“liberalisation”, an issue which this chapter has hinted at earlier. The retention of the soul
of the nation state from the excessive drift to the West in terms of material, capital and
human resources must, therefore, begin with the cultivation of humility on the part of the
intellectual class to communicate with the rest of the nation. For this, the movement in
the right path is agonizingly recommended: “we made you/ come and talk and laugh and
cry with us/ come be here with us” (42).
Intergenerational dialogue, for that matter, becomes a vital intervention in the
reclamation of the dignity of the nation from cultural and intellectual exile. When this is
achieved there is definitely a sense in which it will rub off positively on the economy and
the revamping and protection of the national capital and other resources from flight to the
North. But where this call is not heeded the alienation that it produces can be analogous
to Akinwumi Ishola’s report on the agonizing comments of a Nigerian community elder
sometime ago: “We spend all our money sending them to school, but when they become
capable they stop talking to us. Isn’t that a big loss?” (1992:17)
In the fourth part of the poem, there is an attempt to interrogate the perception of death
with respect to the import of the finality it registers among mortals. The spatial transfers
it is believed to precipitate, whether heaven or hell, thus deserves further scrutiny. This is
perhaps because “globalization... is primarily about the transformation of space” (Gerard
Delanty 2000: 83). But this is also perhaps because there is the need to engage in a
reconfiguration and re-designation of spaces in a manner that will cohere with the
understanding of the intervention of “transnation” in a global dispensation that threatens
the place of the nation. When viewed from this angle, it then becomes clear that the re-
designation of “heaven” as a space that owes its existence to “the earth” is only geared
towards securing and enhancing the dignity of the nation. For in the end, the attempt to
stress the primacy of the earth as against heaven deconstructs the understanding of final
eternity of heaven while transferring the attribute to the earth. In this transposition of
spatial qualities, the earth assumes a greater sense of importance: