The ocean returns like a patient ancestor,
its tide a slow knocking at the door,
persistent, certain,
threading saltwater through the cracked tar
of streets long abandoned by planners
who sign their names on blueprints
they never intend to enforce.
Broad Street, Marina, Idumota —
each one a reminder
that water remembers its old rights
even when governments forget theirs.
Houses breathe dampness now.
Walls swell like lungs learning a difficult truth,
cement thinning where contractors cut corners,
paint blistering into small, sad maps
of where the water has already been.
Rebar rusts like a confession.
Children still play in courtyards
that glisten with a thin film of tide,
their laughter bright, defiant,
a kind of hope that doesn’t yet know
how cheaply their futures are costed.
Vendors lift their stalls onto bricks,
then onto crates,
then onto anything that floats.
The market smells of diesel, wet plywood,
and the quiet panic of people
who know the state will arrive only
to collect taxes, never to build drains.
They speak of tomorrow
as though tomorrow is a stubborn neighbour
who will always answer the door.
But their eyes flick to the gutters
where the lagoon rises like a rumour
that refuses to stay quiet
a rumour truer than any press release.
Above them, the corporate world climbs skyward,
glass towers piercing the haze
like promises written in steel.
Executives talk of resilience,
of innovation,
of outpacing the water by reaching the clouds.
Yet the ground beneath these skyscrapers
softens with each tide,
and the buildings tilt
just slightly
a bow, a warning…
as if remembering the others
that collapsed under the weight
of bribes, shortcuts, and silence.
Still, people stay.
They patch walls, raise floors,
stack sandbags like prayers,
whispering into the humid air.
Hope here is not naïve;
it is a muscle,
worked to exhaustion,
yet still lifting
because leaving is a luxury
and staying is a sentence
passed down by policy.
But loss moves through the streets too:
in the abandoned shops,
the sinking foundations,
the cracked pillars that lean like tired elders,
and the quiet resignation of those
who remember when the land was firm
and the ocean kept its distance,
before the city was sold
piece by piece
to the highest bidder.
Despair lingers at the edges,
a shadow cast by the future,
yet even it is met with a kind of Lagos stubbornness
a refusal to surrender a city
built from sweat, noise, and impossible dreams,
even as leaders trade those dreams
for contracts and ribbon‑cuttings.
And so Lagos Island stands,
half‑drowned, half‑defiant,
a place where people cling to the present
as the ocean reclaims its past,
and the future waits offshore,
rising with the tide
a tide no manifesto
has ever managed to hold back.
