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Leaders ignore suffering
Citizens endure silently
Raging requires planning
-安天美
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The image haunts us still: thousands of Lagosians trapped in endless lines of metal and exhaust, the independence bridge closure transforming a routine commute into an ordeal stretching five, seven, ten hours. Bodies cramped in vehicles, fuel gauges dropping toward empty, appointments missed, children waiting. This was suffering made manifest through the casual indifference of those entrusted with public welfare. When leaders ignore suffering, they transform from servants to oppressors, their silence a statement louder than any official announcement.
The true violence lies in the predictability. A crowded city of over twenty million, a vital infrastructure point, a post-holiday rush hour. These factors required no specialised knowledge to anticipate, only the basic humanity to consider how decisions affect lives. Leadership without empathy becomes mismanagement of resources, where citizens transform into statistics, their time and dignity expendable commodities in calculations that prioritise everything except human experience.
In a functioning society, governance operates as an extension of care. Roads, bridges, public spaces become physical manifestations of a social contract honouring collective needs. When this contract fractures through negligence, we witness administrative failure and moral abdication. Today’s gridlock represents more than traffic; it embodies the broken promise between those who govern and those who grant them the privilege to do so.
Across Lagos, a silent ballet of adaptation unfolded. Strangers sharing water bottles through car windows. Pedestrians navigating impossible spaces between bumpers. Office workers in wilted formal wear, walking kilometres in inappropriate shoes. The citizens endured with the practiced patience of those long accustomed to systems failing them, their resilience both admirable and heartbreaking.
This quiet endurance carries dangerous power. It normalises dysfunction. Each time we accept the unacceptable, each time we find workarounds for institutional failure, we unwittingly participate in lowering the standards of what we collectively deserve. The problem isn't that Nigerians lack resilience. The problem is how frequently that resilience must be deployed simply to navigate daily life.
Yet within this silent endurance lives a thread of dignity that refuses to be severed by circumstance. To maintain composure amid chaos, to extend kindness when frustration would be justified, to preserve one's humanity when treated as less than human. The real question is why Nigerians should have to endure so much chaos.
Change begins with breaking silence. Not merely complaint, but articulation that transforms private frustration into public discourse. When citizens find their voice, they reclaim their power to define acceptable standards of governance. This voice manifests in many forms: journalism documenting negligence, social media amplifying individual experiences into collective narratives, community organising transforming isolated grievances into unified demands.
The most potent form of voice emerges when personal stories come together into collective testimony. When suffering gains language and witness, it becomes impossible to dismiss. Each social media post documenting hours trapped in traffic, each phone call to loved ones explaining another missed dinner, each conversation with colleagues about impossible commutes became an act of truth-telling that refuses erasure.
This voice must ultimately translate into action. Civic participation, electoral consequences, community solutions that arise when official systems fail. The path from endurance to empowerment requires transforming the energy of frustration into the discipline of engagement. Nigeria's history brims with moments when collective voice created irreversible change, when citizens refused to accept the unacceptable, when the poetry of protest transformed into the prose of progress.
The city that trapped its citizens today contains within it another Lagos struggling to emerge. A Lagos where infrastructure serves human dignity rather than undermining it. Where decisions about bridges and roads reflect careful consideration of lives and livelihoods. Where the brilliant adaptability of Nigerians finds expression not in surviving broken systems but in creating functional ones.
This alternative Lagos requires reimagining the relationship between government and citizenry. Transparency must replace opacity, so bridge closures come with adequate notice and clear alternatives. Accountability must replace impunity, so officials responsible for preventable suffering face consequences. Most importantly, empathy must replace indifference, so those making decisions about public spaces understand themselves as serving human beings, not managing abstractions.
The journey toward this Lagos demands participation from all sectors. Private citizens documenting failures and proposing solutions. Civil society organisations transforming isolated complaints into coherent demands. Business leaders recognising that functional infrastructure serves economic interests. Media platforms amplifying both problems and possibilities. Beyond better traffic management, we need to create a city that honours the humanity of everyone who calls it home.
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<aside> <img src="/icons/backward_blue.svg" alt="/icons/backward_blue.svg" width="40px" /> Good Rest
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<aside> <img src="/icons/forward_blue.svg" alt="/icons/forward_blue.svg" width="40px" /> Stay Safe
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