“Friends of the wild, lend me your ears. The Day is finally here. Our Independence Day has come. I’m astonished it came rather easily. What our endless tears over many decades could not accomplish, some very tiny neighbours here in the wild have achieved. By the way, we must keep the humans guessing. You know that as at yet they cannot tell where coronavirus came from. Some of them say it’s from snakes; others say it is bats. Whichever way, it works for us. They think they are the masters of guile and sleight but they don’t know anything. I know they have figured out my tears. They call it crocodile tears. That I’m in no pain or distress when water run down my eyes. I agree but that is the closest they will ever come.

Where is Eneke, the bird? Eneke, where are you? Ah, there you are. That lesson you taught hunters is never put to full use until much water pass under the bridge.

I hear the people in Nigeria who have refused to free those they have used as ‘bush meat’ forever, are boasting that they will never grant our folks there Independence, like the Chinese have done. But tell them to wait for a surprise from us. They will not stop eating bush meat, abi?

Let them continue! They say we are no match for them. But they forget. They forget that the locusts that unleashed mayhem in Eastern Africa only recently had sent a message across. Wild life will be free. Not just in China but everywhere, especially in climes where our names have been substituted and lumped together as bush-meat.”