The very day that Audu was born, his father said, ‘I will not raise a son!’ So the day he became five years, he was sent out admist his sisters’ tears. He was given a small hollow plate, and was told not to return home for food. He was to fend for himself as a… Continue reading ALMAJIRI: THE HAUSA MALE by Theophilus ‘Femi Alawonde
Tag: street children
ALMAJIRI’S LOGO by Abdulbasit Abubakar Adamu
Palms outstretched That’s the Almajiri’s logo Like a bird in dismay You see him here and there Looking for alms or a fair food to feed on and clothes to wear Treading on dangerous paths Meeting people of less or no impacts. In tattered attires he looks homeless and mistaken for a person so hopeless… Continue reading ALMAJIRI’S LOGO by Abdulbasit Abubakar Adamu
SOLDIERS OF THE STREET by Ebuka Wiz Godwin
These barracks don’t favor civilians It’s for the un-blooded We don’t remember our mortality off-hand So we face guns and bombs empty handed The armory is our heart And the will to survive is the only arm We are bred here, in these streets Far from Eden, closer to reality The reality of Adam’s sin… Continue reading SOLDIERS OF THE STREET by Ebuka Wiz Godwin
THE SONG OF A STREET CHILD
Condemned to life in the streets Forced to stand on my feet I make my home in urban slums And find myself in the midst of hoodlums With sticks and stones I’m chased away I roam from place to place day after day My plight, no one is willing to listen With unwholesome tears, my… Continue reading THE SONG OF A STREET CHILD
A GIFT FOR THE STREET
I am a gift for the tough part of the street. I am the words of a beggar, the pleas on his face. I am the dirty spills that lingers in the blouse of a trader I am the sweat dangling on an ‘Alabar’s body on a cold afternoon I am the future of unlearned… Continue reading A GIFT FOR THE STREET
THEY ARE STREET BOYS
I’m from a city Where we live dirty Each one of us sighs Screams and cries With our fears, doubts Weak and weary minds Begging, buying and borrowing love That makes us stop to apply Since erstwhile applications got no reply We learn to withdraw to our nest, Likes birds learning to fly We are… Continue reading THEY ARE STREET BOYS
OMO GHETTO
Rivalry noise made on jam-packed street Of pot-holes and water filling feat Welcomes you to the database of quarreling lives, The Ghetto, where true hard-life lives… You can’t survive being a mumu Either castrated by Hemp-Indiana or marijuana You have to learn a trade Of gun toting or bottle breaking for survival… I’m an omo-ghetto,… Continue reading OMO GHETTO