ASUU would strike him till his sorrow grows a beard.
He would be a Yahoo boy or a pimp or a drug dealer or an innocent girl in the cold & dark streets of Italy tendering white men’s amorous dreams or all of the above.
He would be a potbellied politician that swallowed (y)our children’s future, or a snake that swallows dollars or a rat that chases the big man out of his office.
They would have slaughtered him, like Ramadan rams, in Benue or bandaged him with bombs in Borno.
His children’s life expectancy in the Niger Delta would be around 9 or 10 (that’s a conservative statistic) —all they would ever have are: a bowl of oil spills for breakfast, a plate of greenhouse emissions for dinner & grief sandwiched between.
He would drown crossing the Mediterranean or sold for peanuts in Libya.
He would yelp & complain on the mad streets of twitter but will never come out to vote out oppression.
The sun would die in his mouth in Kirikiri or other eyeless places where those who try to sing new songs are stripped, chained & tortured.
He would not be in school but on the sidewalk, holding a blue plastic bowl for your damn pity or under the leprous stare of the sun cleaning your windshield at a red light.
SARS would shoot him & the government hospital they will rush him to will not have electricity.
He would be a broke ass poet like me.
IF GOD WAS A NIGERIAN
by Othuke Umukoro | POEMS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Othuke Umukoro is a poet & playwright. His demons have appeared, or are forthcoming in The Sunlight Press, Brittle Paper, AfricanWriter, Eunoia Review & elsewhere. His debut play Mortuary Encounters (Swift publishers, 2019) is available here.
When bored, he watches Everybody Hates Chris. He is on Twitter: @othukeumukoro19
is a microphone that gives a clear voice to the dumb
is an echo that penetrates the walls in the deaf’s ears
is a wheel, standby for all that can, that cannot drive
is a road that shifts size, shape, surface, stretch
is a game: rules definitively undefined players uncensored, unlimited
is a perigee, an apogee to good, bad governance
is dirty, clean because it is you and I.
POLITICS
by Taofeek Ogunperi | POEMS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Author of a book of poems, Twisted Tongues, Taofeek Olalekan Ogunperi was born and brought up in Ikirun, Osun State, Nigeria. His poems have appeared in print and online media such as Muse for World Peace, Armistice, WriCon Quarterly Journal, Atelewo Pelebe, I am Not a Silent Poet, The Talented and elsewhere. He is a member of the Ultimate Club of Ikirun – an assemblage of youths promoting education in Ikirun and its environment; a member of Muse for Peace Foundation – a group of youths committed to community development and propagating peace. He blogs at namelessexpress.wordpress.com.
Agbaakin Oluwatoyosi Jeremiah is a law undergraduate of the Premier University, University of Ibadan. Born on the 9th of April, 1994 in Ikire, Osun state, he is an active pressman in the university community where he heads the news unit in his hall press organization. During his secondary days, he won many essay competitions, performed poetry for state programs and participated in many literary activities.
He is not relenting as he keeps writing especially on his blog: muselord.wordpress.com. Apart from his keen love for legal studies, he has burning passion for writing fantasy novels, poems,and on philosophy. Battle Scar, a novel about the Biafran war was published to his credit on the top online forum in Nigeria, Nairaland in 2013 and it received a wide read.
I believe in fighting for integrity and justice at all cost as the noble laureate, Wole Soyinka rightly said “The man dies in all who keep silent in the face of
tyranny” and a legendary Judge once established that justice must not only be done but be manifestly and undoubtedly seen to be done.
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