O Ye Drivers! ! ! Poem by Samuel Segun Toluwalase

We that swim in blindness
For in our ignorance we shall head for the wildness
Year after year our lamentations rise to the heavens
Like a fowl offering of innocent fools

Am not touched at my language
For we have for too long bore in bondage
You reading
Lend your ears and listen

You know not the way they run this vehicle
After we all are done casting fares
They clutch to everything
Leaving you me and us all with a souvenir of nothing

Our badly beaten vehicle stands in mud of green
And in the mist of pretty petals cut open in splash of white
For all resources have they plunged in assets and mansions in wealthy nests
And some have wisely reserved for us in safe reservoirs


For our reservoirs spread over
In septic tanks and abandoned houses
Oh yes, new reserve inventions.
We now have our money under beds and cursed mattresses

Monies of passengers whose children starve and die
Whose relatives pass time in hospital beds
And with lies and deceit they have flattened our tires
And turned our petal white brown

O ye Drivers! ! !
Let old and young get to their desired destination
You leave our mouths agape in wonder
Of your unfathomable theft and your miraculous court escape

You that make the rules and bend it
You that quote the laws and refute it
You that grow fat with illiteracy like an untamed bull
And still scream to our ears "there is God o"

For with our sweat you have gathered your wealth
And ye that seeketh to uproot corruption
First, uproot yourselves
Oh ye drivers! ! ! ! !