Niyi Osundare
We eat what we see
It is what we do not see
That often eats us
Way, way out in Naijaland
Where Superstition swallowed Science
And triumphal Ignorance usurped the streets
Koro* went viral in our graveyard of Reason
First came the fiction that Koro hated African blood
Made so bitter by years of subhuman afflictions
I never knew a dreaded virus too
Could be infested with such gustatory bias
As usual, when Koro shook the world
With its viral onslaught, African rulers
Heard late, knew late, acted late (or not at all)
But the regimen of denial ruled the airwaves
Prayer Warriors went to war with an Invisible Foe
Against all reasonable remonstration to stay at home
They trooped in blinding numbers to prayer centres
To ‘rebuke the virus’ and curse its venom
Ignorance, indisputable Weapon of Mass Destruction
In a land so notorious for its suicidal disdain for Science
How does ‘social distancing’ work in crowded slums
And ‘frequent hand-washing’ in a land of dry water-taps?
And so the Koro carnage rages on with unhindered ferocity
Hostage to hunger and countless wants,
We plod from plague to plague. Hardly any surprise
0n a continent where misrule itself is a lethal virus
* The Nigerian nickname for Coronavirus
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