butchered him with a machete. The supposed offence for the fatal attack was the reported rejection of the assailant’s demand that Madukaife vacate the latter’s apartment even before his paid rental had lapsed.
This gruesome, senseless killing symbolizes the kind of violent bitterness, which now grip and choke our country. It is a bitterness, which precludes all resort to dialogue as a good means of settling disputes. It is madness!
HEAL NIGERIA, OH GOD!, a prayer-poem, is in memory of Festus, a man I will never know. This poem too represents my larger, earnest supplication that God free Nigeria from this crippling bitterness, which retards our progress.
To Festus and for our country, my prayer:
Heal Nigeria, Oh God! Bitterness, murderous bitterness
'land endowed in goodness choking
Felling dialogue with rancour
Smothering love with hate
Drowning life in death
Heal Nigeria, Oh God!
Faced off four corners sealed
Child against parent, brood against brood
One line unbroken all from ascend
Now riven, torn and chained by
Bitterness, murderous bitterness
Heal Nigeria, Oh God!
Justice, fairness, equality
Equity, participation, opportunity
Visions a visionless butcher sunk
Dreams the freedom march ennobled
Overtaken soon by greed born in
Bitterness, murderous bitterness
Heal Nigeria, Oh God!
Amputate by Sharia a pauper’s limbs
Slap sack a Minister the larcener worse
Shaming both the boast and the system
Terrorizing a population deprived
With bitterness, murderous bitterness
Heal Nigeria, Oh God!
God and the religions in boisterous ascent
Christianity, Islam, and sundry middle others
Fundamentalist revivalism awash in promise
Sweeping North to South, East to West
Yet morality bowed and stooped in
Rent churches, mosques and temples
Steep in bitterness, murderous bitterness
Heal Nigeria, Oh God!
Dark the future our children’s seem
Robbed a hope the Giant once held
With giant dishonesty aforethought
In bitterness, murderous bitterness
Heal Nigeria, Oh God!
Bleak is bright; dark, light; far, near
Prayer, faith, hope, in God combine
Seed, raise, nurture, foster, expand
Justice, Fairness, Equality, Opportunity
Tolerance, Dialogue, Peace, Unity,
A Pride to Blackness raise, our Oasis of Love
Shorn of bitterness, murderous bitterness
Heal Nigeria, Oh God!
Guides
Heal Nigeria, Oh God!