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Lyrics of Joy
Title: Lyrics of Joy
Medium: acrylic on canvas
Date: 2018
Where art you joy
that we all seek you
and find you not?
Joy is in eating less,
and eating carefully, simply.
Joy lives in giving more,
and consuming little.
ENGLISHMAN IN BENIN CITY, 1981, (Part Three)
They took Obaseki to a native doctor in Benin, straight from the police cell.
I ran into him about six months later when he was released.
His condition had deteriorated remarkably. He looked gaunt and shrunk. He must have lost about fifty pounds, (and he weighed not less than 175lbs and stood at 6’ tall when he assaulted Steve). His face had dark blotches and rashes all over it, and he moved with a stoop that made him look much shorter, as he gingerly carried his tray of food from the counter to a table.
I knew that he saw me as I entered the Ekewan campus cafeteria. But he quickly averted his face, pretending that he didn’t notice me. I went to the food counter to place my order. I decided I would surprise him by joining him at his table once I got my food.
MADE IN LAGOS
1234. That was what my clock read. Thirty-four minutes past midnight.Perfect math, I thought. I got up to take a walk. I plugged my ears with my earphones and turned on Apple Music 1. I stepped out into the darkness of the night. The Apple Music Radio deejay started playing some tunes. It was streaming all over the world from London.
USAIN BOLT
I can beat Usain Bolt, the sprint legend, in a one hundred meter dash.
How is that possible?
Simple: if he ties up one of his legs and sprints me by hopping down the track on just one leg.
MY GOD IS STRONGER THAN YOURS
If you got up early enough, you would catch Anti Toyosi bathing at the back of the Face-Me-I-Face-You building in which I grew up in Ile Ife. Her husband, a sign-writer, would still be fast asleep.
But Anti Toyosi always got up early to prepare rice that she sold to school students as breakfast before they went to school.
PLUTOPHOBIA
A new word will enter the streets of Nigeria.
It is PLUTOPHOBIA: the fear of the rich.
It won’t mean, as it often does, the fear of getting rich.
It will mean the fear and loathing for those who are getting rich, while the majority of Nigerians see themselves as getting poorer by the minute.