First They Came To Kill The Biroms

First they came to kill the Biroms, and I did not speak out because I was not a Birom.

Then they came to kill the Tivs and I did not speak out because I was not a Tiv.

Then they came to kill the Igalas and I did not speak out because I was not an Igala.

Then they came to kill the Katafs and I did not speak out because I was not a Kataf.

Then they came to kill the Mumuyes and I did not speak out because I was not a Mumuye.

Then they came to kill the Jukuns and I did not speak out because I was not a Jukun

Then they came to kill the Gwaris and I didn't speak out because I was not a Gwari.

Then they came to kill the Nupe and I did not speak out because I was not a Nupe

Then they came to kill the Kanuris and I did not speak out because I was not a Kanuri.

Then they came to kill the Margis and I refuse to speak out because I was not a Margi

Then they came to kill the Igbiras and I refuse to speak out because I was not an Igbira.

Then they came to kill the Igbó and I refuse to speak out because I was not an Igbo.

Then they came to kill the Ogonis and I refuse to speak out because I was not an Ogoni.

Then they came to kill the Ijaws and I refuse to speak out because I was not an Ijaw.

Then they came to kill the Edos and I refuse to speak out because I was not an Edo.

Then, when they came to kill us as Yorùbá there was no one left to speak out for us.

“In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility – I welcome it.”

- John F. Kennedy, in his Inaugural Address January 20, 1961

NOTE:
The above poem was inspired by journalist Martins Oloja of the Guardian (Nigeria) who had adapted Pastor Martin Niemoller's poem, "First They Came For The Jews," to deride and denounce the tyranny of President Mohammadu Buhari's persecution of opposition members in Nigeria.

Pastor Niemoller himself had been inspired to write his famous poem by Ernest Hemingway's 1940 book on the Spanish Civil War written to decry Fascism, while Hemingway had derived his own inspiration from the English Poet, John Donne 's "Meditations."

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