Science is dead in Nigeria

Your mouthwatering tales
Sounds to me like dry
Pins dancing around a hot pan on fire.
You talk of amoeba, Nitrogen
and mitochondria
which like the evening insects
that wrap themselves around
my black legs, i haven't seen
nor greeted with my eyes.

Dry tables and dust
line the space where bubbling
beakers and steaming pipettes
should have been.
Hollow emptiness reign in
our laboratories pushing
experiments into
mere theories on pqper.
The teacher draws of
cells, chromosomes, hydrocarbons
Which he himself hadn't seen in his life.
and the poor listeners hang on
experimenting rather with pens and papers
where microscopes and chemical elements
Should have tested the
Deft moves of their gloved hands.

Science is dead in Nigeria,
What is learnt in Nigeria is
its decayed ghost haunting students
around with boring drawings,
theories and details so complex
enough to drive red madness
into the very fabric lining your soul.

Science is science, they say
But science in the west
brims with breath-taking discoveries
Fascinating tests and experiments
that pops one's eyes out and
stretches the very bloodnof the viewer.
Producing its multifold evidence
in techniques and inventions
that draws them to the peak
Of the mountains of mankind.

Science and scientist in Nigeria,
Hear this not with the brazen anger that
it drives into your black veins
reeking of sheer laziness to act.
Though some hands amongst you
had borne green fruits that dazzles.
You must rise to act,
plunging the ashen ghosts of science
that roams around Nigeria
into its glistening body lying
just below your fingertips

- OGBU VINCENT CHIEDOZIE

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