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20.10.20
Let the house rat hear
and tell the bush rat.
Safeguard your community.
Let each community of 1000 citizens
Form a fence of 100 youths.
Take a census of 1000 names
in each community unit.
Document the name, age and occupation
of everyone within your community.
Do not rely on police protection
there is none anymore.
ENGLISHMAN IN BENIN CITY, 1981 (Part Nineteen A)
Today I got this email that took me back to 1985. Listen:
“Dear Moyo,
I am sure you may not remember me but I remember you most days. My name is Donald [deleted] and, at the beginning of 1985, when I came to University of Ife as a young recent graduate from Camberwell School of Art you realised I was well out of my depth and kindly took me into your home.
Say My Name
Say My Name
My middle name is Benjamin.
Says a lot about me, right,
since I’m not from the Middle East.
I wasn’t born Benjamin.
POLICE CHECKPOINT, BENIN CITY
It was in 1980, in Nigeria, when this police encounter occurred.
I will start by swearing
in the name of Ogun
that this event, strange
as it sounds, actually happened
in the middle of the night.
They say when you want an African to tell the truth, make the African swear to an indigenous divinity—not to the Bible or the Quran. Those two books are just books. The real book that they believe and consider real is not written. It is oral, and tied to the indigenous divinities.
ENGLISHMAN IN BENIN CITY, 1981 (Part Seven)
Rufus froze when he saw Obaseki moving towards our table. His jawline tightened. The grotesque was unmasking. I understood the meaning of that facial reaction. When a cobra flattens its head and its neck while lifting up its body off the ground to the torso level, even a baby knows what that means. We had crossed the red zone. I immediately got up and picked up the tumbler in front of him before it became a scud missile. My movement also distracted him for a moment. This was the climactic moment that had been building up for a year.