A thousand naira for freedom on Nigeria’s Third Mainland bridge, By Babafemi A. Badejo

I lived in Eastern Africa for about sixteen years, eleven of which was in Kenya but working on Somalia. My Kenya years were very impactful. I learnt a lot. Even though I was, lazy on language, I was a big observant of the country, including of its fauna. Many a time I drove within the Kenya National Park in Nairobi and went beyond to Amboseli, Nakuru, Maasai Mara, etc.

I had observed carnivorous animals chase and subdued weaker herbivorous animals. As A Y O dot, my friend, tells me, an Impala or a Gnu a.k.a. Wildebeest that are herbivorous animals have no chance of making a plea to the Lioness not kill them for food when they really never hurt any of the members of a Lion’s pride. Once the Lioness has zeroed in on one, it is a case of snuffing life out of another living animal. There could be a thousand Wildebeest, once one is grabbed, the others flee. A similar situation is it between Crocodiles and Wildebeests, as the latter, in droves, annually cross the Mara River from Tanzania into Kenya to forage until time to instinctively all return to Tanzania. Zebras et.al., join in the annual crossing. Once a Crocodile grabs a Gnu, the hundreds of crossing Zebra, Gnu etc., do not look back. The strength in number was never to be deployed in these situations.

The feeling was unmistakable—a sense of helplessness, like a Zebra caught in the jaws of a Lion or a Wildebeest pulled under by a crocodile. This was exactly how I felt as I descended the Third Mainland Bridge going in the direction of Ibadan on October 30, 2024 at about 17:00 a.k.a. 5 pm. I left a 70th Birthday party of a friend I grew up with that held at Ebute-Metta. It was a great opportunity to not only felicitate with the celebrant but also a re-union with old friends, especially Olusesan Ekisola. There is so much campaign to keep old social networks for longevity. We left the party at the same time for fear of traffic and its accompanying vicissitudes.

All of a sudden, I had several banging on my car that was slowed down to about 5 Km an hour. It was not stand still. It was moving. Three or four young men were hitting my car with their fists indicating that they were hungry and I must feed them. It was a command and nothing near a plea. I shouted back asking why am I responsible for their feeding. The one in front, grabbed the mirror part of the rear-view mirror casing indicating to me that he would pull it out if I don’t immediately provide money for food.

I remembered what my son said happened to his car on March 5, 2024. He had a meeting on behalf of his company with some foreign investors. The foreigners had another meeting on the Marina and he asked his driver to drive them there instead of using Uber. This was the type of hospitable behaviour I expected of him. As the driver and foreigners descended Eko Bridge towards joining Marina, some guy came begging for feeding money. He was ignored. He yanked off the mirror of the rear-view mirror. It cost my son an arm and a leg to replace.

I had posted the experience of my son on a WhatsApp platform that I belong which platform also has highly placed Nigerians, including at least one Minister, several Advisers and those we refer to as Awaiting Office or Awaiting Contracts in the current government of Nigeria. There were some expressions of sympathy for my son and Nigeria with the thinking that those foreigners will not invest here. To my dismay, a friend dismissed it—this was just daily life in Lagos. But I now know that he was saying the truth. Another truth was that those foreigners would invest in spite of their experience if the returns would be good and their investment reasonably secured by all sorts of insurance, including sovereign guarantees in some cases with the interests of senior officials.

I was on the fastest lane that was moving at the speed of the Tortoise, meaning at least more than the Snail. Here I was, living that same “daily life,” wishing the cars around me would notice my plight. I am sure they did but could not be bothered. I thought of crashing into the car next to mine in the middle lane as everyone drove on as if nothing was happening. I thought about the cost to repair two or more cars if I behaved instinctively. I could see the Governor Sanwo-Olu installed CCTV cameras ahead and wondered about the deception that those cameras would boost our security as people are supposedly watching over us 24/7. But realistically, even if someone was indeed watching at a control center, what could have been done? Deploy armed drones or helicopters of the Rapid Response Squad as would be the case in situations of governments that indeed govern? So much on the ruse on how the deployment of drones would sniff out kidnappers, who are known and given chieftaincy titles and digitalization would reduce corruption, etc. A decadent and problem of lack of values and consequences for criminal behaviour cannot be solved by corrupt deployment of technology.

I beckoned to the guy viciously holding unto my mirror as I drove on, and he jogged along, to ask the other guys to stop following us so I can find something for him. He instructed them and they complied. It was not easy to grab my wallet from my tight Yoruba “Sokoto”. My favourite late nephew had insisted to my wife that his Tailor must sew my dresses and I should stop looking older than my age. He had joined all in my family to insist that I should no longer be driving myself. But that I rejected, insisting that I would stop driving only when my body gives me the message.

My hands were shaking. I was being violated even though without matchet or guns as I later learned that others do. I grabbed 500 naira, which my Special Adviser said he learned as being called a Figo when he once faced the exact experience at Ketu a while and he did not even bother to tell me. He had also been cut with a matchet in Abuja in the past for daring to walk a short distance in search of salvation on a Christmas eve. I wondered about what food could a Figo buy since we got the renewed hope government of Nigeria with its whopping devaluation. He was looking at me as I fiddled and my wallet dropped but I had grabbed another 500 naira. He was patient with me he knew he had subdued me and like the Impala, all other drivers would not assist me. I was literally, on my own.

I had learned from my days in the conflict zones that I had some level of protection while remaining in my car, more so a moving car even if slowly without any opportunity to bolt without damage to my car. I knew I was about to expose myself in handing the one thousand naira over. I wound down a bit to the extent of allowing only the notes to slip through as we continued in motion. He left my mirror and grabbed the naira notes and expressed gratitude and said: “Baba, go on, you are free”.

As I drove on for about half a kilometre, I saw a Policeman walking towards me. It did not occur to me to waste my time in spite of the constant reminder that the Police was my friend in many advertisements. And I cannot blame the underfunded and under-staffed Nigerian Police Force. However, it is also important that even the few available police officers are deployed to help those with real money to move around and live a life of no fears from hoodlums. When they were not doing this more lucrative service, they were chasing vehicle particulars from motor drivers, crimes that should be ignored as unimportant in the face of the anarchy that is brewing in our country. This is more so as the Sanwo-Olu CCTV cameras have been catching those whose car papers had expired but still on the road, slamming them with huge sums as penalties. Your guess is as good as mine as to why the Police, the Vehicle Inspection Officers, the Federal Road Safety Corps, etc., are respectively busy checking car papers.

I related my experience to a bosom friend who told me that his wife had been accosted at the same spot I was at and successfully robbed twice. Each time she was being driven, she normally fretted at that same spot, scared that she would be attacked again. She had seen other people being attacked and moved on as I would have done. But her husband made a significant point. It is those of us in cars that never react when one of us is getting the treatment of an Antelope from a Lioness or a Crocodile. He noted that dispatch riders on motor-bicycles would stop if anything untoward was happening to any of their own and rescue the one under attack from any criminal or even law-enforcement not to talk of an unfortunate car driver that knocks one of their own down.

I had to drive the same route on the following day returning from panel discussion at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs. I chose to move not later than 2 pm when traffic was lighter. I realized that I had been psychologically affected, may be not to the extent of using the word traumatized. Even moving at about 40 kms an hour, I was thinking the boys may surface again.

I share this story not out of optimism but to underscore the sad reality we face: a country where security is an afterthought, where leadership is so corrupt, and where the roads are made safe only for those in power. For the rest of us, survival has become a matter of luck and, sometimes, a thousand-naira (One Naira as nicknamed by Agberos in Lagos)compulsory gift for “freedom.”

On a larger note, the signs of things getting to this point especially in Lagos have always been there. The increasing presence of unemployed, unproductive very hungry young men easily deployed as tools of political oppression and destruction in any society should not be left unattended to.  The security menace they constitute only became more harrowing since we got the renewed hope government of Nigeria.

Babafemi A. Badejo, author of a best-seller on politics in Kenya, was a former Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Somalia and is currently a Legal Practitioner and Professor of Political Science & International Relations at Chrisland University, Abeokuta. Nigeria.