-- The Foolish Fox Who Guarded the Hens and Became the Stew -
Emefiele sat in the Central Bank like a big, proud peacock in a golden cage,
showing off feathers bought with the hunger of the people.
He counted money he never worked for,
touching the vault as if it was his father’s yam barn.
People called him Governor,
but he was more like a greedy termite,
slowly eating the country’s wood while telling us it was “financial policy.”
He stole in lazy daylight,
not with the speed of a hawk,
but with the patient wickedness of a fat rat that knows the kitchen door is always open.
Four trillion naira went into his pocket,
not to feed the people,
but as gold-plated lunch to make his belly and pride bigger.
He swallowed it slowly like a drunk savoring palm wine,
careful not to spill even one drop of that stolen sweetness.
Emefiele, the show-off peacock,
dragging sacks of stolen money like a fisherman hauling dead tilapia from dirty waters.
Then he dreamed of being president,
thinking he could cook the nation’s soup
with stolen meat and stolen firewood.
He wanted to govern us with pockets dripping in fraud
and believed votes could be bought like bags of rice during elections.
But greed married foolishness in his heart.
His mind was weak like a candle dancing in the wind,
his thinking blunt like a rusty cutlass,
his ambition loud like an empty drum.
He forgot a simple truth,
the fox guarding the hens always eats them,
but when the owner comes, the fox becomes dinner.
And the dinner party -- oh, what a zoo!
He was not the only animal at the feast.
Other vultures sat around the table,
wiping their beaks with Nigeria’s flag.
One deputy governor returned five hundred million dollars,
a political prince hid two hundred and seventy-five million in his small child’s account,
as if children now play with gold bars and company shares instead of toys.
It was a grand wedding of fraud,
a festival of cheating,
where the bride was the nation’s treasury
and the groom was every corrupt hand in government.
Then the hunter came with bow and arrow.
The peacock cried,
the hyena coughed.
Trillions returned — yes --
but the smell of rot is not washed off by a bucket of water.
Many days belong to the thief,
but one day belongs to the owner.
And on that day, the peacock finally learns
that flying was never in his blood.
Now Emefiele is in detention,
two long years of sitting with his shame,
paying for his sins,
learning that the road of stealing ends behind prison bars.
This is the suffering all political thieves must face
if they refuse to repent and stop eating the nation alive.
Nigeria must beware ,
the farm is not safe just because one predator is skinned.
In the shadows, foxes rehearse their theft.
If we turn off the sunlight, the barn will once again be full,
not of harvest, but of weevils.
Tomorrow’s thief already wears yesterday’s stolen crown.
When a man eats food that belongs to everyone,
one day the people will eat his joy.
If you plant corruption, you will harvest disgrace.
Emefiele’s feathers no longer shine —
he sits behind bars, waiting for the day
his name will be carved in the book of foolish thieves.
A once-proud peacock plucked and cooked,
served as a warning on the people’s table:
that no thief’s feast lasts forever,
and the same pot he filled with stolen meat
is now boiling his own pride and greed into stew.
He ended up as a roasted chicken in the hunter's pot,
Feathers still shining,
stupidity still intact
EBIKABOWEI KEDIKUMO - writes from Ayakoromo Town, Delta State
