The Conference Will Not Be Televised 

Conference of confusion, destiny of a people destroyed

Thrust in a harsh world where heaven is a distant dream

Budding ambitions cut off, scions roaming the streets in angst

Delegates with leprous fingers, fail to douse the fire

Who dares cast the mountain in the sea as men toil on its slippery slopes?

The conference will not be televised!

Founding fathers dreamt of utopia

The children, from a nightmare arose confused

Islam from the north, Christianity from the south

Foreign totems, without roots, became seeds of corruption

A young nation, thrown into the lion's den

Without angels to lock the lion's jaws

The nation of our imagination never birthed

Looking up to heaven unstable on our feet of clay

Men suffer in silence, without a caring God

The conference will not be televised

The hope of nationhood, subsumed in parochialism

Without roots the tree withers, without hope a man falters

Grasping at snapping straws, we descend into the abyss

Our generation who can save?  Our house on fire.

The conference will not be televised!

Not at the banquet table, for we eat our cake in a cage

Not in soiled halls of state, where hate is our fate

Not in ivory towers, for demons of miseducation hover

Not in orgies of worship, for we gather in a sinking ship 

But in the streets, alley ways, plains, hills and valleys

Where men shall prove their mettle

With freedom and justice as guiding lights

And not rest until the best is wrested

The conference will not be televised!

From the north, the caliphate thunders in arrogance

Lacking coherence, the south cowers, content with slavery

Bereft of strategy, filled with fear, they fall on their sword

For morsels from the master's table their birthright forsaken

The conference will not be televised!

First shall be last and last shall be first, the snake biting its tail

Patriots must defend the nation, against government power

To create justice at all cost, the way of the just

Where are the patriots and who are the just?

As panels of justice, create pains of injustice

Who dares go before us, to cross the red sea?

The conference will not be televised!

Our leechy army is asleep, terror unleashed

For three dead youths a true nation goes to war

Thousands killed and our army sleeps

From their sheltered lives, leaders refuse to see

They refuse to feel our pain but are frightened by our rage

The conference will not be televised

Prepare for the inevitable, the house is on fire

Stars are dimming and the moon is bloody

Boko haram is the symptom of a deep malady

Our deep contradictions throw up horrendous diction

Do or die - no middle ground - a dose of their medicine

Take up positions to defend what is left

Only the patriot and the just shall stand the test

Not only for this unfortunate nation but for Africa

The conference will not be televised

No NTA, Cable TV or worldwide web to dim our vision

To restrain our hands or confuse our resolve

The conference will not be subject to manipulation

No flags raised, none lowered, no tedious singing and signing

No white knights from her majesty, no gloved hands

No plastic smiles and plated epaulettes saluting at the dais

For blood shall run to wash away our doom because

The conference will be live!

Inspired by Gil Scott Heron