AS anti-immigrant violence flares up in South Africa, we are reposting this poem of Odimegwu Onwumere, a poet who is a member of Poets for Human Rights and a Resident Poet for Champions For Nigeria, United Kingdom. Odimegwu is a voracious reader, professional and prolific writer, researcher, journalist, poet, thinker, social critic, political analyst, and activist. He has published two books: Piquant: Love Poems To Prince Tonye Princewill (2008) and The Many Wrong Doings of Madam Do-Good (2009), and has many unpublished manuscripts looking for a publisher.
South Africa
By Odimegwu Onwumere
These killings, bestialities, animosities
You show to your visitors
Are for ignorance.
Oh! South Africa,
A land stained with innocent bloods
Generations with all the soaps can’t clean.
You have created ills
With these odious killing competition.
You neglected to learn,
Failed to compete with your visitors,
Failed to acquire knowledge,
Failed to be hospitable.
Why?
Killing your visitors
Can never be a sacrifice
To redeem your ignorance.
Killing your visitors
Can never open paths
Of prosperity for you.
Killing your visitors
Can never generate ideas
For you.
You have caused your bad luck
With these innocent bloods
That would continue
To cry from your soil
Till the end of time.
Oh! South Africa,
Sunshine and moon
Shall henceforth be your enemies
As you enviously take to killing
Your visitors as your foes
Inlure of taking them as your friends.
- Odimegwu Onwumere, Poet/Writer, Rivers State.