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IZOBO
Money called transport fare,
Naked women dancing at market square,
A chief stealing out from the bedroom
Of a humble farmer,
But used for bribery
Is Izobo.
Boiled plantain in a clay pot,
Plantain with droplets of palm oil,
Arranged beside decaying bones
Of bush rats,
And native-chalk-laden cowries
Is not Izobo.
This is Izobo;
When a full-grown man has dreams
On his feet, without sleeping.
Dreams of being a toddler,
Weak and dizzy with stupidity
Then his dream rides his senses
Into a crash,
After seeing the toddler of himself
Crawling helplessly under a Nigerian July rain
And a masquerade covering him
with an umbrella.
He wakes up
Then an Izobo
Puts to birth
A brand-new helplessness
Of appeasing the masquerade
Which exist in the obscurity
Of a wonderful life
In a wallpaper
Where plantain cannot be eaten
Nor native chalk
Rubbed on the face
Nor rotten bones enlivened
Nor cowries spent.
• ‘IZOBO’
An Esan (a Nigerian language) word for ritualistic sacrifices associated with traditional African idol worship, sacrificial offerings that litter roadsides and bush paths, and pollute the environment; the public eyesore of traditional African religion (associated with the use of foods, native chalk powder, cowries, money and animal parts or whole animals left to decay in the streets). This poem draws a relationship between Izobo, corruption, abuse of power and racial phobia. That they are all equally public eyesores, none is better than the other.
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