Corruption no longer hides in the shadows,
it walks proudly in bright sunlight,
wearing an agbada stitched with threads
spun from stolen gold.
It rides in long convoys,
sirens screaming for traffic to move aside,
while everyday people sweat in buses
that cough smoke like dying goats.
It eats under chandeliers
paid for with money meant to fix leaking roofs
in schools where children write on their knees.
It wears perfume from London and Dubai,
sweet as mango,
while drains outside government offices
smell like forgotten corpses of promises.
Corruption is in road contracts
reborn in budgets year after year ...
tenth time a charm!
Yet the road remains
a brown river of potholes
where trucks drown,
school buses crawl like sick snails,
and ambulances collapse halfway to hope.
It hides in “security votes” worth billions
that vanish faster than sugar in tea,
while soldiers in the North East
borrow boots from one another.
It waves from police stations
where patrol cars sleep without fuel,
and police commissioners
sign papers richer than the stations themselves.
Corruption clinks champagne glasses in VIP lounges
while patients die waiting for oxygen.
It pats ministers on the back,
those who build new hospitals on paper,
then call doctors abroad
when their chests refuse to breathe.
It laughs with governors
who give school repair contracts to cousins,
while children learn under mango trees
with blackboards balanced on bricks.
We see politicians promise light to every home,
while generator sellers -- their fat friends,
smile behind them,
knowing darkness pays better.
We watch them swear oaths on the constitution
with the right hand
and hold bundles of bribes with the left.
We watch them kneel in holy places,
praying for “wisdom to serve”
as their foreign bank accounts
grow fatter than hippos in rainy season.
Corruption eats deep,
like termites chewing the bones of the nation.
It sits in hospitals with unpaid doctors,
in universities on strike,
in exam halls where answers are sold in envelopes,
and on highways where “security checkpoints”
are cash collection points.
It whispers in land offices,
in immigration rooms,
at borders where smugglers
walk past smiling inspectors.
Worst of all, corruption is now a culture ...
a glittering crown
passed from one ruler to the next.
Its jewels are polished lies,
its gold the stolen future of our children.
Every year, the crown grows heavier,
bowing Nigeria’s neck lower and lower
like a plant bending under locusts.
This crown will not fall by itself.
If we do not break it ..
with our votes,
with fair laws,
with the courage to tell thieves “no” ...
the same potholes will be here
when our children grow grey hair.
The same speeches will be repeated,
only the faces will change.
If we delay,
the rot will reach the heart,
and Nigeria will not limp ...
she will collapse.
Silence will feed the sickness,
and it will eat us whole.
Politicians will keep stealing,
judges will keep freeing thieves,
police will collect small bribes
and ignore big ones,
and citizens will keep saying,
“Na their business, not mine.”
But it is everybody’s business now —
the farmer in the village,
the trader in the market,
the student in class,
the driver on the road,
the officer in uniform,
the worker in the court.
We must all say: enough.
Stop selling your vote for rice or coins.
Police — stop taking roadside money,
catch the real looters.
Judges — stop hiding behind long grammar,
jail the big names who rob the people.
We fight this rot together,
or we sink together.
The potholes will not care who you are.
The bad hospitals will not ask your tribe.
The power cuts will visit rich and poor alike,
like mosquitoes at night.
The time is now.
Stand.
Speak.
Refuse the bribe.
Vote with clean hands.
Judge with a straight face.
Break this crown —
or wear it
until it crushes the breath
out of every one of us.
EBIKABOWEI KEDIKUMO - writes from Ayakoromo Town, ,Delta State
