Whatever is happening in this country,
I do not know and I will not try to know
Or even disturb myself about it,
All has always led to dead end.
One of the funny things that govern us
An aimless country such as ours
Is the flow and circulation of rumours,
Mostly from ‘street’ journalists
Or from the mammoth unemployed people
Who spin their mouths to burn away their unproductive lives.
Whatever is responsible for this fuel scarcity
It will remain the least of my worries
Because it has pointed his ugly fingers at another,
More pathetic situation
Until now may not have gotten down
Down into the core fibres of our minds.
If the reason is that fuel, or crude oil,
Or whatever, has finished in the country,
Or there is no money to import more fuel
Or a group of people quarrelled to prove
To prove to Nigerians that they have the influence
To hold Nigeria to ransom
None of it is relevant now.
What this drama has proven to us is that
‘The life of this country
A compound of One Hundred and Sixty Million People
Solely rest of a liquid called ‘fuel’.
It is a fool’s paradise.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem