NNAMDI KANU: BULLETS WALK FREE, WORDS WEAR CHAINS:- Forgiveness for Fire, Punishment for Voice

Justice is meant to be blind,  

her eyes hidden beneath the cloth,  

yet in our land she peeks,  

choosing who to punish  

and who to let walk away free.  

Her scales do not rest in balance,  

they bend under the weight of power,  

tilting toward those she favours.  

Mazi Nnamdi Kanu stands in the shadow of judgement,  

a man whose hands have never held a gun,  

whose fingers are clean of deaths,  

whose weapon is only a microphone  

and the courage to speak  

of freedom and of truth.  

Yet the gates of prison have closed behind him,  

and his voice now fights against walls and chains.  

Across town, the streets open wide  

for men who have carried real guns,  

guns that spit fire and death into schools, markets and homes.  

Men whose boots have crushed villages,  

whose shadows fall over graves still fresh.  

Some shake hands with leaders,  

some take photographs with smiling officials,  

and their crimes dissolve into the air like smoke.  

The government calls it mercy,  

but it is a mercy given to wolves.  

They name it amnesty,  

they dress killers in new uniforms,  

giving them a seat inside the army  

as if the blood they spilled  

can be washed away in clear water.  

And the people watch in disbelief,  

like a scene from a Nollywood film,  

so strange it almost feels unreal.  

Here we see two roads:  

one paved with forgiveness for the violent,  

and another lined with punishment for the peaceful.  

One man speaks and is chained forever,  

another man shoots and is given a bed in the city.  

If the Igbo were the bandits,  

would mercy fly toward them too?  

Or would the hand of power  

strike them without pause?  

The east begins to whisper of another path,  

a path leading to a different dawn,  

where justice sits with both eyes open  

and weighs every life the same.  

For when a nation bends too far,  

its people begin to dream  

of a land that will not break them again.  

And so the truth stands bare:  

in Nigeria, justice chooses her friends.  

Bullets invite pardon,  

words invite prison.  

This is not the blindfolded goddess we were told about,

this is a game of tilted scales,  

played in the open,  

while the people watch  

and hope for the day  

when fairness remembers her true face

EBIKABOWEI KEDIKUMO - writes from Ayakoromo Town Delta State