The moment the video surfaced, Nigerians instinctively reached for the language of shock. Some saw a convoy so bloated it felt like a nation trembling beneath its weight. Many simply recognised a procession of priviledge that turned an ordinary Ikoyi street in Lagos into a stage for power. In all of it, Nigeria witnessed a spectacle that refused to pass quietly, a spectacle that demanded to be named, examined and confronted. Adedayo Adejobi writes.
The video opens in the sort of way modern scandals often do, without ceremony, without buildup, without a narrator to warn that one is stepping into the theatre of the absurd. The camera’s lens settles on an Ikoyi street in Lagos that should by all logic be uneventful. A few cars idle, with passers-bye and their usual Lagosian indifference. Then a convoy lumbers into view, a procession so swollen with muscle and firepower that it resembles a travelling fortress rather than the movement of a private citizen.
The atmosphere vibrates with the sort of swagger that only raw, unexamined privilege can produce. In that moment a calm street becomes a stage, and the actors arrive armed to the teeth.