In Nigeria, the road has become a stage where power performs its most absurd theatre. The siren—once a tool of emergency—now plays the soundtrack of ego.
The convoys, longer than a bride’s procession, louder than a market quarrel, move through our streets like small invading armies. And every time that blaring, violent sound slices through the air, a simple truth echoes behind it: one day monkey go go market… and e no go return.
Because power, especially Nigerian power, has a short memory. And even shorter patience.
These leaders who move as though the sun itself must pause when they pass were once ordinary Nigerians. They once queued at bus stops, once waited under the rain for taxis, once navigated potholed streets with the same caution as every other citizen trying not to die by negligence.
But somewhere between election and inauguration, ambition and arrogance, something snapped. Their feet left the ground. Their humanity blurred. And their ears, now accustomed to sirens; forgot how silence feels.
The bizarre culture of convoys in Nigeria has metastasized into something theatrical, violent, and deeply offensive. What began as protocol has become performance. Sirens scream not just to clear the road, but to announce hierarchy.
Vehicles speed not just to meet schedules but to demonstrate superiority. And the citizens, the people in whose name this power is supposedly held, scatter like startled chickens. Or worse, end up dead under tires that never brake.
The irony is painful. The same leaders who demand absolute obedience from citizens once walked among those same citizens unnoticed.
Once upon a time they lived without outriders, without black-tinted SUVs, without pickup vans carrying heavily armed security men who point guns at commuters as though Lagos traffic is a battlefield. They were once people. Now they behave like a species apart.
But the road remembers. The people remember. And power always forgets that it is a tenant, never a landlord.
Escorts in Nigeria don’t just move with urgency; they move with intimidation. They shove, push, threaten, and roar through roads where ordinary Nigerians are merely trying to survive the day. The siren becomes a weapon, the convoy a declaration of dominance. The message is clear: “Your life must move aside. My importance is passing.”
In what country should this be normal?
Even emergency vehicles — ambulances carrying dying patients, fire trucks racing to burning buildings, sometimes cannot pass because a government official’s convoy has occupied the road with the entitlement of royalty.
This isn’t governance; it’s theater of the absurd.
And the casualties are not metaphorical. Nigerians have died—pregnant women hit by convoys, okada riders knocked off the road, children flung away like debris. Drivers in these convoys behave like warhorses let loose, sworn not to slow down regardless of what or who is ahead.
But who will hold them accountable? Who dares question power that sees questions as disrespect and disrespect as rebellion?
The institutions meant to regulate these excesses are the same institutions that created them. Protocol offices treat speed like divinity. Security details mistake aggression for duty. Schedules are treated as holy commandments. Every meeting becomes urgent. Every movement becomes life-or-death. Every road must clear.
But the truth sits quietly behind all this noise: no meeting is that important, no leader is that indispensable, and no road should require blood to make way.
Somewhere, a child grows up believing public office means public intimidation. A young man sees the behavior of convoys and dreams not of service but of dominance.
A young woman imagines that leadership means never waiting in traffic like the rest of society. And so, the cycle of arrogance reproduces itself. A country becomes a laboratory where entitlement multiplies.
In Nigeria, the convoy culture reveals a deeper sickness: a leadership class that has disconnected from the lived realities of the people they claim to govern.
When did proximity to power become justification for violence?
When did schedules become more sacred than lives?
When did we normalize leaders who move like emperors, not elected representatives?
But more importantly: how do these leaders forget so quickly where they came from?
Many of them grew up in the same chaos their convoys now worsen. They once asked why leaders were insensitive. Now they have inherited the same insensitivity and advanced it.
The convoy is more than metal and noise. It is a metaphor. It illustrates how Nigerian governance often operates: pushing the people aside, demanding unquestioned obedience, prioritizing position over responsibility.
And yet, the proverb whispers:
One day monkey go go market… e no go return.
Not because we wish harm on anyone, but because history has its own logic. Power that forgets compassion eventually forgets itself. Leadership that drives recklessly, morally, politically, and literally—will one day crash against the boundaries of public patience.
This metaphor is a quiet mirror for every leader who believes their current status is divine permanence. One day, the sirens will go silent. The tinted windows will roll down. The outriders will be reassigned. The road will no longer clear itself. Reality will return like harmattan dust.
And then the question will confront them plainly:
When your power fades, what remains of your humanity?
The tragedy of Nigeria’s convoy culture is that it makes leadership look like tyranny and renders citizens powerless in their own country. It fosters a climate where ordinary people live in perpetual startle. It deepens distrust. It fuels resentment. It reinforces the perception that leadership is designed to intimidate rather than serve.
And what does it say about us as a nation that we accept this?
We accept the absurdity because we assume it cannot be overturned. We accept the arrogance because we assume it is the price of power. We step aside because we assume there is no alternative.
But nations are not built on assumptions. They are built on accountability.
The temporary nature of political power should humble leaders, not inflate them. Four or eight years or whatever time they spend clinging to office cannot compare to the lifetime they will spend as private citizens once the convoys disappear.
When the noise stops, will they walk among us head high or with their face hidden?
When the sirens lose their voice, will they find their own?
What if true leadership was measured not by how loudly you move through society but by how gently you walk among the people?
Imagine a Nigeria where power travels quietly. Where convoys move with the dignity of service, not the violence of entitlement. Where leaders move with humility, not hysteria. Where the streets do not tremble at the approach of authority. Where citizens do not shrink to the roadside, waiting to survive the thunder of tinted SUVs.
It is possible. It is necessary. It begins with leaders remembering that every journey through Nigeria’s roads is a reminder of their accountability, not their dominion.
Because one day, and it will come—monkey go go market.
The convoy will stop.
The siren will fade.
The power will dissolve into yesterday.
And the road will ask the only question that matters:
While you passed through, did you honor the people… or terrorize them?
History will remember the answer.
And so will we—May Nigeria win!
