They have come again
In their wearying and worrisome ways!
This time the story is all
so weird and so wicked!!
They call it cashless
When what they mean is nothing–
But poverty, deprivation and despondency:
When all they bequeath
Is agony, despotism and
Death in many ways,
By many means.
This is how it works and doesn’t work:
They make you put all your sweat’s earning in the public safe,
They say it’s old and stenchy
They will give you new and crispy ones in return.
You are full of hope, joy and zest.
You go back to the vaults
And come back, back with empty hands and holed-pockets.
Now you know the meaning of cashless
You now know it means no cash
It means the mother of suffering
Endless pain of hunger and compelled anger.
It is the regime of cashless no- cash-to-buy- food!!!
If you have a bank
You join the infinite queue
In which many aged legs
And faint heats fall and lapse,
Waiting for the new notes, hopelessly.
The old ones–products of our sweat and blood– have gone
On a journey of no- return.
The new ones are a stillborn–born only to the rich.
The rest of the family,
Seller of okro, pepper and tomatoes
Have no banks and save only in esusu- cooperatives–
My grandchildren call it piggy banks
which is wiser than the ones out there
Which swallow your sweat and give you blood in return.
With no cash or with cashless
All their market wares rot away
Buyers have no cash to buy
In the reign of transfer and POS.
Mama-put cannot take transfer because, because she no sabi road to the Bank wey she no get.
The wearisome ways of wọ/ men in Glass House worry us sick.
If the war is among the elephants
Why trample and kill the grass–
The wicked ways they always do
In all the wars they cause
And live the weak alone to fight– and die in?
Prof Olu Obafemi
22-03-23.
* Award-winning poet and playwright, Olu Obafemi is a Professor of English and Dramatic Literature at the University of Ilorin since October 1990. He is a former president of the Nigerian Academy of Letters
