Rings of onions
Tangled in ribbs of mountain goat and Flaming cubes of Arewa carrots.
Red hot stew
Whiff of fresh rain waters
Lingerie of Kebbi rice
Tap dancing in the air
Set to the running strings
Of Dan Maraya Jos’ kontigi.
The past runs by like a streaming cloud
Friends lost in reverie under a baby moon
Raise verres of iced zobo.
A loud toast
No drunken bouts
No sorrow stories
Only the sweet taste of Kebbi rice
And the adventure of busy hands.
That’s what life used to be
Until foreign rice came to town
Polished but tasteless
So we ask for many cubes of ajinomoto
And colorants.
Sounds of cutleries
Shoveling into mouths
In a hurry
Devoid of Pavlov’ drools.
Let’s just eat and fill our hungry stomachs
And go home to sleep away the terror
Of kidnappers
Of herdsmen
Of insurgents
Of robbers
Of rapists
Of looters
And demonic okada riders sowing
New fields of Akeldama.
So, this what our lives have come to
Who will bring back the shrieks of women
Soaked in the sweats of sosorobia
And kayan mata
Flashing tambourines over their heads
Around party bowls of Kebbi rice.
Who will bring back
Children skating on their innocence?
Who will bring back the aged napping on easy chairs, dreaming of Kebbi rice and roasted ram?
May be not now.
May be when we get to Gwagwaland
At the other side of the hills
Where we shall slurp on lollipops of freedom, forever.
