My name is Jimoh

Father,

I did not throw stones

As you told me not to.

I did not burn the fences

Of the detention center

Where legs are broken 

And hair’s shaven for the price of a phone.

I was just an Aaron

Holding up Moses hand

That Joshua may prevail. 

That stranger, Joshua, who asked why legs were being broken,

Why hairs were being shaved

When there was no war that

Has netted hostages nor slaves.

Father,

You can see my eyes

Staring at the sun

As I lie in the street with a bullet in my back.

I did not disgrace you.

I only told them my name is Jimoh

The son of Ishaq,

I am not a slave. 

(Jimoh Ishaq, died in Ogbomosho. Shot by Police during #EndSARS protests. This poem is for him and many others that were injured, brutalised and murdered in these protests in October, 2020 and across the country in the mindless brutality being meted out by police to Nigerians.)