Kalakuta Republic is a powerful collection of poems detailing the harrowing experiences endured by Abani and others at the hands of Nigeria's military regime in the late 1980s. Abani's poems are dedicated to those who experienced but did not live through the suffering. In the poems, he describes the characters that people this dark world, from the prison inmates to their torturers, the generals. Kalakuta Republic is based on Abani's experience as political prisoner between 1985 and 1991.