The Fortunate Inheritor
By Professor Niyi Osundare
Widows wail, orphans lament
The people cry from their lowly roosts
Another emperor swaggers in appropriate power
From inside the rock, the same old rock
Beneficiary of votes cast and votes un-cast
Fortunate inheritor whose legator's name
Now burns his lips like a dreadful spell
(He said he busy tending his farm)
When they offered him gold crown;
But unlike good old Cincinnatus, what kind
Of a republic will this one bequeathe?
His own second term, too, and multiple terms
In his first coming, he wielded an open sword
This time the sword hides under a flowing robe
Talking, never listening, hectoring, never heeding
All knowing, all mighty, an oracle beyond restraint
Like the tortoise in the late, he will climb the palm tree
With the gourd of wisdom tied to his chest
Widows wail, orphans lament
The people cry from their lowly roosts
His is the era of want and worry
Of lean shadows and swindled dreams
Garri is untouchable in the market
A grain of rice costs a handsome fortune
Rent-gatherers fill the streets with homeless hordes
Hired killers hit at the ten corpses for twenty kobo
The Naira melts
Like wax in the tropical furnace
Dark days, dark nights,
Roads suffer potholes like thirsty craters
The land rots and reeks like a NEPA-less morgue
But it's all power and perfume to the imperial nose
Chronically hard of seeing
The emperor romps around in majestic indifference
His ward bursting with designer robes
His mocking foppery an a front to the people's rag
Widows wail, orphans lament
The people cry from their lowly roosts
Trounce-trance-parency Incorporated
Deadly deeds dark as night
The land drowns in dire decay
The Emperor assays a placebo of platitudes
Like the Chichidodo, our emperor hates shit and all its stench
He only feeds on maggots from that forbidden mound
Co-,co-rupture, co-rupt, CO-RRUPTION
When the emperor met that for in the battlefield
He trembled, then executed a four-star retreat
Sacred cows have grazed the land into baldness:
Can a soiled finger really clean up its sullied mate?
The caucus leader is magician by day, marauder by night
He and dirt call each other by the first name
Famous factotum, he can fix a fart!
Ashes. Ashes. Grey intimationsof foregone fires
Where are the nests bereft by their plunder?
Widows wail, orphans lament
The people cry from their lowly roosts.
Credit: The Punch.
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