A fellow citizen who became a poet

Nigeria is one of those countries where everything is taken for granted. Nothing matters especially when it concerns the masses. So when the President, Umaru Yaradua, fell ill, for over three months, a country of over 100 million people was left in a quandary – to debate if indeed their president was alive in a Saudi Arabian hospital, as claimed by the ‘puppet’ officials in government. After much heated debate and some suggested – impeachment? He returned to Nigeria (according to state officials), in the middle of the night, in an ambulance, and with all lights switched off at the international airport.

The president of Nigeria returned, but since his return, no one except the ‘chosen’ and handpicked clerics have seen him. Obviously, his people believe it is not the problem of the masses, who voted him to power to know his present condition. This poem was inspired by my brother, who wouldn’t write a poem if his life depended on it, who at the height of the controversy, started out writing one – he never finished though.

The citizen:

Every day, He
Buys newspaper

Reads the news
News is the same

This day, He
Buys newspaper

News is a remain
Of change

News in brief:

President sick
Then missing
And Found—
Dead?
President returns—
Alive?
In an ambulance

The citizen:

He gapes
Develops headache
Something is wrong

He goes to bed
Too early

At Dusk

He sits up
On the bed
Props his chin
With his hands

News in brief:

President invisible
Visible to clerics
With third eye?

He smiles
Then Laughs. He
Cries into the day

At Dawn

He picks up a pen
And a paper
He writes a poem:
President Layabout