The news from Cotonou

  From this moving rust,
  I read Sahara Reporters:

  A roof shakes
  in Palais de la Marina,
  the national screen
  barks a new voice,
  & the old question
  rises again:

  “when will gold,
  oil, land finally
  serve those
  who live within?”

  Ahead, Idi-iroko,
  the tar blurs
  as if the continent
  paused
  for what comes next.

  I think of how Bongo
  replaced Bongo,
  & wonder if Talon
  is not, in some strange way,
  replacing Talon.

  I think of Africa
  as a long corridor,
  lit by candles
  the ancestors
  left behind.
  Some flicker.
  Some refuse to die.
  We walk in their glow,
  still searching
  for a door
  that opens to a future
  built by the hands
  that live here.

  & though
  the guns speak
  again this morning,
  I listen for something quieter,
  the steady breath
  of a continent
  that has survived storms
  worse than this morning.

  I want a morning
  where wealth
  does not depart
  on distant ships,
  where mazes
  are not seized
  in smoke,
  but shaped
  by naked sculptors,
  shared by many,
  guarded by Ma’at.

  If this is history unfolding,
  let it bend
  towards the cage
  that no longer knows
  the smell of birds;
  a boundless space
  where young Africans
  can lift their faces
  to the sun
  & know their land
  will lift with them.

_Majekodunmi O. Ebhohon is a Nigerian poet and playwright. He is the author of ‘The Great Delusion’, winner of the ANA Prize for Drama, 2025. He writes from Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria.
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