Reflections Without Mirror: Ibadan, the Land of the Warriors // By Niyi Aborisade
Dedicated to all the indigenes of Ibadan for the Ibadan Day.
Ibadan, the Land of the Warriors
I am running out of bullets;
A man called his friend dressed in Amulets;
Our land must be defended by all means,
Take these small beans;
Just swallow it, and you are protected from their bullets.
We are Ibadans;
The land of warriors,
To a man of peace, we shall give peace;
To a man of war, we shall give war;
We are peaceful, and we are warlike.
We only have one sickness;
Town uprising is our illness;
For cheating, we hate
To defend the weak, we accelerate.
Our foundation was built by warriors;
Prepare to defend the city, we are born a warrior,
To our forefathers, we mirror.
A land of many hills
We are the largest of them
But we are not like them
Our strength is in our tolerance;
Full of grace and abundance,
Insults we hate
Love we give, live with us and equate.
Attractive to all afar
We have made it a home of avatar;
Blessed with the warlords
To defend all our kit and kins;
We are the strengths of the Yorubas
In us are all the Yorubas.
Has the modernity eroded our strength,
Nay, increasing is our might
The first TV station in Africa,
Must you remind them of the tallest building in Nigeria;
Please mentioned not the first university in Nigeria,
Did you say University of Ibadan;
But your warriors are dead,
Can the dead be raised to lead
Yet, we are still in the lead;
The other still relies on us to take the lead.
Rejoice, o ye people of Ibadan
For out of you shall come the deliverer of your people;
There cometh light after darkness.
For our ancestors, sleep not;
Our people will stop the invasion when it is hot;
And our entire kith and kin shall be saved from the marauders,
In secret the Oracle has spoken;
But it will happen in the open.
Niyi Aborisade is a lawyer, a human rights activist, and a historian.