They call it non-kinetic
a soft whisper in a burning field,
a handshake offered to hands
still wet with yesterday’s blood.
In secret rooms they bargain away our lives,
counting ransom in bundles
as if naira could purchase conscience,
as if money could bribe a monster
into becoming a man.
Each payment buys silence, yes
a brittle, borrowed peace,
the peace of a graveyard at noon
when even the wind holds its breath.
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A Pyrrhic victory wrapped in headlines,
a lullaby sung to a nation
whose children no longer sleep.
For when the bandits leave,
they leave only to return,
their pockets heavier,
their rifles newer,
their courage sharpened
by the government’s trembling hands.
The true war—the one that matters
is never fought.
Not against the men in the shadows
who write cheques for carnage,
nor against the fat sponsors
whose names everyone knows
but no one must say.
Instead, we chase ghosts,
perform ceremonies,
and call it policy.
We water a poisoned tree
and pretend to wonder
why its fruit tastes of death.
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And while millions mourn,
while villages burn like forgotten candles,
our politicians polish their laughter,
trade promises for votes,
and argue about the price of power
as if power were not built
on unburied bones.
Elections matter more than lives;
optics more than justice;
silence more than truth.
Strange country
where Oga knows the killers,
breaks bread with their sponsors,
and says nothing.
His quiet is a cathedral,
large enough to bury a nation,
deep enough to shelter cowards,
loud enough to echo
every scream we can no longer hear.
And so we live in this stillness
this rehearsed, purchased stillness
a peace carved not from safety
but from surrender.
A peace maintained by paying
tomorrow’s ransom today.
A peace of the graveyard,
where even the dead may rise
to ask why the living
have stopped fighting.
And how, we ask, can any nation endure
when the worst wounds come from the hands
entrusted to heal it?
How does a country breathe
when those meant to guard its lungs
are the ones pressing the pillow down?
Sabotage wears the uniform of leadership,
and treachery sits in council,
smiling the smile of men
who know they may never face consequence.
Even karma seems confused,
looking the other way
as if justice, too, has been kidnapped
and no one is willing to pay her ransom.
Yet the road ahead is the same for all
the paved and the dusty,
the powerful and the powerless.
Every man returns to earth,
every name becomes breathless stone.
But there is a profound distinction in the silence that descends afterward.
The innocent, once laid to rest, are cradled by a peace unbroken,
their suffering tucked away like a long-absolved supplication.
Yet the wicked; those who bartered blood for comfort
and auctioned their own people for power
shall traverse a far more unforgiving afterworld,
shadowed by the screams they dismissed,
the graves they multiplied,
the history they defiled.
For the earth may receive their bodies,
but peace will refuse their souls.
Osmund Agbo is a medical doctor and author. His works include Black Grit, White Knuckles: The Philosophy of Black Renaissance and a fiction work titled The Velvet Court: Courtesan Chronicles. His latest works, Pray, Let the Shaman Die and Ma’am, I Do Not Come to You for Love, have just been released. He can be reached through: [email protected]
