Prof. Niyi Osundare’s My Lord, Tell Me Where to Keep Your Bribe is a piercing indictment of systemic corruption in Nigeria’s judicial system. The poem uses biting satire, rich metaphors, and Yoruba idiomatic expressions to illustrate the moral decay that has turned the Nigerian judiciary into a marketplace where justice is auctioned to the highest bidder. This work masterfully unpacks the dark reality of Nigeria’s governance, reflecting the themes explored in Dele Farotimi s book, Do Not Die in Their War, where he showcases how ‘institutionalized corruption’ sustains Nigeria’s failing state.
Structural Criticism: The Architecture of Corruption
The poem’s structure is carefully layered, with each stanza unveiling a deeper level of rot in Nigeria’s judicial system. Osundare builds a crescendo of moral decay, starting from symbolic references to hidden money and concluding with the complete collapse of the Temple of Justice. The repeated line My Lord, Tell me where to keep your bribe? functions as a refrain that echoes the hopelessness of seeking justice in a system built on transactional judgments.
The poet’s choice of architectural imagery The Temple of Justice is broken in every brick,The roof is roundly perforated by termites of graft vividly portrays the system’s disintegration. It conjures the image of a sacred institution now defiled, reduced to a decaying structure where termites (corrupt judges and officials) relentlessly consume its foundation. This mirrors Farotimi’s argument that Nigeria’s leadership class thrives on the systematic destruction of moral institutions, ensuring that governance remains perpetually flawed.
Corruption as a Living Organism
Osundare personifies corruption as a living, breathing entity, almost parasitic in its invasive nature. In the line: Behind the rituals and roted rigmaroles / Old antics connive with new tricks,
he suggests a cyclical and evolving system of fraud where new players inherit age-old corrupt practices. The legal system, symbolized by antiquated wigs and penguin gowns, becomes a theater of deception where actors wear costumes to perform justice while perpetuating injustice.
Similarly, Dele Farotimi’s critique in “Do Not Die in Their War” highlights how corruption in Nigeria is designed to self-sustain through institutional memory, where the same elites cycle through positions of power, ensuring that change is cosmetic and justice remains elusive.
Yoruba Cultural Criticism: African Oral Tradition as Protest
Osundare’s infusion of Yoruba proverbs, such as Won gb’ebi f’alare / Won gb’are f’elebi (They declare the innocent guilty / They pronounce the guilty innocent), is a powerful linguistic choice. It roots the poem in African oral tradition while emphasizing how deeply entrenched injustice is in Nigerian society. This echoes Farotimi’s assertion that corruption is normalized through cultural narratives that have become part of Nigeria’s collective psyche.
The use of Yoruba language intensifies the poem’s emotional resonance. It transforms the poem into a communal lamentation a call for societal introspection that transcends political critique to become a cultural reckoning.
Symbolism of the Judiciary’s Moral Collapse
In one of the most striking symbolic passages, Osundare writes:
Judges doze in the courtroom / Having spent all night, counting money and various ‘gifts’ / And the Chief Justice looks on with tired eyes / As Corruption usurps his gavel.
Here, the judiciary’s complete moral collapse is captured with brutal clarity. The judge, meant to be a symbol of impartiality and fairness, becomes a weary accomplice. The gavel, symbolizing authority and justice, is hijacked by corruption, rendering the legal process meaningless.
Farotimi similarly condemns Nigeria’s compromised judiciary, arguing that courtrooms have become profit-driven enterprises where justice is an unattainable luxury for ordinary citizens.
Social and Political Commentary: Corruption as a National Identity
Osundare doesn’t limit his critique to the judiciary but expands it into a broader commentary on Nigeria’s socio-political decay. He writes: Nigeria is a huge corpse / With milling maggots on its wretched hulk / They prey every day, they prey every night / For the endless decomposition of our common soul.
This visceral metaphor turns Nigeria into a decomposing body consumed by parasites corrupt leaders, officials, and power-hungry elites. The image of maggots implies not just decay but a process of perpetual consumption where corruption feeds off the country’s lifeblood. This recalls Farotimi’s assertion that Nigeria’s state apparatus is designed to sustain itself through the continuous exploitation of the masses.
Religious Hypocrisy and Moral Complicity
In perhaps the most damning section, Osundare exposes religious hypocrisy: Come Sunday, they troop to the church / Friday, they mouth their mantra in pious mosques / But they pervert Justice all week long.
This juxtaposition of religious devotion with moral corruption underscores the duplicity of Nigeria’s ruling class. It reflects Farotimi’s argument that religion has become a tool of manipulation in Nigeria, used by corrupt elites to absolve themselves publicly while committing atrocities privately.
My Lord, Tell Me Where to Keep Your Bribe is more than a poem it is a scathing indictment of Nigeria’s failing state, a haunting portrait of institutional decay, and a call for revolutionary introspection. Osundare masterfully blends satire, Yoruba oral tradition, and piercing social commentary to create a work that is timeless, relevant, and deeply unsettling.
Farotimi’s Do Not Die in Their War provides a similar narrative lens, urging Nigerians to confront the structures that sustain corruption rather than fall victim to orchestrated conflicts designed to distract and divide.
In a world where justice is just another commodity, Osundare’s verse remains a powerful protest against a system that has abandoned its moral compass a rallying cry for accountability, reform, and true justice.
Review and revised by Jide Adesina December, 2024
Prof Niyi Osundare boldly lampoons and ridicules Judges And NJC in an illustrative poetry entitled:
My Lord, Tell Me Where To Keep Your Bribe*
A lovely piece of poem by a blunt and courageous poet that will make your day….
👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼
My Lord, Tell me Where to Keep your Bribe.
A poem by Prof. Niyi Osundare.
Do I drop it in your venerable chambers
Or carry the heavy booty to your immaculate mansion
Shall I bury it in the capacious water tank
In your well laundered backyard
Or will it breathe better in the septic tank
Since money can deodorize the smelliest crime
Shall I haul it up the attic
Between the ceiling and your lofty roof
Or shall I conjure the walls to open up
And swallow this sudden bounty from your honest labour
Shall I give a billion to each of your paramours
The black, the light, the Fanta-yellow
They will surely know how to keep the loot
In places too remote for the sniffing dog
Or shall I use the particulars
Of your anonymous maidservants and manservants
With their names on overflowing bank accounts
While they famish like ownerless dogs
Shall I haul it all to your village
In the valley behind seven mountains
Where potholes swallow up the hugest jeep
And Penury leaves a scar on every house
My Lord
It will take the fastest machine
Many, many days to count this booty; and lucky bank bosses
May help themselves to a fraction of the loot
My Lord
Tell me where to keep your bribe?
My Lord
Tell me where to keep your bribe?
The “last hope of the common man”
Has become the last bastion of the criminally rich
A terrible plague bestrides the land
Besieged by rapacious judges and venal lawyers
Behind the antiquated wig
And the slavish glove
The penguin gown and the obfuscating jargon
Is a rot and riot whose stench is choking the land
Behind the rituals and roted rigmaroles
Old antics connive with new tricks
Behind the prim-and-proper costumes of masquerades
Corruption stands, naked, in its insolent impunity
For sale to the highest bidder
Interlocutory and perpetual injunctions
Opulent criminals shop for pliant judges
Protect the criminal, enshrine the crime
And Election Petition Tribunals
Ah, bless those goldmines and bottomless booties!
Scoundrel vote-riggers romp to electoral victory
All hail our buyable Bench and conniving Bar
A million dollars in Their Lordship’s bedroom
A million euros in the parlor closet
Countless naira beneath the kitchen sink
Our courts are fast running out of Ghana-must-go’s*
The “Temple of Justice”
Is broken in every brick
The roof is roundly perforated
By termites of graft
My Lord
Tell me where to keep your bribe?
Judges doze in the courtroom
Having spent all night, counting money and various “gifts”
And the Chief Justice looks on with tired eyes
As Corruption usurps his gavel.
Crime pays in this country
Corruption has its handsome rewards
Just one judgement sold to the richest bidder
Will catapult Judge & Lawyer to the Billionaires’ Club
The Law, they say, is an ass
Sometimes fast, sometimes slow
But the Law in Nigeria is a vulture
Fat on the cash-and-carry carrion of murdered Conscience
Won gb’ebi f’alare
Won gb’are f’elebi**
They kill our trust in the common good
These Monsters of Mammon in their garish gowns
Unhappy the land
Where jobbers are judges
Where Impunity walks the streets
Like a large, invincible Demon
Come Sunday, they troop to the church
Friday, they mouth their mantra in pious mosques
But they pervert Justice all week long
And dig us deeper into the hellish hole
Nigeria is a huge corpse
With milling maggots on its wretched hulk
They prey every day, they prey every night
For the endless decomposition of our common soul
My Most Honourable Lord
Just tell me where to keep your bribe.
Large, extremely tough bags used for carrying heavy cash in Nigeria
They declare the innocent guilty
They pronounce the guilty innocent.”
👆🏽👆🏽👆🏽👆🏽
Please let it go viral
