By Omenazu Jackson
21st August 2026
The journey from Calabar to Port Harcourt,
Not a road, but a wound on the nation’s skin.
A shame of decades, paved with broken promises,
A stormy path where silence screams louder than thunder.
Billions swallowed, yet dust still reigns,
The asphalt never healed,
Contracts signed, funds drained,
But the highway remains a graveyard of accountability.
And there—
Young men stand like exiles on their own soil,
Stripped of work, stripped of dignity,
Eyes hollow with hunger,
Dreams reduced to whispers in the wind.
In desperation for survival,
They block the highway with stones.
Not to declare war,
But to eche a living,
To beg with barricades,
To cry out in silence:
“We too are children of this land.”
The stones rise, jagged and raw,
Symbols of despair heaped upon tar,
Each rock a word unspoken,
Each pile a prayer unanswered.
Signs of despair,
Carved in the language of poverty,
Where hands once strong for labor
Now stretch out for coins from passersby.
O Niger Delta, cradle of wealth,
Your rivers feed the oil lamps of nations,
Yet your children walk barefoot on broken roads,
Your mothers cook with firewood,
While your riches burn in foreign refineries.
Where is justice?
Buried in committee rooms,
Drowned in files that gather dust,
Mocked in contracts inflated and abandoned.
The National Assembly calls for a public hearing,
But will they hear the stones speak?
Will they read the road’s testimony,
Or only their scripted lies?
In those chambers of power,
Lies are polished into speeches,
Statistics dressed like kings,
Yet the truth hides in plain sight—
That the Niger Delta has been bled
Without a healing hand.
Still, the people endure,
They rise like mangroves from the swamp,
Bent but unbroken,
Rooted in resilience,
Waiting for a dawn when the toll gate of stone
Shall crumble into history.
Let the lawmakers travel this road,
Let their tires taste the dust,
Let their convoys stall in the mud,
Then perhaps their hearts will understand—
That leadership is not comfort,
But the burden of compassion.
O road of pain, O stone of shame,
You are not just a highway,
But a testimony,
A mirror reflecting our national decay.
Yet within your cracks, hope breathes,
For a people too strong to surrender,
Too resilient to fade.
Until justice arrives,
Until accountability speaks,
The Niger Delta shall chant its sorrow—
And the toll gate of stone shall remain,
A monument of truth,
Carved into the conscience of a nation.
A poem depicting the sad story of economically subjugated youths of Niger Delta and poor road infastructure in a region that has produced Billions of Dollars.
What a country.
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