Tribute to Nigerian Hoodlums
By Bode Ekundayo
Is Hoodlum not the fanciful name
We parade for global fame or shame?
Hoodlum aka Ruffians, Area Women
Area Boys, Area Girls and Area Men
Street Urchins & Political Thugs
Living filthy & ugly as warthogs
Hooligans of various classes
Gathered in high and low places
A Hoodlum is that homeless citizen
Half-alive, hopeless on the streets
Marooned & maltreated as a shitizen
Hungry where foods rot in sheets
Under Flyovers & neglected buildings
Is Hoodlum’s sub-human home
Where Kubla Kans with rich biddings
Decree in Zanadu a stately pleasure dome
Now, Hungers dare machine gun
Tear & drag foods warehoused!
Nature puts Hoodlums on the run
To steal anything for hunger aroused
See Hoodlums stampeding to survive
Carting away Covid 19 palliatives
Meant earlier to keep them alive
That a higher Hoodlum’s initiatives
Locked up to extend their torture
Forgetting the first law of nature
See another Hoodlum, a looter
Breaking, burning and stealing
While young patriots celebrate aluta!
Waving flags and appealing!
Anon! Hoodlums armed & uniformed
Switched on the night to shoot them
To massacre & get them deformed
While Aluta sang a failed Anthem!
Office Hoodlums murder Motherland:
And auction a whole community
To build themselves a recluse Island
Circled by sleaze & official immunity
Honorable Hoodlums without Honors
Gulp the National Cake & Whale!
Chief Thieves and Huge Donors
Of Deaths make the nation wail!
Hoodlums in dingy & golden offices
Suffering & sucking & hoping
Raking & amassing to build edifices
While other Hoodlums stand moping
Now that Youths frustrated are rising
Beasts, bees, boas and boars
Against Office-lums killing & slicing
Which Hoodlum’ll rest on their oars?
Now irate Youths stampede in rage
Who won’t be taken as a Hoodlum?
Now Youths rise to seize their age
How can we resolve this conundrum?
Tell Advanced Hoodlums in power
Ere eclipse blights their accursed hour
To return our stolen Black Goats
Or we shoot-kill them with our votes!
At the Ides of March, all Hoodlums
Will clash in our damned Hood slums
Hoodlums in the church and mosque
Hoodlums sitting on the fence
Hoodlums hooded in a mask
None will have any defence
So, recall the Past & peep at Morrow
Even as we butcher-bleed Today
Basking in the brief joy of sorrow
One night soon, the Future will break
When kids turn youthful adults
To recount their deeds & results
And Elders go to sleep never to wake
So, who is not a Hoodlum
Co-inhibiting other Hoodlums
In all our Hood Slums?
Bode Steve Ekundayo (PhD) is a lecturer and public speaker in UniBen
