The Unusual Convoy on Lagos Road

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.

Anyone watching the clip is struck not merely by the size of the security contingent but by the audacity of the choreography. The armed officers fan out with the confidence of a military presence that has long forgotten the concept of proportion. Their gait is purposeful. Their weapons gleam with the suggestion that this exercise is something they have rehearsed many times. The viewer, regardless of political persuasion, is left with a single, uncomfortable realisation. Something here is not simply unnecessary, it is fundamentally wrong.

The figure at the centre of this theatre is a private individual whose public lineage apparently grants access to something that looks very much like a personal battalion.

It is not the identity that alarms, it is the scale. It is the peculiar arrogance of a security convoy that behaves as though the pavement belongs exclusively to it. It is the sense that the state’s monopoly on force has been quietly repurposed into a family heirloom.

It takes no expert in Nigerian history to understand why this struck a nerve in a country long scarred by the excesses of the powerful. Yet what sharpened the public reaction was the involvement, however incidental, of Wole Soyinka. The Nobel laureate has built a life on confronting power, on challenging its pretensions, on refusing to bow even when the stakes were mortal.

For decades he has been the nation’s moral barometer, a restless conscience in human form. In the viral moment, he saw what many Nigerians saw, but he felt compelled to comment with a clarity that only someone who has lived through the grim consequences of unrestrained force can muster.

From Soyinka’s vantage, the incident is not amusing or outlandish. It is symptomatic. It fits into a worrying pattern that he has spent half a century warning against. There is a familiar cadence to the spectacle. Power draped in the garments of excess. Public institutions bent into improbable shapes to serve private comfort. Security personnel behaving as though they owe loyalty to bloodlines rather than constitutions. Soyinka’s reaction in the aftermath was a mixture of shock and civic irritation, the sort one reserves for a leak in a dam that everyone else insists is merely a decorative fountain.

The video itself plays like satire, but unfortunately it is non-fiction. The sheer density of armed men patrolling around a single civilian is almost comical until one remembers that weapons in Nigeria rarely appear without consequence. In a country where ordinary citizens plead for better policing, better response to kidnappings, better community safety, the parade of rifles and body armour around one young man reads like a provocation. It reads as a message that security is a commodity with a premium price tag, and the rest of the country must make do with whatever crumbs remain.

The implications of this moment ripple far beyond that Lagos street. What the viewer witnesses is no less than the distortion of democratic architecture. When state security is seen to be deployed around private individuals on a scale that rivals official presidential protection, it signals a breakdown in the chain of accountability.

It also suggests a political culture in which proximity to power becomes a substitute for legitimate entitlement. The state becomes a family estate and the machinery of coercion becomes an ornament.

Soyinka’s reaction captures the gravity of the moment. He is not speaking merely as a cultural icon, nor as a renowned intellectual. He is speaking as a citizen disturbed by the visible betrayal of a principle he regards as foundational. In his world, there is a sacred boundary between public force and private indulgence. The video suggests that this boundary is eroding, and eroding publicly.

Watching the clip, one observes the theatricality of the convoy. Cars glide in a tightly controlled formation. Officers step with practised swagger. It feels less like a security deployment and more like a monarch’s parade. The absurdity becomes clear when one stops to ask why such firepower is necessary for a simple movement through a metropolitan area. There is no threat assessment provided.

No context that rationalises this militarised procession. What remains is the inescapable sense of overcompensation, the peculiar insecurity of priviledge that demands attention at the end of a rifle barrel.

The video also becomes a cultural lens. It reveals how political power in Nigeria often expresses itself through physical intimidation. The desire to project importance through a mass of armed escorts is neither new nor unique, but in the era of viral evidence it is becoming increasingly indefensible. Every camera phone in the hands of an ordinary citizen is now a witness to excess, and every upload is an instant indictment. This convoy, in all its theatrical splendour, is now a permanent digital artefact. It will resurface again and again whenever the country debates the balance of power and entitlement.

In the broader national psyche, this sort of spectacle cultivates resentment. Nigerians do not object to legitimate security for genuine threats. They object to the weaponisation of public resources for the exclusive benefit of individuals who already sit at the pinnacle of priviledge. They object because they see neighbours kidnapped without response, communities terrorised without rescue, and families mourning victims of violent crime that an overstretched police force struggles to solve. Against this reality, the sight of a convoy overflowing with armed men feels obscene.

Viewed in this context, Soyinka’s irritation becomes almost prophetic. He has lived long enough to recognise that societies do not collapse overnight. They crumble through small erosions of public trust, through the normalisation of impunity, through the casual acceptance of inequality that becomes embedded in daily life. If this kind of convoy is allowed to become routine, it signals a nation drifting into a future where power answers only to itself.

The video also prompts a question that few in the corridors of influence seem willing to ask. Who authorised that level of force. On what grounds. Under what legal provision.

If such resources can be allocated so casually to private individuals, what assurance do citizens have that the state will not reserve all meaningful protection for a select few while the rest are left to bargain with fate. The absence of an official explanation creates a vacuum filled with suspicion, and suspicion is the quiet enemy of national cohesion.

What gives the moment its cinematic quality is the contrast between the violence implied by the convoy and the absurdly ordinary environment into which it intrudes. There is no emergency. No hostile presence. No obvious need for armoured theatrics. The weapons glint in the sun as if they are props in a film that forgot to hire a script supervisor. Yet every weapon is real and every uniform carries the weight of institutional authority. The absurdity is not entertaining. It is tragic.

It is also revealing that the convoy does not appear to care how it is perceived. That indifference is the heart of the problem. Power that fears scrutiny behaves with restraint. Power that assumes impunity behaves with abandon. The video shows a convoy so self assured that it moves through a busy neighbourhood as though the citizens watching from pavements and balconies do not exist. In a democratic society, that should trouble everyone.

The far reaching effect of this incident is not limited to scandal. It forces a national conversation about the role of security institutions. It compels Nigerians to ask whether the state is fulfilling its constitutional duty or merely functioning as a private contractor for the elite. It exposes the widening gap between the protected and the unprotected. It invites journalists, civil society and ordinary citizens to demand accountability. More importantly, it exposes the fragility of a system that relies on the goodwill of the powerful rather than the strength of institutions.

This incident may not lead to immediate reform. Nigeria’s political culture rarely moves with speed. Yet the video has carved a lasting mark. It will be referenced in public debates, mocked in sarcasm, dissected in universities, and remembered by voters who are tired of being told that security is a privilege rather than a right. It has already entered the country’s political consciousness.

Soyinka’s voice adds gravitas not because he is a celebrity but because he is a witness with moral authority. His vantage lends seriousness to what might otherwise be dismissed as social media noise. When he expresses alarm, people pay attention. When he questions the legitimacy of such a deployment, he gives the public permission to demand answers.

The video captures more than a convoy. It captures a national tension, a society negotiating the boundaries of authority, and a moment where citizens recognise that silence is complicity. It captures truth that should unsettle every Nigerian. Excess becomes normal only when no one objects.

If this moment provokes discomfort in the corridors of power, then it has already served a purpose. If it sparks reform, even better.

If it simply reminds the nation that the camera does not lie, that too is progress.

The street in Ikoyi has returned to its usual rhythm, but the echo of that convoy remains. It lives in every conversation that questions how far priviledge can stretch before it snaps the social contract. It lives in the minds of viewers who replay the clip and wonder how Nigeria can tolerate such excess. It lives in the quiet resolve of citizens who refuse to be intimidated by spectacle.

The country has witnessed something revealing. It cannot unsee it. And now that it has been seen, it must be confronted.