Louis Theroux is one of my favourite documentary film makers.
He makes all sorts of films usually focusing on the strange, and at times the downright bizarre, goings on in the world. When I heard he was making a documentary about Lagos, I remember feeling anxious. What would it be about? Would it follow the usual witchcraft/churches/area boys trend? No, it was a part of a series called ‘Law and Disorder,’ showing Louis visiting cities notorious for their ‘flexible’ approach with the law.
For a seemingly very religious place, I find it interest to observe how the whole thing works.Everyone knows the law exists, but people seem to choose whether or not they’ll follow it. This choice is given to, well, everyone, even the very people that are set out to enforce law.
By now I’m sure you’ve heard the story about the soldiers who set fire to five BRT buses along Ikorodu road in an alleged ‘revenge’ attack. According to witnesses a soldier was illegally riding a bike in the BRT lane, and was struck and killed, causing the soldiers to vent their fury.
Is it unfortunate that a soldier was killed? Of course, but in what realm of the world is it ok for soldiers to behave in such a manner? And what will happen to these soldiers as a result of their actions?
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen police men or soldiers driving bikes the wrong way up the road, harassing people for bribes or generally adding to the mayhem instead of resolving it. So if law enforcement and those in government fail so spectacularly at following the rules they put in place what hope is there for the rest of the populace?
There are of course those times where it feels like law-breaking is necessary to survive, or at least necessary to avoid an annoying encounter and get on with your day in an orderly manner. Life in Lagos is stressful enough, paying a bribe to a bored LASTMA official doesn’t seem that big a deal compared to the hours wasted dealing with their (often) false accusations.
And then there’s the general freedom that comes along with living in a place with no rules. You can more or less do what you want, with little or no consequences. It’s always interesting to observe an international flight coming into Lagos, it’s as though the closer the plane gets to MM1, the louder the passengers get, the more short-tempered, by the time everyone gets to the passport check line, it may as well be Balogun market. Every ounce of orderliness has evaporated into the hot, sticky air.
Everyone seems glad to shake off those stuffy rules and sink back into a comfortable state in lawlessness.
The problem with lawlessness of course is that it breeds chaos, and chaos, even the most organized kind, like in Lagos’s case can’t breed real progress. It can’t make room for real growth, and with Lagos’s Megacity ambitions, well, will chaos bring them to pass?