(OPINION) May Lagos Never Happen To You – By Dauda Busari

This case exposed the many types of clandestine operations carried out in the LASTMA Agege operational yard. I managed to interact with people and noticed that they operate a system that fleeces the government of substantial internally generated revenue. Many of the operatives sit idly in the yard, gossiping all day while awaiting returns from the ‘boys.’

WHEN on January 1, 1964, legendary social critic and courageous reformer, Tai Solarin, penned a piece titled, May your road be rough, to usher Nigerians into the New Year, this visionary leader’s strange prayer was perceived and interpreted by many a Nigerian as a curse.

Indeed, to say that our road has since been rough is but an understatement. It has been a hectic and hellish affair that thrives on widespread impunity foregrounded on a perverted philosophy. Being a product of the jaundiced Nigerian environment, the Yoruba man, perhaps, aptly captures this sickness in his age-long adage, which openly robes governmental personifications with the garb of immunity against law and order— A gbe fun Oba ki je ‘bi (He who pursues the cause of government can’t be wrong).

Undoubtedly, the Lagos State Government surpassed all other states in what I will hereby tag as the ‘Post #EndSARS reaction race’. In fact, this supposed Centre of Excellence is so nicknamed due to its perceived comparative edge, which has led multitudes to rate its agents, including the civil servants as the first among equals in the realm of government workers nationwide.

But, alas! Lagos is very far from the Nigerian paradise it purports to be. Although many of my friends will readily agree that my political ideology leans more towards the ruling party in Lagos, yet the truth must be told, many things are wrong with the state that prides itself as the fifth largest economy in Africa. One wonders if the state’s managers have ever considered seeking feedback on the activities in the various Ministries, Departments and Agencies from the people. Over-reliance on the reports supplied by state officials may not be factual.

Much thanks to the ongoing industrial action by the Academic Staff Union of Universities, which has given me so much time for leisure. It has opened my horizon to things that hitherto I never believed could happen in Lagos going by the gauge the government and its functionaries have painted of the so-called ‘mega city.’ One has been conditioned to believe that Lagos has the best crops of civil servants and agents, a civil service that is more efficient than even the federal civil service.

This perspective is not entirely true.

Recently, at about mid-day, while about to drive into my compound, my attention was magnetised by the panicky run of a neighbour, a nursing mother, clutching her less than a year-old daughter to her chest. As she sprinted out onto the rough street, the sight of a horde of fellow neighbours, who joined her in the desperate race, confirmed my fears that all was not well with the baby.

Stupefied by the scene, I enquired and discovered that the woman’s daughter had suffered some high degree burns and that the mom was rushing her to the hospital.

I was left with no choice but to offer them an emergency ride to the hospital. The initial respite heralded by our arrival at the nearest Primary Health Care Centre was vain. The facility had closed at that time of the day (maybe it did not even open for the day). Pained by the pain the girl was going through and having discovered that lack of funds was the reason the mother chose that public health facility, I took the restless entourage to a nearby private clinic where the girl got some first aid treatment before a referral to the Ifako Ijaiye General Hospital.

All we got at Ifako Ijaiye was yet another referral to the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital. All that was seamless at LASUTH was the payment of the parking fee, which eventually ushered us into a long, tension-soaked wait at the Surgical Emergency Unit. It was an agonising wait that spanned over two hours while we watched the toddler writhing in pain. Treatment eventually began, two hours after, and most sympathisers returned home; only to receive the bad news the day after—the toddler died!

What an avoidable disaster! Undoubtedly, both the pains and death would have, most likely, been averted if she had received first aid attention at our first port of call—the Primary Health Care Centre that was under locks and keys. Worse still, to recall that no slightest attention was given to the emergency nature of her condition at a full-fledged government-owned medical facility (Ifako Ijaye General Hospital) made her fate look like murder while the lackadaisical attitudes of LASUTH staff, including doctors, not only capped it all but also answered the question, who killed her.

Our rotten system was the sledgehammer that killed the little ant in a manner that has always been the norm in our public institutions, not just the health. After all, nothing has happened and nothing is likely to ever happen; the episode of demised girl is obviously too infinitesimal to cause the slightest stir, let alone a serious investigation and consequences. What a pity!

And, in a manner that affirmed my fears about deep-seated systemic rots in Lagos and beyond, the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority enacted a drama, just 72 hours after the demise of the unfortunate girl. The drama is not new but a very familiar one. But what makes it important in this piece is its status as a popular indicator of the need for somebody to do something about what nobody has, for long, done anything about. A case of just as it has always been in our hospitals, so it has also been on our roads.

The story unfolded on Tuesday, March 23, 2022. While driving to accomplish some daily routine, I ran into a scene of conflict between a truck driver and a three-man LASTMA team which, I learnt, pursued the truck driver to that point, using a tricycle.

I met the LASTMA personnel struggling with the driver, in a physical engagement that almost degenerated into a scuffle, which placed the helpless truck driver at the receiving end.

Once again, my patriotic zeal made intervention irresistible for me. His crime that was so heavy as to lead to a physical brawl that generated a serious traffic gridlock was, according to the LASTMA operators, he failed to use his seat belt while driving. So, they had to chase him from the Abule Egba Junction on the Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway (under the Bridge) only to catch up with him at a very busy inner-road interchange junction.

All our pleas to the agents of the law to let traffic peace return fell on deaf ears. The ‘culprit’ must be arrested and his truck taken to their office. “No problem,” a number of men, including this writer, chose to accompany the truck driver to their office to probably make their superiors see reason and temper justice with mercy. Perhaps, our presence will make them execute the law with a human face, since it was even our pleas, as sympathisers, that ironically compelled the officers to summon a backup team. In fact, it was just the voice of an official of the Governor’s Office that placated them into allowing the driver to handle his truck on the trip to their Agege office. Otherwise, your guess is as good as mine.

Actually, to hear from the officials that the erring driver would only be made to render a three-hour punitive community service for his seat-belt offence was somewhat soothing, pacifying and reassuring to most of us. But, we only wanted to ensure that we had not worsened the driver’s fate. Hence, the group trip to the LASTMA Yard where the whole story changed from social to monetary punishment.

Ouch! A fine ticket was issued within a twinkle of an eye. The whole of N20,000 must be paid as a fine for a single traffic offence in a nation where the average worker is still struggling to secure an average of N30,000 monthly salary, which the law had since 2018 granted him.

This case exposed the many types of clandestine operations carried out in the LASTMA Agege operational yard. I managed to interact with people and noticed that they operate a system that fleeces the government of substantial internally generated revenue. Many of the operatives sit idly in the yard, gossiping all day while awaiting returns from the ‘boys.’ The ‘boys’ are members of the cartel used as a decoy and empowered by the ‘big ogas’ (Zonal commanders) to arrest unsuspecting drivers using ‘Keke Marwa’, ‘korope’ painted in yellow colour, etc. For us, the non-conformists, the punishment for not towing their line and for being confrontational was the payment of the legal fine into a Lagos State government coffer. Though we sought the option of the mobile court, the officials will have none of this.

On the whole, it is not the demise of the eight-month old whose life was cut short by institutionalised impunity or the LASTMA fine which we, as sympathising patriots, had to contribute to assist the truck driver that necessitated the public outcry which this piece represents. Rather, it is the helpless sobriety of a patriot over the humongous waste that the widely highly rated efforts and investments of the Lagos State Government, over the years, on the establishment and training of its officials in various agencies has ever seemed to be. What is actually puzzling is the obvious truth that our elected officials, particularly the executive, seem to rely exclusively on feedbacks from their various enforcement agencies while ignoring the need to reach out to the people, the masses, for whose sake laws and policies are ordinarily crafted and implemented, to get the true picture of our realities as a state and nation. To be candid, we the masses are no longer citizens but susceptible ‘victims’ who daily pray that Lagos does not happen to us any time, any day.

 

Dauda Busari