I would tell you big secrets
Big secrets
Like women are more likely to get pregnant than men and
Dogs do bark now and then
And poor rich people
Populate the earth
And rich poor people
Spring up here and there
In fact Alomo is bitter!

Segun Adefila, one of Africa’s Avant Garde artists is a man of many parts. With twenty years mesmerizing the world with contemporary dance and drama, Segun is a writer, dance instructor and poet. He is indeed a game changer and a cerebral culture activist who reinvents with time.

Presently, the Covid-19 pandemic has ravaged the world business and in fact, stopped the dance for so many. But the Bariga born Segun Adefila, is of course, a man with a vision to achieve a mission. In his creative corner, he rolls out a poem to ponder before Coronavirus.

BCv (Before Coronavirus)

See, let me reveal to you
Why a prophet of a person
I am by the way

What if I told you the sky
Shall host the moon tonight
And its face shall be tattooed with stars
Would you believe me if I revealed to you that it’s the sun that lights up the day
And cocks do crow at dawn

See ehn, I have got loads to reveal
If only you would let this prophet
Sip from your leaking cup of honour right at home

I would tell you big secrets
Big secrets
Like women are more likely to get pregnant than men and
Dogs do bark now and then
And poor rich people
Populate the earth
And rich poor people
Spring up here and there
In fact Alomo is bitter!

‘I am a prophet. A prophet by birth and by inclination’
Can’t you see my angry tangled mane?

I shall prove my prophethood By taking you on a voyage
On the magical mat of memories
To that not long ago distant time
When it rained in its time and harmattan never missed its cue
When we could hug and cough
Without a bag of fear
When we could touch our faces because they are ours
And our hands could touch our eyes, nose and mouth without guilt or panic
When we could gather
To share Calabashes of white tasty wine
From the frothing foaming mouth of a filled gourd
That time when things were too simple for us to understand
And we treated gold like sand

Would you believe if I told you many were famished in the midst of surplus
And we assaulted nature
For just any cause

We were that cool

We had the knowledge of doing the undone
And undoing the done
We had the power to stab the heart of the earth
And drain it of vital fluids
We had loads of nuclear power To wreak atomic damages
We ran endless arm races
And fought senseless wars

Oh yes

We invented everything
Minus anything to shield us from nature’s outrage
For that, we merely came up with fanciful words like
Self isolation
Self quarantine
Social distance
Panic buying
And ‘Epandemic’, if I may add

Yes, there was a time
We were humans
Before our minds became machines
And we arrived at 10G

We were once humans before
We lost control to the compulsion to be in control

We were once humans.

(Oriade 16-04-2020)

Poem/Segun Adefila /image /Segun Adefila