The problem with autocrats, despots and tyrants - both in situ and wannabes - is that their words are usually ascribed a gravitas that far exceeds their sensibilities and competence.

I'm told

There was a time that

Speaking Yoruba

Or any of our

'Native tongues'

Was a tad unfashionable;

Along with the

Honourable names

Bestowed upon us

To reflect

Our worth.

So, it turns out there is a single word for the life the average Nigerian - young and old - has deliberately and needlessly been plunged into over the last sixty years.

PRECARITY: noun

● “a state of existence in which material provision and psychological wellness are adversely affected by a lack of regular or secure income.”

The awesome thing

About a crisis

Is that it highlights

One's capabilities.

Some sink.

But others

Thrash about

Swallow murky water

Then rise triumphantly

To the surface

And swim like their lives

Depend on it.

I must have been about thirteen when a member of our church was killed by a soldier. I'd been living in Nigeria for a few years by then, and was no stranger to death. Or violence, poverty, and the sheer recklessness that comes with knowing there might not be a tomorrow.

A relatively young man, he'd studied in that other pseudo land-of-promise, once heralded as God's own country, but now mired in controversies so deep and dark, it couldn't smell the nard for the manure.