We lean into our chairs. The plastic kind that cradles your neck, and allows your belly the calm of soaking Mama Nkechi’s pepper soup with premium barley. We raise our heads, thinking into the evening wind and heaving sighs to accompany Mustapha’s tobacco puffs and Nnamdi’s feigned talks of tribal solidarity. It was in such company that we matured the four-month scheme that would name me Councillor, Opomulero of Ward One- and pay Mama Nkechi our piling debts for indulgence in Catfish Peppersoup and Heineken, but Nnamdi and Mustapha cannot know this- Such is the secret behind the benevolence of the wealthy, perhaps, that others may hail and praise. Oju aye, lasan-lasan. But such thoughts do not matter now. Now, Nnamdi orders more pepper soup, with goat meat, this time. Mustapha quietly completes his pack of cigarettes, sucking peacefully on Death’s fingers. I only smile, for the future. Only this morning, I looked into the hopeful faces of the gathered crowd: “I am the absolute. I am the pillar.”

I am no pillar, nor absolute. They knew, and have always known. But as I rose in the polls, it was soon forgotten- until I won. True, “the leech hath two daughters that cry, “give, give!”” Would that I never made grand promises. Then, I would not fail- or win. Nnamdi, Mustapha, and the excited throngs; perhaps they all want a pseudo-messiah. An actor and veteran liar to soothe their passage; genie for their every wish. Some sort of Anjonu ( extraterrestrial being ).

Perhaps, man cannot be satisfied by man.
. “Kii se ti eniyan ti n rin ani lati dari awon isise ara re.”
-Jer. 10 : 23

For them with eyes. To see reason.