THE COST PER KILOMETER
How much per kilometer?
Of the road already commissioned
Imaginary …only on contract papers
But yet to be truly constructed
Or hurriedly conjured for showoff
Just like a mannequin in a showroom
The ribbon’s cutting ghost still looms
In the air just like yesterday
A memory of trumpets bief and loud
The rented and coaxed crowd smiles
Another launch, another day is done,
A monument to waste, beneath the sun.
Another taxpayers money down the drain
And we ask, how much per kilometer?
How much per kilometer ?
Of the same road with ditches
Big enough to swallow our witches
Even death itself fear these traps
Lurking and looming around
Pot holes like their potbellies
Dressed in Agbada … doing shakara
Clowned in Babariga …doing buga
How much per kilometer?
Of a journalist kicking arses
Daring…ruffling their feathers
Giving them “Gbas Gbos- Gbos Gbas”
Echoing Taye Currency’s viral tune
“Were la fi nwo were ”
Curing their madness with
A higher voltage of another madness
Only language visible in their dictionary
Though …
They prefer others licking arses
Singing their praises like demi god
Forgetting hurriedly the countdown
The ticking time bomb upon us
For no man rules forever
And no man upon earth lives forever
How much per kilometer?
Throwing shades upon faces
A serving seating minister
What an effrontery … an audacity
To question our road professor
Of a truth, our road is too bumpy
Just like our story as a nation
Too much of a cost to put a price on
The journey … very far ahead
No end in sight upon all our insights
Our path, a nation’s tale,
Is cobbled glass and stone
This road we travel is a fracture deep
And yet the horizon has not yielded
So, how much is really the cost ?
Alayande Stephen T.
9.04am
11-10-2025
