Ibadan Does Not Know Your Father's Name

By Qudus Olowo

​i chew my bread with grief as jam outside my apartment, my neighbor enters with greetings, cuts out a portion from my bread without asking, he takes a share of grief before going to work. he will return this night clamouring about the mishaps that befell him today. it is not Ibadan’s business, she won’t comfort you. Any time my landlord puffs grass with that day’s sheets of newspaper, he asks me about my rent renewal that is yet to due until 8 months later. someone who doesn’t know me or my name will knock at my door, telling me how he or she has lost his or her way in the city and got stranded, everyday I know a new person who is always stranded in this city. as i walk down my street, two black boys pass by me, their limbs’ colour differs from that of their faces, this place is a home of rainbow skins. a white garment preacher warns the street with a prophecy, she says two witches live here and send cats at midnight to run evil errands—see, every month, different streets in this city get the same prophecy, I wonder how many witches the preachers have counted this year. the mosques’ Qibla here is often slant, we stand on mats and pray in italics, they say it’s the topography of the city. i see some adolescent boys leaving an hotel, they drip on fake but pricey Louis V jean pants and t-shirts, rest on their backs Lacoste bags, one can tell what they are; young cyberfraudsters. every second, they flash their three camera iPhones to the public, no one notices, Ibadan does not notice their flaunts till they jump and speed off on their mini motorcycles. other side of the street, an Hijabi wails, everyone gathered around her except me, I hear her cry of being duped of hundred of thousands of naira and an Android phone by an unknown man. everyone consoles and pities her, and they start to leave the place bit by bit, until it remains the woman with her grief. Ibadan doesn’t console one for long. two Micra cab drivers almost hit each other at the Agbowo express road, God spared their lives and their passengers. still, both drivers drag each other, boasting of amulets or hitting each other with a charm ring, anyone couldn’t interfere, no one likes to die in Ibadan. my friend Alli called my phone, he wants to visit, I tell him to come along with an antidote for madness, i tell him; Ibadan doesn’t know your father’s name.

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​Qudus Olowo is a Nigerian poet, rapper, singer, and songwriter. He is the Founding Editor of Afrihill Press and currently an Editorial Intern at Another Chicago Magazine. Most of his works have appeared or are forthcoming in Lolwe, Funicular magazine, Sunlight Press, Pena Litmag, Consequence Forum, Poetry Column NND, and elsewhere. He made the longlist of the Brigitte Poirson Literature Prize 2024. He also served as a mentor at the SprinNG Writing Fellowship from 2022 to 2024. He is the author of the micro-chapbook Making Love by the Waterside (Afrihill Press, 2023). You can reach him via twitter @iamBlackpoet and on Instagram @iamblackpoet