Crimes Everyday, Crimes Everywhere, A Poem Composed By Aare Tunde Dawood-Akerele)
Boko Haram in the North
Herdsmen in the Central
Kidnapping in the South
Robbery in the East
Ritual in the West
There, are crimes
Here, are crimes
Visit to police station
Or magistrate court
Different criminal cases heard
Evans the kidnapping kingpin
Ruled the nation for a while
Fed fat on loads of ransoms
Before he was caught.
Naija is now Yahoo boys’ haven.
There is Yahoo Plus too
A more heinous crime
Boys selling their private parts: kidneys
Killing their girlfriends for money ritual
Auctioning their parents’ property
Trading in pornography on social media
And becoming sudden millionaires
They live large
Riding in exotic cars,
Abiding in deluxe hotels
Dating beautiful damsels
Alas! Meeting untimely death
Wait not to enjoy the largesse.
Crimes take place everywhere in Naija
More pastors than notorious criminals
Rape teenage girls, dupe members
Many cases of such pending in courts
Alfas indulge so much in ritual killings.
Houses of God are no longer sacred.
Though, crimes are not new
But more common now than ever
Was it not here we were?
When Bola Ige, Alfred Rewane’s souls
Were gruesomely taken
When their flesh were brutally gunned
Their assassins were not like hunters
Who always carry home the game.
After theirs, many souls had been
wasted like inedible snakes.
Crime knows no boundaries
Elite too are not exempted
A female lawyer killed her man
Just because of infidelity
That happened in Ibadan.
Acid has become bathing water
Among aggrieved couples
Mother abandoned a day old baby
Inside the dustbin
Friends sell friends for peanut
There’s crime everywhere.
In their attempt to remain in power
Our leaders design different means
To siphon the treasure
Corruption is their own area of specialization
They win corruption cases with millions of naira
Executive inflates contracts
Legislature pads appropriation bills
Judiciary takes bribe like the police
Politicians hire hooligans to kill rivals.
Everyone is a casualty
Security agents not exempted
Even the law enforcement agencies
No one is safe
It’s often reported
I mean on the front pages
Of the newspapers
And periodicals like Alaroye, Akede Agbaye.
Likewise the national news
On TV stations.
Labe Orun Show covers only crimes
Crimes happen everyday, everywhere