30/03/2026
“The Bridge Remembers Everyone Who Forgot It”
You’ve never used it. Don’t lie.
You’ve crossed that highway on foot at least thirty times this year alone. Dodging danfo, almost getting clipped by a okada, one hand on your bag, one eye on the traffic, heart doing things hearts shouldn’t do at 7am. And the whole time the bridge was right there. Same place it’s always been. You just looked at the stairs and thought, no! Too far. Too much. I’ll manage.
We always manage. That’s the Lagos way.
So the bridge just stands there collecting our excuses and the sun’s abuse. The blue paint is peeling. The concrete is splitting in places nobody has reported because who has time to report a bridge when NEPA hasn’t given you light for like 3 days, no water and your landlord is calling. There’s a man who has turned the space underneath into something like a home. Mattress, bags, a small organisation of things that belong to someone who ran out of options. The government built the bridge to protect pedestrians. It’s protecting somebody sha, just not in the way they planned.
And then five o’clock hits.
Suddenly everybody remembers the bridge exists. The stairs are full, shoulders are touching, somebody’s pressing you from behind because they’re late and you’re in the way. For one hour this bridge is everything it was supposed to be! Packed, alive, doing its job, holding Lagos on its back. You’re up there moving with the crowd and the sun is going down and the whole city spreads out golden and loud beneath you and for a second you think uhmm why don’t I do this every day?
Then you get to the other side and forget immediately………
Continued on my Substack
