The Black Tuesday: Nigerian EndSARS Poem
A Tribute to the Victims of the Nigerian EndSARS protesters killed at Lekki Tollgate on Tuesday October 20, 2020
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| Photo Credit: Team EndSARS |
Dark is the night,
Darker the soul,
Fathomless depths,
Stories to be told;
We were not armed,
but killed at the war front,
We meant no harm,
Yet our lives are gone;
We've been cut off,
In the middle of our days,
Our lives had been cut short,
Without a delay;
Our stars are darkened,
And fallen from the sky,
All our dreams had been stolen,
By this awful strife;
We thought we would fly,
Someday to lift our nation high,
Now our journey has ended,
But the struggles had just begun;
All we needed was a better nation,
A country that is worth a home,
But what we received was destruction,
A pain that took us to eternal home;
There was an anthem in our mouths,
And Flags in our hands,
We sat on the ground,
Begging for a chance.
The hard souls had no mercy,
They listened not to our cries,
They removed every CCTV,
And turned off our lights;
Tonight, our blood weeps,
The stain on the flag is the witness,
That once in history,
A nation wasted its innocent citizens;
If being a Nigerian was a crime,
You should have told us on time,
Maybe we would have found a better place,
Then get slaughtered this way.
Yes! Bullets have pierced our brains,
And slit our throats,
Our bodies have felt the pains,
But safer is our souls;
We died as heroes of our time,
A generation of change,
Youths who fought for their rights,
Youths who shall never relent;
Ours has ended,
But the struggle continues,
Someday in history,
Someone will surely remember,
"The Black Tuesday", the day we were slain!
The Black Tuesday: Nigerian EndSARS Poem by Abasiama Akpan (Abas Obot) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://www.inspiredscoop.com/2022/03/the-black-tuesday.html.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at abasdgreat.blogspot.com.
About The Black Tuesday
Nigeria is the most populous black nation on earth with a population of over 200 million people. The country is blessed with a lot of natural resources and man power making it to be referred to as the Giant of Africa by many. Despite the immense wealth, Nigeria as a country, after its civil war, had faced several challenges that hinder her growth as a giant it should be. Examples of such challenges include poverty, corruption, insecurity and inequality, among others.
The subject of insecurity raised a major concern especially in the North where different groups of terror organizations have claimed some territories to create Islamic caliphates. The Nigerian government in response to these security challenges set up different security arms to combat crimes in the country, among which was an arm of the Nigerian police force known as Special Anti-robbery Squad (SARS).
The role of the SARS was to combat highway robbery and related offences. Unfortunately, SARS became a menace and a highway horror to the ordinary Nigerian youths. The SARS officers became worse than the arm robbers they were formed to combat. They engaged in robbery, stealing, unlawful killings of Nigerian youths, harassment and extortion. It became a crime in the eyes of the SARS officers for an average Nigerian youth to own a laptop, good phone, clothing or drive good cars.
On October 8, 2020; a major protests broke out in Nigeria following a trended video of a SARS officer shooting a young man to death in his car during extortion. The EndSARS protest which would become the biggest youth protest ever in Nigerian history attracted worldwide attention. #EndSARs became the most popular hashtag on every social media platform around the world as at the time. The Nigerian youths worldwide protested against SARS, seeking for its disbandment as well as police reform in the country.
On October 20, 2020, while the protest was going on with millions of Nigerian youths protesting peacefully in different parts of the country, the peaceful protest became a tragedy that almost set the nation ablaze. The Nigerian security forces opened fire into the crowd of the peaceful protesters who were at Lekki Tollgate in Lagos Nigeria.
The deliberate shooting killed scores of the peaceful protesters and wounded unknown numbers of people. It became one of the saddest day in the history of Nigeria after the Nigerian civil war and prompted reaction from world leaders from US, UK, and world's celebrities.
After panel of enquiries was set by the Lagos high court, the Nigerian army and police were said to have been involved in the 'Lekki Tollgate Massacre'. Unfortunately, the Nigerian government denies that anyone was killed during the shooting, and until now, no one has been prosecuted over the killing of the innocent souls.
The Black Tuesday Poem gives details of the event that took place that night at the Lekki Tollgate in tribute to the victims of that tragic event.
The Black Tuesday was written on that dark night of horror with the blurry light of the awful scenes streaming on television screens, while shouts of grief and sorrow echoed across the country, and cold of fear caused everyone to shiver in pain.
Abas Obot
Abasiama Akpan (pen name: Abas Obot) is a creative writer who aims to inspire, inform and educate his audience. His major focus is on human capital development, forged by his educational background, passion, experience, and personal objectives. Interested in writing, coding and biotechnology. Co-founder: Inspired Scoop. Social handles @Abasdgreat , facebook twitter instagram linkedin email
