By Babafemi Ojudu
The soldier steals—
not always for hunger,
not merely to keep death
from the cooking pot.
He steals to pack wife and children
into the peace of Canada,
far from the checkpoints
where he once collected
the price of passage.
The General builds plazas
from the wages of war,
raises mansions upon the graves
of boys he sent into battle,
and finances the sculpting
of a new body
for his latest heartthrob.
Everyone must jàiyé.
Everyone must enjoy.
The civil servant steals—
a little from pensions,
a little from contracts,
a little from files
that will not move
until their palms are greased.
He wants a house in his hometown,
another in Abuja,
and one more in London—
a shelter against the day
his own country
finally collapses upon him.
He must satisfy
the golden tastes of four wives
and keep twenty children
in private schools,
because the public schools
whose funds he swallowed
are no longer fit
for his own blood.
Everyone must jàiyé.
Everyone must enjoy.
The lecturer steals—
grants, marks, allowances,
the pages of another man’s book.
He needs a larger car
and a roof against the rainy day
which forty years of teaching
could never provide.
And when money is scarce,
he steals what money cannot buy:
the innocence of young women
sent to him in search of knowledge.
He marks their bodies
before he marks their scripts,
plucking flowers
from gardens entrusted
to his care.
Everyone must jàiyé.
Everyone must enjoy.
The domestic servant steals—
a piece of meat today,
a cup of rice tomorrow,
a handful of seasoning
hidden beneath her wrapper.
There are hungry mouths at home,
school fees waiting,
an ageing mother
whose medicine cannot be bought
with loyalty.
And so, in her custody,
the pot of soup
that once lasted three days
now vanishes before evening.
Meat develops wings.
Condiments learn to walk.
Everything entrusted to her
takes flight.
She, too, must jàiyé.
She, too, must survive.
The students watch
the footsteps of their elders
and learn the national curriculum:
Take what is not yours.
Hide your tracks.
Display the proceeds.
Call it grace. Omo Ologo!
They live inside laptops,
fishing across the oceans
for the pensions of lonely women
and the savings of grieving men.
They manufacture love,
package affection,
and sell imaginary futures
to strangers desperate for warmth.
Soon, the champagne pours.
A luxury car appears.
The street applauds.
Mama Omo Ologo thanks God
No one, not the man in cassock, asks
what labour produced the harvest;
we only admire
the size of the barn.
Everyone must jàiyé.
Everyone must enjoy.
Jewellery flashes.
Brazilian hair dances.
New breasts rise.
New buttocks bloom.
Dark skin is scrubbed and bleached
until it is paler
than an Icelander’s winter.
The money comes
from countless beds—
from officials entrusted
with the nation’s treasury,
from cocaine fortunes,
from Yahoo proceeds,
from powerful men
who buy young flesh
with the future of other people’s children.
Bodies become investments.
Desire becomes commerce.
Shame is renamed hustle.
Everyone must jàiyé.
Everyone must enjoy.
The king auctions honour
to the highest bidder,
trading the dignity of the throne
for enough money
to enlarge his harem
and fill his palace
with glittering toys
he neither needs nor understands.
One plot of ancestral land
is sold to ten different buyers;
ten receipts bear the royal seal,
ten families inherit one quarrel.
And when the cheated
run to the law for justice,
they find the DPO
seated beside the throne—
an accomplice in uniform,
his silence already purchased
with a portion of the proceeds.
The crown that should protect the people
has become an instrument of fraud;
the police station that should defend them
has become the palace annex.
The king must jàiyé.
The DPO must collect his share.
And the people must pay—
first for the land,
then for justice,
and finally for the privilege
of being cheated.
And the politician?
Ah!
He does not merely steal
from the nation.
He steals the nation itself.
He steals the hospital
and flies abroad for treatment.
He steals the school
and sends his children overseas.
He steals the road
and travels in a convoy
of armoured vehicles.
He steals electricity
and surrounds his mansion
with generators ,lately solar farm
He steals the people’s security
and hires armed guards
to protect himself
from the people.
He buys, in foreign lands,
everything he was elected
to provide at home.
Then he returns
to ask the hungry
for another mandate.
Everyone must jàiyé.
Everyone must enjoy.
The tragedy is no longer
that thieves live among us.
The tragedy is that theft
has become our common language—
spoken in barracks and ministries,
in lecture halls and bedrooms,
in servants’ quarters
and chambers of power.
Each hand takes
according to its reach.
Each mouth condemns
the thief above it
while swallowing
what it stole from below.
The small thief envies the great thief.
The great thief fears the greater thief.
And the honest man is mocked
as a fool who missed his chance.
We no longer ask,
“Is it right?”
We ask,
“Is it my turn?”
We no longer dream
of building a country.
We dream of escaping it
with enough of its ruins
to live comfortably elsewhere.
Thus, piece by piece,
transaction by transaction,
we auction the Republic—
and with every theft
we build a private paradise
inside a public hell.
One day,
when there is nothing left to steal,
we shall gather at the banquet,
dressed in gold,
lifting glasses of champagne—
only to discover
that we have eaten the seed,
sold the farm,
poisoned the river
and mortgaged the unborn.
Then we shall understand:
No one truly jàiyé
in a Republic of thieves.
For when everyone steals
to live well,
no one is left
to build a life worth living.
– Babafemi Ojudu
Abuja, 11th September 2026.