BABANGIDA'S WHITE ELEPHANT

Babangida's white elephant

The mammoth of lords

Before the city gate

After the town's skirt

Where no distinct mark is made

He leashed it there for rest

And it ate up our gmelina

Those tender carbon sinks

Awaiting ripening for the lumber's teeth

He brought it for a circus show

It was fed sackfuls of silver

But that place outside Kontagora

Became one more river to cross

And there it sits away from kindred

Cast away of the circus-full durbar

ROAD EATERS

We ate the roads
Sinewy comic lesions
Where offerings burned
Bread cast upon dry ground
It was at the skirt of Minna – sackful
Just before we chew dust
The monster that ate through the earth
The beast of Manchok
Lettuce from Vom came late
It ate two mountains
When we were transfigured
The wings of Bukuru
And ravaged the bowels of Jos