Every morning before the first call to prayer drifts across the rooftops, Mama Ijeoma lights her fire.
A pile of corn husks crackles, sparks leap into the dawn, and the street slowly wakes — bus conductors shouting, radio jingles promising “dividends of democracy,” the smell of dust and diesel mixing with smoke.
Her corner sits opposite the old post office.
People say she’s been there since Obasanjo’s first term.
Some days she laughs at that. “If dem dey pay pension for roasting corn, I for don retire.”
She knows every face that passes:
the schoolchildren who owe her ₦50;
the okada riders who tease her, “Madam, add one extra corn for change of government”;
and the policemen who collect “security corn” without paying.
The Promise
Last year, a campaign truck parked right beside her stall.
A young man with a megaphone shouted, “This administration will empower traders like Mama Ijeoma!”
They even took her picture.
A week later, she saw that same picture on a billboard —
“Supporting Local Businesses for a Brighter Tomorrow.”
No one ever came back.
Rain and Ashes
When the rainy season began, her wooden table started to rot.
She covered it with a torn campaign banner — the Governor’s smiling face staring up from under roasted corn.
Each drop of rain erased another patch of the promise.
Still, she stayed.
Because leaving meant hunger.
Because every evening, her daughter in secondary school needed transport fare, and her son in the polytechnic needed data for assignments.
Once, she joked, “If na data dem dey use build road, my pikin for don tar express.”
The Night of the Cake
That was the night of the Governor’s birthday.
She sold corn until the last convoy passed.
She could hear the music echoing from the Government House — loud enough to drown her thoughts.
She didn’t know how much the cake cost.
She only knew that her husband died waiting for surgery at the state hospital two years ago.
When she packed her leftover corn that night, she whispered to her friend Chiamaka,
“E no dey pain me say dem dey celebrate. E dey pain me say dem no dey see us.”
The Visit
A month later, a journalist came to her stall.
He introduced himself softly.
He said he was writing about “life under the agbada.”
She laughed. “You wan write my story? Which story I get?”
He smiled. “You have more than you think.”
She told him everything — about the fake empowerment, about the banners, about the governor’s convoy that blocked her customers.
He recorded her voice.
She didn’t expect anything to come from it.
But the next week, her words were on the internet:
‘If dem like, make dem bake cake for heaven, my children still never chop.’
Her quote went viral.
For one day, her corner became famous.
Camera crews came.
A small NGO even promised her a new umbrella.
Then the buzz moved on —
because in Nigeria, even outrage has an expiry date.
The Quiet Morning
Now she still sits by her corner, turning corn over the fire.
People greet her, “Madam, na you we see for internet o!”
She smiles. “Internet no dey buy charcoal.”
But sometimes, when the wind blows the smoke just right, she thinks of that journalist — and wonders if her words made even one person in power stop and think.
Maybe that’s enough.
Maybe not.
But she will keep roasting.
Because the country may forget its promises,
but hunger doesn’t.
🕯️ Moral:
Even the smallest fire on the street burns longer than the fireworks in Government House.