I AM NOT A NIGERIAN, A POEM WRITTEN AND PERFORMED BY KEMI BONUOLA AT LOUDTHOTZ POETRY OPEN READING SEASON 3 EPISODE 10

I am not Nigerian (BEST POEM OCTOBER, 2012)

Doh Re Mi

Mi Re Doh

Re Mi Re Mi

Across the shores of a

Land long developed I

Trod yet I never forgot

The musical notes

Of my mother tongue

Olúwakémi -re mi re mi re                                                  

When they asked what name I bore

I proudly sang out my identity

You also can make music out

Of your name I urged the colored

I say colored because they say

“I am white”

Is not white a color?

They call me black and

I shake my head in rejection

I am not black

Black and white does not exist in

Heaven from whence I come

Only male and female

I am female

They say I act like

The rest of them

Nigerians who cheat and lie and corrode

I spit out with fervor

I am not Nigeria-n

They named the Giant of Africa so

I am not Nigerian

 I am Àkànké (Doh Doh Mi)

I am a beautiful dark complexioned female of

Yoruba descent, Arewà adumaradan

I was Yoruba before the colored man

Made me Nigerian

I am

I am Yoruba - Doh Doh Mi

As I returned to the land of my birth

My heart beat faster

Àjò o da bi ile

Though I envy the sanity

Of the foreign land

I only felt free

When my feet touched

Native soil.

Kemi bon