FISHES OR CRABS
ẸJA M BÁKÀN?
Artist: Moyo Okediji
Title: Fishes or Crabs? (Ẹja m Bákàn?)
Date: 2018
When people stand at the crossroads, and they ask about their fate, they ask, Ẹja m bákàn? The question is based on symbols. Is Eja the fish that is good? Or is it Akan, or crab, that is bad?
When nobody supports you,
when everybody says no to you,
when people turn down your requests,
and you cannot get any grant
when they band together to oppose you,
and say your ideas are not practical
and they frown when they see you:
don’t despair;
these are signs that you are moving in the right direction;
keep placing one foot ahead of the other
continue to push ahead
Artist: Moyo Okediji
Title: Why the Tortoise and the Dog Quarrel All the Time.
Medium: Acrylic on Canvas
Date: 2018
As I continue to operate Zoom to teach,
I also begin to reorganize my desk.
This is what my Zoom class/office/desk
now looks like.
The computer energies
from the laptop combine
with the computer energies
from the Opon Ifa
If the road is bad
buy-a-Jeep-generation.
If the oil is crude
export them for refining
then import-them-for-distribution-generation
If the schools are bad
send-your-children-abroad-for-education-generation
If there is a food shortage
import-food-from-abroad-generation.
If there is no pipe-borne water
Where is your book?
In a lock-down world
in which information production
and dissemination has changed.
I use the books to build a wall
to distance me socially because
The library as we knew it
has become a museum.
With Jelili Atiku’s sculpture of Mandela and wearing Luis Emilio Marin’s Esu figure in my office today, University of Texas at Austin.
My Nigerian friends are going to be so scared!!!!