OHOTO: Wikimedia
AKURE
Akeem Lasisi
Akure lo ni koko o, Ijare lolobi
Akure lo ni koko Ijare lolobi
Mo ti ran’mo l’Akure o, ko lo ba mi ra koko wa
Mo ti ran’mo n’Ijare o, ko lo ba i r’obi…
Akure,
Before we got drowned in the oil river,
We had reaped a fortune from your generous soil.
Child of a roaring leopard,
Your past is loaded with gallant deeds.
In the days of primordial guns
You survived the wrath of the Bini
Weathered the storm from Ibadan
Your fathers had crossed a thousand rivers
To erect the pillars of your sunshine state.
Aure lo ni koko o…
Akure,
Something tells me
You must have been created on a Sunday noon.
Which imbued your world with seasons warm.
Your sun is succulent
Your rains are fresh
Your earth is pregnant with a peculiar spell
That pampers your sweat with heavy yields.
Before we got drowned in the oil river,
We had reaped a fortune from your generous soil.
As I step again onto your fertile soil, Akure
Scents of your hospitality sense swallow me,
Fill my psyche with joyous tears.
I’m haunted by the memory of a jolly year
When I nestled in your nest like a little bird
From Forestry to Oba Ile, FUTA to Ijapo
The rains stood still,
Your chocolate sun shined even on certain nights
The crown and the street indulged our gang
When we probed the city with a youthful zeal
Aure lo ni koko o…
Akure,
From the epic centre of Ua Nla
I see traces of legacies of the sensible years
In every part of the western stretch.
I do not need to climb Idanre iconic hills
To see the Cocoa House from a hundred miles
Product of a brain that never slept,
It fondles the sky with its legendary height:
Before we got drowned in the oil river,
We had reaped a fortune from your generous soil.
But when we struck the black gold
We jilted the goose of the golden egg:
Malaysia and I came here the same year
When he was leaving he took a pod
When I was leaving I guzzled your juice:
Throat-wise, vision-foolish
I am the living testimony of an unthinking race.
Before we got drowned,
Before we got stuck
Akure…
But your soil is still as rich as in days of yore
Only that your children have wandered to sterile shores.
Like the prodigal son,
We can retrace our steps to the golden years.
On our way back to Oda
Once the King jumps into a tractor
The people must follow with a sharpened zeal;
Tons of un-truncated fertilisers, baskets of cocoa beans…
If true prosperity will return to the Niger Area,
We must reconcile our way with our jilted earth.
Akure lo ni koko o, Ijare lolobi
Akure lo ni koko Ijare lolobi
Mo ti ran’mo l’Akure o, ko lo ba mi ra koko wa
Mo ti ran’mo n’Ijare o, ko lo ba i r’obi…
Akure,
