It seemed like the dews were still dropping, even at a few minutes before 7 o’clock in Lagos. I was hurrying to work, jammed in a corporate pack with other workers who had gone to bed late and risen too early for the health and wealth promised in the nursery rhyme.

And if ever the devil took a dip in the deep blue sea, leaving no hopeful in-betweeners, that was the current state in Gbagada and its environs.

The road construction in progress was the devil of the times; while the new ban on motorbikes on major roads in Lagos created the deep blue sea.

We were all caught up in hell.

In the buses and cars, you could see commuting workers more half-asleep than half-awake, with varying kinds of gloom calligraphy on their faces.

If I took a reading, I’d say the wheels completed one revolution per five minutes.

It was that bad.

Even worse, we had surrendered to that pace.

But in the blink of an eye, I saw a man race past the bus I was in.

He was hysterical. He appeared to be running for his life. A few moments later, it was clear there was a life and death matter at hand.

Not his own life though.

He had alighted from a van carrying someone who was fighting for his life, someone who needed express medical attention, someone who’s life was ebbing as the time on the clock ticked away.

He had come to the policeman at the Gbagada junction to explain the desperate situation; pleading for intercession to help the van come through at once and get to the hospital quicker.

The policeman whose outlook was shameful at best reacted clumsily, asking him where the van was. The man pointed with agility and again stressed the essence of some urgency.

With his uniform still not tucked in, and his rifle dangling loosely, he directed a car on that path to pull by the corner. As the driver made to adhere to his command, he spotted a bus conductor on another route hanging illegally on the bumper with one leg stretched backwards, his heel almost touching the fender of a car behind. The policeman instantly abandoned the current objective and ran off like a mad man to apprehend the conductor.

Now they were dragging, cursing – creating a scene.

I looked at the hysteric man. He had put his hands on his head. He was distraught and helpless. Tears streamed down his eyes.

The policeman dragged the bus conductor away to where his group of officers were waiting, set to extort him.

The bus I was in moved just a bit – one revolution – five minutes – before the policeman came back to the man who was now seated on the ground, sobbing inconsolably. He had the temerity to ask him again, “Ehen, na where you talk say the motor dey?”

This time the man pointed with less agility.

It was probably too late. We would never know.

Another light dimmed by the laughable state of all that gives Lagos her name and reputation.