OZEGE IS DEAD

OZEGE IS DEAD

Things are bad at home

Our mother

Nwa-Ozege Okoro died

Raphael Okpe please

Try your best to return.

Our mother

Nwa-Ozege Okoro is dead.

I am thinking of my life

To eat is hard for me

Matthias Okpe refused me food

Francis Okpe moved to the farm

Ifeoma, she helped sometime

To eat is hard for me.

Our mother

Nwa-Ozege Okoro is dead

I am crying day and night

Since our mother

Nwa-Ozege Okoro died

Let her rest in peace

While I labor in grief

Ralph, as she fondly called you

You must return at the end

Four moons will complete

Eight seasons from the time

You were carried away

Our mother

Nwa-Ozege Okoro is dead.

Tell your friend soldiers

That your mother

 Nwa-Ozege Okoro died

Leaving me to fend

Without any hope to eat

Tell them to give you a chance

To come and to return

To the distressed house of Okpe

My condition is bad at home

Our mother

Nwa-Ozege Okoro is dead.

It is difficult to tell

Don’t ask what I’m missing

Our mother

Nwa-Ozege Okoro is dead

Tell the man who wrote

Your letters of bride price

And introduce your wife

The one you sent from the mountains

In far away land of Lagos

That you must return

Nwa-Ozege Okoro is dead.

Raphael, do not fail

Tell your main man, the soldier

To help you return home

Our mother

Who assured me of food

Nwa-Ozege Okoro is dead

Everyone knows

Nwa-Ozege Okoro in this world

I am left confused since

Our mother

Nwa-Ozege Okoro died

Has the woman from Enugu Ezike

Ever told you about your mother 

The one who brought you

Into this world, as a baby

And watched you grow?

Did she refuse to tell you

About the state of things at home

I have heard nothing from you

Things are left undone

As Nwa-Ozege Okoro died.

I, Onuku Fabian

Told the woman from Enugu Ezike

To tell you about our home

Our mother

Nwa-Ozege Okoro is dead.

She must tell you about our home

Once she is back in Sierra Leone.

Our mother

Nwa-Ozege Okoro is dead.

But you are out there fighting a rebel war for the region.

Fighting evil, injustice and sin committed by others.

Things are very bad at home

Ask the woman from Enugu Ezike

Ask her to tell you

There is Death again in the house

Our mother

Nwa-Ozege Okoro died

Just like I told you

The death of Okpe himself

Your father laboured in his death.

Emma told other soldiers

Coming from Sierra Leone

Fighting along with you

That our mother

Nwa-Ozege Okoro died

Did they refuse to tell you

Thinking that you might waver

While fighting on dangerous terrain?

My thoughts wandered

To what my ears are forbidden to hear

Are you dead also?

You, Ralph Okpe

The one I have my hopes on?

May it not be true

That the son

Of Nwa-Ozege Okoro

Who died, is dead.

Can you fight madness?

Your father fought death.

You are Okpe the warrior of the dying.

You fight their war, Junta war

And rebel war

What about your own war?

Why can’t you come home

To mourn the dead

On our estranged land

And of our mother

Nwa-Ozege Okoro who died

You must come home

To fight our battles

Fight hunger and starvation

You must fight for food

To re-waken

The great House of Okpe

Come home, come home

Our gallant brother Raphael

Come home

Our mother

Nwa-Ozege Okoro is dead.