Today is Friday. And such is the frenzy that hallmarks our existence in a turbulent environment like Lagos that there is always something to engage our attention. What takes the cake at the moment, however, is the face-off between a commercial driver and a component of Officialdom in Lagos.
As the reports go, the driver’s vehicle was about to be seized by some state officials. Such a process would have been attended with the consequence of income loss. But the gentleman, a fellow Nigerian like you and I, and presumably a citizen decided to end it all by setting himself ablaze with petrol, which came in handy.
Again as the reports go, he had lost his job towards the end of last year. And as such, that vehicle which was about his main source of sustenance was on the verge of being seized. This is life in its raw elemental form as played out on our streets. What transpired would have provided some raw materials for the likes of Soyinka and the rest of that hallowed crowd. But unfortunately, this is no make-believe. Rather, this is life and death being enacted in contemporary Lagos, Nigeria.
It is easy to rationalise and dwell on those catchphrases like road-rage and urban crush. For whatever they are worth; we have to leave those seductive terms to our colleagues in academia. For the human dimensions are too searing and numbing. They speak to what it takes to exist in an urban setting like ours. And indeed, such are the odds in the daily grind of life that an institution like Lagos officialdom has decided to compound the odds.
Even as one reflects on all these, particularly its human dimensions, something close to the opposite of this tragic situation occurred in a different context. In another episode, a harassed driver, decided to slit the throat of a Lagos State enforcement officer who at the moment is struggling for his life so that he will not cross over to the other side. The common feature here is that the dead driver and the nearly-dead official are both men with families, who have dependants.
It must be admitted here that the various Lagos State agencies on our roads were not conceived to snuff out lives. The intention was to ease the flow of traffic. But this noble objective also comes with the need to rein in errant drivers. This is to impose fines on them with a view to ensuring deterrence.
But clearly, things have not turned out that way – at least in practical terms. Power can be intoxicating. The various indices of officialdom have come into some power on the roads, and they are also perhaps goaded on by the need to meet revenue targets, no matter what.
As I raised this and other issues with colleagues of mine that I confer with every Wednesday; I was to find and learn that these altercations/encounters between drivers, road users and officialdom in Lagos have a pervasive ring. One after the other, they recounted their individual stories.
In the process, I also discovered that there were so many other episodes which consistently undermine our humanity. There is for instance the struggling and battered middle-class couple. In the course of their daily struggles, they have to put on the road, a van for the distribution of one of their goods.
Rarely is the day in which the driver does not return with stories of encounters with the traffic police. Invariably, such encounters involve extortion: official and unofficial. Thank God, however, the results, at least so far, have not been as disastrous as the one narrated in the opening lines of this piece. Even then, other narratives from my colleagues are as bad if not worse.
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For instance, there was another commercial driver, who was apprehended by the self-same social forces in Lagos.
He paid up once – only to be apprehended again. He paid up again. By the time this particular story repeated itself again. He had a heart attack. And that was it – he became another statistic of our infamous traffic officials. Even then, there was yet another story in which another commercial driver was so incensed by the atrocities of Lagos officialdom that he decided to carry the battle to the enemy’s territory.
This particular driver had had enough. So, he decided in a stark and brutal way to run over a road traffic enforcement official with his vehicle. Indeed, one can go on.
It is possible to ask here: where is our humanity? It is worth stressing that these various agencies were conceived as a saviour almost with messianic aims to instill sanity on our roads. But at the moment they can be deemed as a scourge.
Incidentally, not just to drivers but to themselves as well. This is because just as they are oppressors, it is evident that they are also being oppressed. Clearly these various indices of officialdom must change or be made to do so.
Just as they are killing people, they are also being killed.
Admittedly, such is the harsh life in the jungle called urban living that what is being said here, may appear to be normal.
But even then, terms like normal and abnormal can easily be interchangeable. In these trying times, something must definitely give. We can certainly not go on like this. Officials who are supposed to ease life for the inhabitants of the city have since turned out to be their tormentors. In saying all these, even in this same Lagos, some of us live in what can be called splendid isolation. More often than not, especially in the light of our ostentatious vehicles, we are able to escape the eagle eyes and claws of officialdom in Lagos. Still, we must stop and think that every man’s death in a way diminishes the rest of us, even the so-called privileged. Indeed, the worth of our privilege is as low as the death of that commercial driver. Traffic enforcement officials and others who police our roads must turn a new leaf.
It is important for them to be more humane in the discharge of their legitimate duties. I do know that being humans, chances are that they get transformed, once they don those uniforms. Still one cannot but urge them to remember here those famous lines in Fela’s biting ditty: uniform na cloth, na tailor they sew am.
Beyond those officials on the streets however are those super structural organs which control and supervise those officials on our roads. These organs need to do a lot of re-thinking. Among other questions that should be raised and addressed urgently are: how do we put in place repentant and reformed new officials that will be more responsive to the needs of road users.
How do we ensure a turn-around in the minds and attitudes of these officials?
How do we infuse a new orientation into the attitudes of the commercial drivers themselves? There is a caveat here however. These particular questions are being asked, with the full consciousness that a risk is possibly being incurred. Since we are probably blaming the victims. And talking of victims, it is possible to contend without over stretching it, that we in the ultimate sense, are all victims. For it is not easy to be at ease in any meaningful way, on a platform where death has been cheapened and rendered cheaper by officials of the state.
Things cannot continue like this. One can only hope here that the big bosses in Alausa, and their own bigger bosses are reading this piece. Still, dear readers, despite the bleakness in the land as reflected in this piece; have a happy weekend. And may the souls of the departed rest in peace and may he give succour and comfort to their dependants.
