Title: Where Is The Gun
Author: Sam Omatseye
Genre: Poetry
Publishers: Sunshot Associates
Year Of Publication: 2026
Sam Omatseye is a Nigerian poet, novelist, playwright and journalist. He is also a social critic.
His work is distinguished by lyrical, metaphorical prose and deep critical inquiry into the Nigerian condition, focusing on political decay and national disillusionment. His literature brilliantly merges history with fiction, offering a fresh, minority perspective on Nigerian sociopolitical struggles.
In his poetry collections, Omatseye reflects on the themes of fear, displacement, and nationalism.
The poems reflect historical tragedies— such as the Asaba Massacre —juxtaposed with modern absurdities like the Almajiri phenomenon.
Recently, he unveiled his new collection of poems, titled, Where Is The Gun? Somehow, a question and a statement. But it tells the story of a country at war with itself. The collection distils these fears and traumas.
The robust and elegant collection, with 36 poems, is inundated with uncontrollable fury. It opens with Makoko, one of the suburbs of Lagos. The six-line poem describes life in the ghetto threatened by eternal lack. The poem interrogates the Lagos lagoon settlemen Makoko.
Omatseye says: “I am feverish and cold/ Like Makoko/ In May/ Inviting Worm And Prey/ In The Rain.”
The poet describes his feeling as feverish and cold, using a metaphor to compare what it is like in Makoko, when rain descends in the month of May. He employs a satiric tone to discuss poverty in the slum when mosquitoes descend.
In the title poem, Where Is The Gun, the poet responds to the escalating violence in the country. It is highly philosophical and interrogates issues facing Nigeria such as banditry, terrorism and kidnapping, which have become menacing horror.
Combining moral indictment with revolutionary urgency, the poet, through sharp satire, prophetic imagery, and politically charged language, critiques leadership failure, systemic exploitation, class inequality, and the betrayal of post-independence ideals.
Using angry verses and incisive language, Omatseye surgically dissects heart of the country, pointing to a failed system. He states reasons whyamnesty and other popular programmes have not worked: “He gave them food/they ate with relish/smiled at him but/did not say thank you/He gave them shelter/They escaped from/The scorching sun/But there was no applause/For him… He gave them a gun/They were horrified/And said they were/Too fed to shoot and they had no use for it… So they tossed away the gun/He gave them a belief/Then they learned a language/A new song and built a new place/Where they clapped, knelt and bowed/To him/They turned to him,/And asked where is the gun?”.
Like Niyi Osundare and Tanure Ojaide, Omatseye lavishes the collection with enchanting imagery of exploitation and killings. He uses of evocative images and suggestive expressions as noticed in his Almajiri.
He says: “In this bowl/Lies my pride and boon/From the day mother weaned me/My father’s palm cradled a pan/in the fashion of the forefathers… I am legal in heaven and earth/If not regal/I am the army of/The city’s humble perch/No one calls us slaves/but we savour/so allow us/the rag pride/of our ragged hands”.
This narrative poem explores the ugly tradition of making children and young ones to apprentice in homes of religious leaders. These ideas leave the children hopeless and tools in the hands of politicians, especially, whenever there is crisis, they are used to foment trouble.
The lines establish and rekindle the relationship between Almajiri and the gun. “They abandon us after/The night of spoils/so we return/To our sanctuaries/In side streets and markets/the edges/of their porches and palaces/between their dainty lips/and the dry earth/beneath their big fat emerald plates/We squeal/like mice/regain our original meekness”.
Omatseye re-invokes the religious protests in Kano, Bulunkutu and Jimeta, which were orchestrated by urchins. He says: “no longer is peace enough for us/an almajiri must one day be a man/the pride of a pan/Feeds a boy/But a man must dream/And feed/A boy and a girl/And a harem/And peer imperiously/At his own barn”.
The poet continues in more incisive manner – “governors dread/Ministers sweat/Their children weep/From the forest/I stoke families/upend government policy/decree shortcuts/skew the news/valourise politics/I a farmer almajiri/How I have become/Full grown/without my bowl/The child in me now/Bows before my throne/Goodbye, almajiri/Welcome, majesty man.” .
The collection expresses Omatseye’s strong feelings in the horror that has redrawn the country’s landscape. By foregrounding his protest aesthetics and hope of a new nation, this collection contributes to broader debates on African postcolonial poetry, literary resistance, and the role of art in nation-building.
