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Experience the thrills of the Weekly Poems Contest.
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September 15th, 2026
Socially Engaged Poetry Contest #16 – First Place
by Adenekan Olanrewaju (Oamlad)
They called him, “Kuchekwara!” (slow down), but his throttle was a hymn to hunger-- ₦500 bribe or ₦50,000 hospital bill? His bike’s mirrors held his children’s faces, their school fees revving in the engine’s growl. At Mile 2 checkpoint, the officers grinned, their AKs slung like greedy infants. “Oga, your papers are expired,” they lied, palms greased with yesterday’s extortion. He pleaded in pidgin poetry: “Na only today pepper enter market. Make I carry last passenger, I beg—” The bullet answered first. His okada crashed into a pot-hole’s mouth, tires spinning hymns to the god of chaos. Passengers scattered like naira notes in the wind, his blood pooling where the governor promised a flyover. The cops fled, their siren a hyena’s laugh, his bike chained to their van like a slave. Now, his machine rusts in Owode Station, a shrine where touts pour engine oil libations. His ghost revs through Lagos’ nightmares, picking up phantom fares: the pregnant woman who miscarried in traffic, the student whose diploma was a coffin receipt, Fela’s ghost demanding a ride to Kalakuta. At dawn, his children hawk “pure water” by the roadside, their pockets heavy with his unpaid license. His widow braids her grief into okada keys, each plait a curse on the commissioner’s convoy. “You killed the rider, not the ride,” she hisses. “Watch his shadow outrun your bullets.”
About the Poet
Adenekan Olanrewaju (Oamlad) resides in Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria.
Read the poet's biography and Wax Poetry and Art publications
on Adenekan Olanrewaju (Oamlad)'s Artist Page.
Next in Wax Mag #11:
The World Made by Your Collarbones
Poem by Gina Gaebl
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