The height of the month of March

The harrowing haze of a heated temperature,
Which cooks the day and night more intense,
The height of the month of March,
Wherein you squatter belly wise dripping
with profuse perspiration and heavily bodied,
Jumbled by the humid heat,
37°C in the day and 32°C at night.

Yet locked indoors you are for the night.
In Abuja the 'big man’s city',
In buildings with windows
Fortified by stronger metal might,
Behind heavy gates and doors.
The heat rages on nevertheless,
unperturbed by the buzzing of Air conditioners.

You will prefer to be in Kuje prison,
When the ‘Power Holding Company’,
Hold their power,
With no fuel in your electricity gen set,
And not owning an ‘I pass my neighbour’,
Yet you live in Kwali with its ‘advanced level’ mosquitoes,
Or in Gwagwalada with ‘pleasant’ messy gutters.

I wish things could revert one more time,
To those pristine days,
In our villages with abundant trees,
Scanty roaming vehicles and even fewer
Motorcycles which, today, emit tons
Of carbon monoxide lethal to health,
And overheating the environment.

I wish I could drag my bamboo mat,
As we did at nights in the hot season,
Call upon friends each with their doormat,
spread at the frontage of our door-less houses,
And sleep with unobstructed tranquility,
To be woken up by the distant sound of the Mu’ezzin,
Heralding the dawn and calling faithfuls to prayer,