About this poem:

This poem is dedicated to my fellow Nigerians. Nigeria is the world's sixth largest producer of petroleum (oil/gasoline) yet its people are poor and hungry because of corruption of its leadership. At the same time she exports her crude abroad and imports the refined products and sells to its citizens at the same prices, sometimes higher, that non-oil producing nations, despite the fact that the nation has several capable local refineries. The painful fact about this is that despite the man-made poverty in the land, the peoople do not attack their problems in practical ways, majority of the people are hoodwinked into believing that the devil or some witchcraft, by their neigbour, is the souce of their mishap - so they easily throng to religion hoping to find the opium for their 'troubled' souls. I dedicate this poem to inform my fellow Nigerians at home and in the Diaspora that solution to a man's problem does not come from abroad or above, it comes from within - a will to see a change. The national anthem of Nigeria starts with the words 'Arise O Compatriots'.