Hard Time In Ibadan City Poem by Haruna Garba

Most bitter thing but relocation is
Its taste not all pleasant so to say
So here we do narrate it as tasted

Hasty nightmares transpired to me
Oddest of places my sleeping holes
Parks and marketplaces my home
I had slept on dry sands of a bridge
Yet not a single job presented itself

Here was thunderstorm raging forth
Here was the sky's face turned evil
Here were front doors all locked up
Stranger at absolute unfamiliar zone
Certainly is the most piteous sight


Take me back home oh gracious God
Home where I've capability to show
Former brags had utterly been called:
That I was Mr see me, see trouble
That i was like the summit of Everest
And that I was the stinging black ant
That crocodile infested lake was me
So dare not stop any blundering fool,
Couldn't be on my invitation, he did

There was i in Ibadan city-heart
Not a patch of land for me to till
Not a single dime to calk my own
Not any such a man exuding power
Not a physique to pride on strength
About hunger I made this discovery
That it never stops attacking the gut
And Sokoto singer had this to say:
Where parental presence is absent
And brotherly support is all missed,
Plight of the stranger harbors itself
It is apparently no tower's business

Here is year-end resolution O Ibadan
Now between you and poor me
It is a tentative goodbye
Enough is enough
Tomorrow I'llbe sauntering homeward