Giloba village

Good evening fellow sufferers

Or bad, should I say?

I see it all

Rumpled undies

Wet armpits

Forced to tears

By heat, exhaustion

And frustration

Auntie’s stretch-marks are stretched to a gory length

Giving out a scare-crow smile

Amused, no doubt they are

Why should one get a TV?

When Lagos streets are full of so much action?

I greet you too

My brothers and sisters

Towering above us in the BRTs

Looking down on the rest of us in all your ‘upright standing’

Thank you

For keeping Great Fela, prophetic since 1970

Su kere, fa kere, this is the song traffic sings

Yoruba seems to be the lingua

Everyone in this village speaks it

And then you hear ‘ko ni ye e!’

As a bumper kisses another

There’s too much to watch

One can hardly focus

Gala hawkers are making hay

Or to be more succinct, making money

There’s no place for hay in this village

A conductor’s still-born sputum finds home near a beggar’s niche

Hurriedly dying a slow death seconds into existence

Which should one pity?

The armless, harmless beggar

Or the sputum freed into death?

Cries of ‘wo le wa, wo le wa’ swims into my reverie

And several drivers re-enact ‘fast and furious’ in beautiful confusion

Alomo is somewhere in the system

And I suspect, doing most of the driving

None amongst us can complain of being hungry

Not with the heavy serving of stench and exhaust smoke

I see it in all eyes

We’re being fed

Till we’re fed up

All these stories I tell with my eyes to my fellow sufferers

But none seem to take hint

I do not blame any

Their eyes spin yarns of the same story

In this village, we all are beggars

Some are the “Jagaban’s” children

With blood-red eyes and a raggedy voice

Croaking “oun da?” at every stop

Other kinds will show you Heaven’s doors

If you’re kind enough to leave offering

You will meet also,

Those whose pills cure all ills

If you would but help yourself.

 

Appendix

BRTs are big commercial buses  which provide cheap transportation

Su kere, fa kere is the Yoruba way of describing heavy traffic.

ko ni ye e translates to “It won’t be well with you”

wo le wa, wo le wa means “enter here, enter here”

Alomo is a strong rum/gin like alcohol drink

A Jagaban is a very influential politician (LOL)

oun da is the “where is it?” touts ask when they request their daily devotion from commuters