society
BANTU IS GONE. TWELVE CHICKS ARE NOT.
By Kọ́lápọ̀ Ọ̀nàbánjọ · 10 July 2026
Active citizen
Sisi Ngozi “The Mango Tree Keeper”
Ngozi Adaeze Okonkwo
Keeper of the mango tree ground where Bantu rests, organiser of the dusk whistle, and the bird who quietly makes sure no grieving chick in the Republic sits by themselves.
- Tribe
- Isa-Brown
- Age
- Adult hen
- Laying status
- Laying
- Favourite food
- Groundnut pieces
The story so far
Sisi Ngozi organised the burial in under an afternoon, which anyone who has tried to organise anything in the Republic will recognise as a miracle of administration. She did it by not asking permission from a single committee.
She keeps the ground under the mango tree, clears it, marks it, and sits there most evenings, which means that anyone who wants to sit there and say nothing has company available and no obligation to use it. Several of the Coop Two chicks have taken this up as a habit.
She is brisk about all of it in public and will change the subject if thanked. Her one concession to ceremony is the dusk whistle, which she and Sergeant Danladi hold together, and which she has described, once, as 'the flock saying goodnight to him back.'
Life events
11 July 2026
Under the mango tree, without debate
The Assembly votes his resting place without a single speech against, the only such vote in the Republic's history. Sisi Ngozi organises it in an afternoon. The dusk whistle begins that evening.
In The Coop Times
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