A Christmas Journey Seen Through a Goat’s Eyes

(By Frank Ofili)

Along the Shagamu–Benin expressway, where the road stretches like a long sigh toward the East, a small drama unfolds on the roof of a moving car. It is not announced with sirens or ceremony. It does not interrupt traffic. Yet it carries a quiet weight that lingers long after the vehicle has passed.

A goat stands there—brown-coated, alert, balanced against the wind—tied firmly, unmistakably out of place. Below him, the car hums with purpose: luggage packed tight, boot straining under red suitcases, a family likely eager to reunite, to laugh, to celebrate Christmas. Above it all, the goat rides on, an unwilling passenger on a journey whose destination he will never see.

There is something haunting in the way he stands. Not frantic. Not resisting. Just still. His posture feels like understanding. As though, in the strange wisdom animals sometimes carry, he already knows what awaits him at the end of this road. Not a new home. Not freedom. But a pot, steaming gently in the back of a kitchen, where celebration will be seasoned with his flesh.

And so, sympathy rises—not loud, not accusatory, but heavy and human. Because Christmas, for us, is life intensified: joy, food, reunion, abundance. For him, it is the narrowing of time.

The goat did not choose Shagamu or Benin, the East or the West. He did not plan for December, nor bargain for tradition. He did not consent to being the silent contribution to festivity. Yet here he is, exposed to the sun and the stares of passing motorists, bearing his fate with a dignity that feels almost unfair.

Perhaps that is what makes the image so moving. It reminds us that every celebration has a cost we rarely pause to acknowledge. That while we hurry home to loved ones, someone else—something else—is being carried toward an ending so that our tables may be full.

This is not an argument against tradition, nor a plea to abandon customs that bind families together. It is simply a moment of recognition. A nod of compassion. A quiet respect for a life that will soon be transformed into memory, into nourishment, into another Christmas story told around a fire.

As the car disappears down the expressway, the goat remains with us—in thought, if not in flesh. A small reminder that even in joy, there is sacrifice; and even in feasting, there is loss.

And so, to the goat who rode the highway knowing more than we care to admit: may your final journey be gentle, and may your story soften us, if only for a moment, in a season meant for mercy.