When we were boys, boys living in
hostels, we woke to chimes for devotion. Nobody wanted to arouse the
sentimental anger of the seniors, so we all obeyed except for the few ones who
were down with recalcitrance. Those who were denied the boarding experience,
either by ‘condition’ or parents’ reservations also had their fair share of
boyish experiences. For instance, we all experienced the thrill of early
morning erections, just as boys still do. Boarding school boys found it more
commonplace since they had many hard-ons to see. And compare. It seemed like
heaven! When we became men, we knew it cost days and nights of good labour to
satisfy erections. A lazy man ought not to have one, and when he does, he
should spank some sense into his thing. As men, we know if you must bed, not
like a rapist, you must work. The men we are today laugh at boys who gift trivial
commodities to fellow boys, and girls, to be voted into political offices. They
look for shortcuts. All boys want is to eat, dream, and follow the nudges of
their small blokos. Men work.
When we were boys, we sang in the choir
and attended all prayer and Bible Study meetings. In fact, we prayed that God would
wipe mucus from noses; that he would make us pass, even when we had not done
our arithmetic well. We mastered scriptures and devoted little time to study.
God must have been a fool to answer such prayers. Yes, I did say that. That was
what we took God for. A fool. On becoming men, we knew we are the architects of
our destinies.
As boys, we all thought Nigeria was
wack. We knew it, we were right. We were wrong too. We felt we were all born to
be her president, each boy o. We were silly, like boys of course. Thank fate,
we grew into men and not the presidents we desired. We turned out better. We’ve
had presidents. Yes, president upon president, we’ve had, and our national shit
has clung to our bums. Un-shat, and with flies hymning around. We’ve had boy-presidents.
I know a president. He used to be a boy
like we were. But poorer. The church rat’s wealth would have dwarfed all he had
and ever thought he could. Of course, he had no shoes. No liver. No head. No mind,
prick…nothing. He lacked so many things. But he became a Dr so and so. He
became a president too, no thanks to fate and umbrellas that manipulate polls.
Now, he has tonnes of shoes. With them, he shoos us, men, and our sons, and
daughters away like houseflies. He had no fez as a boy. Now, he is a rich boy,
with hats he flaps over his ears like a hijab. He is deaf. So deaf to cries and
pleas! I don’t blame him. He’s just a boy.
They are just boys too, the Boko people.
They should be men, but they still play like boys, and with toys of mass
destruction. A pack of boys, unlike us, they would not taunt girls. They would
rather seize them, girls in their teens. Their erections are directed at these babies.
It is babies that fuck mothers in the making. Men wait to prove their
manliness, in yam tubers and wads of hard-earned dough. These boys would rather
steal into spaces where men work and worship. They would blow them up
thereafter. Once in a while, they blew one of their own alongside. What more
can one expect? They are boys, clueless and veiled by fanaticism. Clueless as
they may be, they are nothing like the boy-president. His ineptitude and his
Patience are both too nauseating. ‘Keep doing it!’ Some sycophants egg him on.
Boys teasing boys! Keep doing what? What does he do? What does he do but watch
like dodo? Keep doing it! Keep watching while people get roasted in the
millions, daily. Keep watching while boys your age abduct and exploit your own.
Keep watching while he is emasculated, he and his nation together… ‘Keep doing
it’ is what men like me should not say. When we do, like I will, we prophesy
doom, but in the language boy-presidents like him would understand.
When
we were boys, we recited Humpty Dumpty.
We never saw beyond the rhyme:
Humpty
Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty
Dumpty had a great fall;
All
the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.
Now that we are men, we see there is more to Humpty
than its rhyme. We see Humpty in our boy-president. Above all, we see an
impending fall, one beyond repair.
2 comments:
This is really deep.I love the way you connected the ideas.Well done.
Thanks for reading. Do come around some other time.
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