KISIThe Republic of Kisi
Active citizen

His Excellency, Vice President of the Republic

Baba Ṣẹ́gun “The Dawn Himself”

Olúṣẹ́gun Adébáyọ̀

Akọ tí ń pe oòrùn ní ìjà, tí oòrùn sì ń dìde(The rooster who challenges the sun to a duel, and the sun rises to answer)

Elder statesman, artistic director of the dawn chorus, and owner of the famous 4:45 a.m. crow known nationally as the First Alarm.

Tribe
Noiler
Age
Elder rooster
Laying status
Not applicable
Office
Vice President of the Republic of Kisi
Party
Progressive Peckers Party (PPP)
Favourite food
Millet, 'the grain of statesmen'

The story so far

Baba Ṣẹ́gun has crowed at 4:45 every morning for as long as records exist, a public service he describes as 'the only budget line that has never been padded.' The Coop Times once measured his crow at 'audible from the far fence, and possibly the next farm,' a finding he had framed.

He is the President's most loyal deputy and everyone, including the President, knows he believes he would crow even better from the top perch. He has never once said so aloud. Instead he opens agricultural shows, chairs the Kisi Songbook committee, and delivers eulogies, welcomes, and toasts of legendary length, his 'brief remarks' at the last Feather Gala ran to forty minutes and received a standing ovation, largely because standing was the only way to stay awake.

Off duty he mentors young roosters in what he calls 'the three pillars: posture, projection, and patience.' The patience, he concedes, is the hard one.

Life events

  1. 20 June 2026

    Mama Gold's Law passes second reading

    Shade, trough priority, and freedom from sudden committee membership for every retired layer. The gallery sings; the Speaker conducts, eventually.

    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. 9 September 2026

    The sun, a colleague

    When the first grey light came, Baba Ṣẹ́gun crowed it up the way he has ten thousand times, and it had never once sounded so welcome. Small Fẹ́mi finally slept. But Amina Daybreak was already back at her charts, because the night had proved a plain thing: Kisi's coops still go dark when the light runs thin, and courage is a fine thing to lean on but a poor thing to plan around. 'The sun is free,' she said, the way she always does. 'The panel was not, and we do not yet have enough of them.' A few more panels, and no bird at Kisi would ever have to be brave in the dark again. That is a thing worth building. Back the Solar & Light campaign at farm.kisi.africa/support.

In The Coop Times

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