KISIThe Republic of Kisi
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Small Fẹ́mi “The Far Side”

Olúfẹ́mi

One of the twelve chicks who went out the far side of Coop Two. He was the last one through, and he is the one who asks the questions the adults are avoiding.

Tribe
Noiler
Age
Young cockerel, still growing
Laying status
Not yet laying
Favourite food
Crumbled maize, softened

The story so far

Small Fẹ́mi was the last of the twelve out of Coop Two, because he went back for a smaller chick who had frozen. He does not think this is worth mentioning and becomes irritable when it is mentioned, which is often.

He sleeps badly and has been given a spot at Grace's side, which he accepted on the condition that everyone stop making a fuss. He has asked Minister Okpara three separate times, in public, whether the lizard is still out there. He has received the same answer each time, and he has said each time that he prefers a true answer to a kind one.

He has announced that he intends to be a coop guard. Sergeant Danladi has told him to finish growing first. He has agreed to this in principle and is already walking the fence line on Saturdays, at a distance, where he thinks nobody can see him.

Life events

  1. 9 July 2026

    The night of Coop Two

    The grate moves shortly after midnight. Bantu gives the alarm and holds the doorway while twelve chicks go out the far side. Every one of them gets out. Danladi reaches him in under a minute.

    Coverage in The Coop Times →

  2. 21 August 2026

    Who owns the dawn?

    Small Fẹ́mi does not do anything loudly. He was the last of the twelve out of Coop Two the night of the drain, he wants to be a coop guard more than he lets on, and he had worked out something simple: a guard is awake before everyone else anyway. So one grey morning, with no cheek about it at all, he told Vice President Baba Ṣẹ́gun that this year he meant to be the bird who called the dawn. Baba, The Dawn Himself, has crowed the sun up over Kisi for years and takes full personal credit for its arrival. The Republic, which will take a side on absolutely anything, took sides at once.

  3. 21 August 2026

    The training camp

    Small Fẹ́mi trained the way he does everything, quietly and stubbornly. He was already up before the light, walking the fence line on his rounds where he thinks nobody can see him, so he simply added the crow to the patrol. Baba Ṣẹ́gun, magnificently, trained not at all. He slept in, took a long dust bath, held court about mornings he had crowed up decades ago, and still, out of sheer habit, beat the youngster to the warm-up crow twice. 'The dawn is not a race you can train for,' he told the newspapers. 'It is a calling.'

  4. 22 August 2026

    The duel at first light

    The whole flock gathered in the dark to watch, which is a strange thing to do and everyone did it anyway. The grey came. Both roosters filled their chests. And they crowed at the very same instant, so exactly together that not one bird, not even Chief Justice Yèyé Àlàbá, who was asked to rule, could say who was first. The sun came up on the two of them, old and young, crowing their hearts out side by side, and it was, everyone agreed, the best dawn in years.

  5. 22 August 2026

    The dawn belongs to everyone

    Instead of a rematch, Baba Ṣẹ́gun did something better. He made Small Fẹ́mi his apprentice, which is as close as the old rooster comes to admitting he was impressed. Two birds wake Kisi now, one from the tall perch and one from the water tank on his way round the fence, so the sun has never once been late since, and a coop woken and watched by the same serious young bird sleeps a little easier. But here is the honest part Baba will tell you himself: he can wake the farm, he cannot light it, and when the sun goes down the coops still go dark. Help us change that. This is the Solar & Light campaign, at farm.kisi.africa/support.

  6. 26 August 2026

    The rooster clock

    The answer came from the smallest voice in the room. Small Fẹ́mi, the young cockerel who now shares the dawn crow with Vice President Baba Ṣẹ́gun, put up a wing. 'Two of us crow the sun up on the dot now,' he said. 'Baba calls the first light, I call the second, and the second crow lands near enough to seven that no hen can argue. Peg the bell to my crow, and Order No. 1 keeps itself, because a rooster is never late.' The room went quiet, then delighted. The farm had owned a perfect clock all along. It simply had feathers, and a very good opinion of itself.

  7. 9 September 2026

    The volunteer

    Before the unease could harden into fear, a small voice spoke from the back. Small Fẹ́mi, the last of the twelve out of Coop Two on the night of the Drain, the young cockerel who has been walking the fence line on Saturdays where he thinks nobody can see him, offered to keep watch through the dark hours. 'I would rather sit in a true dark than pretend it isn't there,' he said, and this time nobody laughed. Vice President Baba Ṣẹ́gun, who has crowed up every dawn at Kisi for as long as anyone can remember, and who these mornings shares that dawn with this very cockerel, did not hesitate. The bird he already trusts with the morning, he decided, he could trust with the dark. 'Then you will not sit alone,' he said. 'I will crow the watches, and you will walk them.'

  8. 9 September 2026

    How a flock holds a night

    And so the longest night was not faced by one bird but by all of them, each doing the small thing they could. Amina Daybreak rationed the last of the panel's charge to the youngest coops, where the chicks sleep, and let the grown birds roost in the dark the way their grandmothers did. Baba Ṣẹ́gun crowed softly at each turn of the night, so every coop knew the hour and knew it was not alone. And Small Fẹ́mi walked the fence line, slow and watchful, no longer pretending nobody could see him, because tonight the whole Republic was glad that somebody did. Nothing came out of the dark. That was the point. A flock that keeps each other company does not have to be afraid of a night.

  9. 15 September 2026

    The Saturday nobody was supposed to see

    Every Saturday, Small Fẹ́mi walks the fence line at a distance, where he is certain nobody can see him, and everybody can. He has announced, more than once and to anyone slow enough to be caught, that he intends to be a coop guard. Sergeant Danladi keeps telling him the same thing, finish growing first, in the flat voice of a bird who says it to end the conversation. But Danladi does the dusk whistle every night of his life and has never once missed it, and a bird who watches that closely notices things. He had noticed that the smallest of the twelve who came out of Coop Two, the one who went back for the chick that froze, was out on that fence in the cold every single Saturday, learning it by heart, asking nobody's permission.

  10. 15 September 2026

    One night, on trial

    So one evening Danladi did a thing he does not do. He let the boy come onto the second shift, once, on trial. Not because Small Fẹ́mi had finished growing, which he had not, but because Danladi had learned a long time ago, at a water tank, on a night he does not discuss, that the job was never about size. It is about who comes back for the one who froze. He gave the boy a single task, the one Minister Okpara built the whole ministry on: the roll at the coop doors, out loud, by name. 'A number can be wrong quietly,' Danladi said, the way he had heard it said. 'A name cannot. Count them by name.'

  11. 15 September 2026

    A true answer, not a kind one

    It came, of course, the way it always comes to a first watch: a noise in the dark, out past the barred drain, and the whole old fear stood up in Small Fẹ́mi's chest at once, because he of all birds knows what once came up that channel. A lesser guard would have raised the coop in a panic, or, worse, said nothing and hoped. Small Fẹ́mi did neither. He went and looked, the way he had looked from the far side of Coop Two, and came back and gave the report exactly as it was: a fallen branch on the wire, nothing more, the drain still barred, all present. 'I would rather give a true answer,' he said, a little out of breath, 'than a kind one.' Danladi, who has spent his life on that fence, looked at the boy a long moment. That was the whole job, and the child had just done it.

  12. 15 September 2026

    The whistle, held for one night

    Danladi made him a probationary watcher, second shift, and gave no speech, because he is not a bird who makes speeches. He simply handed Small Fẹ́mi the dusk whistle, the one Danladi has never once let another bird carry, and told him to sound it tonight, and to be early. Two guards walk that fence now, one old and one still growing, and both of them are birds who once came back for someone. This is the quiet work that lets a whole flock sleep: a watched fence, a barred drain, a coop built sound, and a roll called by name at the door. It costs real feed and real building, every single night. That is what the Better Housing campaign pays for: coops built sound and drains barred, so the birds who guard them have less to fear. Back the Better Housing campaign at farm.kisi.africa/support.

  13. 21 September 2026

    The hen beyond the fence

    It was a young bird who asked, the way the young ask the questions the grown birds have quietly agreed to leave alone. Is she still out there, the hen who was sent away? Is she alright? For a moment nobody wanted to answer. The Republic does not say her name often. But Okpara, the Fence Walker, who counts the whole flock by name every night and holds that a name should never be pretended away, sat the youngster down. Her name was Eseosa, he said. She is still alive. And yes, far from here, she is alright. Those are three true things, and a flock brave enough to lose a friend should be brave enough to say them out loud.

In The Coop Times

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