What happened to the children
of the revolution? Where did we lose
them? In exile? At the airport upon
arrival back home? Where are the
children birthed by our struggle? Those
kids who spoke the language of exile, played
around the camps with wooden AK47s (the
ones carved by Cde. Solomon), sang about
homes they weren’t sure they’d ever
return to… Show me those children!
Have they too been swallowed by
solitude mislabeled as peace? Please
go and check the departure lounge of
the airport, check the records to see
if they checked out. Check the borders,
check all exit points.
Are they ashamed of what our
revolution has become, and no
longer want to be called by the
revolutionary names we gave to them.
Maybe
they have decided to fight another
revolution at home; they may be planning
to bury us alive in the open graves we’ve
dug with the platinum plated spades.
Where are our children, the fruits of
our revolution? Or were they part of
protesters that were mowed down by
our bullets? It can’t be: we had
trained the bullets so well to not
penetrate our own.
Do they now have a nom
de guerre, with REVOLUTION spelled
backwards – NOITULOVER?
Here’s our SOS: we want our
children back, back with us
inside the Revolutionary
Headquarters. Please tell them that
the HQ looks nothing like the camps in
exile. Tell them that here, there’s
so much luxury to
go around.
Babatunde Fagbayibo is a poet and law teacher. His poems have appeared in print and web based anthologies such as Poetry Potion, Aerodrome, Absolute Africa, Ake Review, Vox Poetica, African Writers, Litnet, Nigerian Litmag and Kalahari Review. He can be followed on Twitter @babsfagbayibo