Paradox of Plenty by Godswill Odeku

The want of plenty,
The lack of abundance,
The hunger of the food basket,
This paradox of reality;
5 Of my land, of my home, of my nativity
is true!

Strength fawning servitude
is denied.
Agitation craving justice
christened criminality.
Desire, denied, adorns quietude;
acquiescence, concurrence, weakness
No doubt, must be.
10 This paradox lives on…

The farmland of plenty.
The food basket,
resource reservoir, economic jackpot,
The cruelly denied, besmirched,
downtrodden, and damned.
The fool feeding fat
an untiring buffoon
15 With the bleeding breast milk
of her straining bosom.

At thy expense, oh, Delta!
Is sustained the crème, colour, carriage
of the Rock at Aso.
Bloatings of pride, policy, penurious
pilfering.
Satiating of the Clubs at Paris,
London, New York,
20 I repeat, is at your expense
Oh, Delta! Niger’s Delta!

The rich farmer’s children famish!
The clothmaker’s children naked!
The fuelmaker’s engine with no lifeline!
In the midst of milk and honey,
Kwashiorkor, malnutrition, abject lack.
What a baffling paradox?
28 Poverty, plenty, paradox:
Soulmates unjustly harmonized,
Leaving for posterity
This paradox of plenty.

Shall these cease?
Whither shall this river expire?
At the doorstep of Justice,
at the farmland of truth,
at the discretion of Mercy
35 Or maybe, maybe,
at the cataclysmic inferno
of frozen discontent, of caged anger!
Whither? Whither?
A paradox of plenty!
A perplexing paradox indeed!