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, his wife 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
She fondly called you Ralph
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
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 belligerent rebel war
For the region and for them
Fighting evil and injustice
Of 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.