Nigerian subsidy and the real subsidisers

HERE, in plain, unsubsidized language
     Are the basic facts 
About the fabled Nigerian “subsidy”
     Whose endless lies have besieged our ears

We the Nigerian people subsidize
     The rampant CORRUPTION of our rulers
We the Nigerian people subsidize
     Their fatal incompetence and prodigal greed

We the Nigerian people subsidize
     Those government budgets and their recurrent plunder
Those capital expenditures which total up
     To the execution of our commonweal

We the Nigerian people subsidize
     The Honorables who pad the budget
With frightening figures for constituency projects
     Which never veer beyond their bank accounts

We the Nigerian people subsidize
     Those countless security votes
Which have only made our lives in-secure
     And the countless fortunes of Their Ex-cellencies

We the Nigerian people subsidize
     That two million-dollar bra* of our Oil Minister
That billion-naira budget for State House snacks
     The mounting misery which consumes our ranks

     *                             *                           *   
We the Nigerian people subsidize
     Our school-less children, foodless stomachs
Death-trap roads, crowded horse-spittles
     Murderous bandits and their blatant terror

We the Nigerian people subsidize
    Moribund refineries and their mortifying debts
Their viscous load no less crude than 
    The brains of those who control our fate

We the Nigerian people subsidize
     The endless tales about humongous ‘landing costs’
Sponsored raids by untouchable smugglers
     In this land where Thief is Chief and Law is lame

We the Nigerian people subsidize
     Oil-Block magnates from the  Power-Block mafia
Who tip the scales from their golden bedrooms
     And swim and splurge in unearned preferment

We the Nigerian people subsidize
     The crimes of rulers who think less
Care less, love less, sin more; from whose
     Thunderous prayers minarets tremble and spires fall

We the Nigerian people subsidize
     The rampant CORRUPTION of our rulers
We the Nigerian people subsidize
      Their fatal incompetence and prodigal greed 

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*Reference to Nigeria’s erstwhile Petroleum Minister whose bra was allegedly  priced at more than 2 million naira. And that was just one minor item among her numerous property and possessions whose value ran into billions of naira.

Niyi Osundare, one of Africa’s foremost poets and academics, is Emeritus Distinguished Professor of English, University of New Orleans.