Soyombo Ayomikun: An Okada man’s anger (Poetry)

by Soyombo Ayomikun

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With anger I daily commute

   Frequency of 1 passenger every 3 hrs

   Daily income of 1000 naira

   Out of which with 600 naira I fill the tank

1. The beeps of a pulse oximeter

   Deathly hisses of oxygen from intranasal tubes

   Gnawing of a suctioning machine

   My latest reality in the emergency room

2.With anger I daily commute

   Frequency of 1 passenger every 3 hrs

   Daily income of 1000 naira

   Out of which with 600 naira I fill the tank

3.One wife and three children

   My cohorts in a battle against poverty

   Daily bouts of blows from hunger & illnesses

   There’s no single morning when I just don’t mount my okada in anger

4.Why shouldn’t I skid beneath a trailer

   Why shouldn’t I speed thoughtlessly around

   Luckily speeding may get me to the next passenger faster

   One whose bones I may break around the corner…God knows

5.Then those foolish policemen

   As vultures daily lurking around

   Squeezing 50 and 100 nairas off my hand

   Perhaps I should crash into one soon crushing his tibia

6.I even heard about the government

   Screaming at me to go buy a helmet

   Cranial pots whose worth will fill my okada’s tank for a week

   Feeding my family for some days

7.Government that doesn’t even know my name

   That can’t imagine my pains

   That keep inflaming my anger with silly ‘gay laws’

   Till I crash on the highway breaking skulls & bones

8.But now my country’s insensitivity is killing me

   As I’m even reacting foolishly & blindly

   Maybe it’s high time I awoke

   To responsibilities as a man of honour

9.I will embrace patience

   I will eschew anger

   I will see my country as the weaker vessel

   If I ever wake up from this coma

10.Anger still drives several Nigerians

     Anger driving commercial drivers,motorcyclists,pilots,everyone

     Towards a government that can’t enrich our pockets

      Resulting poverty breaking our homes,health & bones following accidents

11.Let us instead feast on this anger till we conceive dreams

     May we pursue the dreams till we stumble on gold

     May we use our gold to rescue those still hurting

     Humble thoughts to Nigeria from a poor okada man

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

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