USA Africa Dialogue Series - "Prayer Before Death" Zik's Elegy to Balewa

"Before you satisfy your gory lust
Spare me one moment to beseech Allah
Who gave life that animates this dust
From time of birth, through death, to Valhalla."
 
"I pray that should you plan to snuff my life
Because you thought my leadership has failed,
Your rash decision be not clothed with strife
That leads to your own heads to be impaled."
 
"If wrong was done when power was mine to wield,
Be magnanimous, since we all must err.
If death should be my fate, then I must yield,
Since you are armed, your wrath I can't incur."
 
Forgive these youthful sons of violence,"
He prayed: 'And let them see its uselessness.
From genocide my murder can commence,
oh God, preserve this land from sore distress."
 
His brutal killers, thirsting for blood,
Were not disposed to heed his plaintive plea.
Having been slain, they dumped him with a thud
inside their jeep and drove away with glee.
 
The gruesome deed cannot inspire praise
But condemnation of the heinous type;
The world of fault-finders we must amaze
By proving that, in fact, we are not ripe.
 
This sage, who paid the price of leadership,
laid down his life as ransom for our jive;
His mantle falls on sterling statesmanship:
To moor our ark of state, its life revive.
 
-Nsukka, February 1966