It feels like oxygen.

Drive through GRA or Peter Odili Road and look at the “for sale” boards.

Four bedroom duplex.

Five bedroom bungalow with “POP”.

Price on request.

Ask quietly and you hear the numbers.

250 million.

350 million.

Sometimes 500 million.

Land in Old GRA or around Woji that used to sound expensive at 5 million now goes for 40 million, 60 million, even higher depending on the street.

Who exactly are these houses for?

Certainly not the average young professional earning 150,000 or 300,000 a month.

Certainly not the small business owner still battling diesel costs.

Yet construction continues.

Opulent mansions.

Tall gates.

Empty compounds with security men guarding silence.

Somewhere along the line, money stopped being about stability.

It became about dominance.

In Port Harcourt today, everyone is chasing.

Contracts.

Oil servicing deals.

Government connections.

Land before the price doubles again.

Cut corners if you must.

Inflate if you can.

Secure the bag before someone else does.

Integrity begins to look optional.

When houses cost half a billion naira and salaries barely move, something shifts in people.

Corruption starts to feel rational.

Dishonesty begins to look like survival.

Winning becomes more important than fairness.

The 1 percent build higher fences.

The rest watch from outside the gate.

And the question nobody asks loudly is this.

If the city becomes unaffordable to its own young people,

who exactly is Port Harcourt being built for?