I have always believed in rules.
Not because I am a lawyer.
Well, maybe partly because I am a lawyer.
But mostly because rules are the only thing standing between civilization and what I can only describe as a highly organized form of madness. And nowhere is this more obvious than a BRT queue in Lagos.
Every weekday, I wake up at an hour that should honestly be illegal. The kind of hour where even the sun is still negotiating whether it wants to show up for work.
I live on the mainland and work at a law firm on the Island, which means every morning begins with a race against traffic, time, and my own desire to resign from adulthood altogether.
The BRT is usually my best option.
The designated lane means the buses move faster than regular traffic. In a city where a two-hour journey can somehow become four hours, that lane is nothing short of divine intervention.
The problem, however, is that there are never enough buses.
There are people.
Plenty of people.
Thousands of people.
An endless sea of people.
But buses?
Scarce.
As a result, every morning becomes a strange social experiment where grown adults gather in a queue and collectively pretend they respect it. Until the bus arrives. Then suddenly everyone develops selective amnesia.
“What queue?”
“Which queue?”
On this particular morning, I had done everything right. I arrived early. Very early. I was close enough to the front that I knew the next bus would take me. I could practically feel the seat already. Life was good.
Then he appeared. A middle-aged man wearing a flowing kaftan. Behind him were two younger men who seemed to move with him in the way junior associates follow a senior partner. Without hesitation, the three of them walked straight past the queue and positioned themselves at the front.
Not near the front.
Not beside the front.
The front.
The man immediately placed a phone against his ear and began speaking loudly.
Now, I may be a young lawyer, but I am not unreasonable. I told myself to be patient. Perhaps he genuinely hadn’t noticed the queue. Perhaps he would finish his call and move. Perhaps common sense was still alive and well.
So I waited.
The call ended.
The man remained exactly where he was.
Interesting.
Very interesting.
I stepped forward politely.
“Excuse me, sir,” I said. “There’s a queue.”
Simple.
Direct.
Civilized.
The way disputes should be resolved.
He looked at me. Then he looked away. Then he said, “Mind your business.”
I blinked. Perhaps he hadn’t heard me properly.
“There is a queue,” I repeated.
He shrugged.
“You are already in front. Why is it your concern?”
Now, this is where things became personal. Not because he jumped the queue. Lagos has conditioned me to expect that. What annoyed me was the logic.
The idea that injustice only matters when it directly affects you. The suggestion that once my own interests were protected, I should stop caring.
That argument offended both the lawyer in me and the human being in me.
So I responded.
Respectfully at first.
Then professionally.
Then passionately.
Soon, I was presenting submissions worthy of the Court of Appeal. I explained the purpose of a queue. The importance of fairness. The social contract that allows complete strangers to coexist without descending into chaos.
I may or may not have used the phrase “public order.” The man was unimpressed. His own submissions consisted mainly of telling me to leave him alone. At some point, he announced that he was a police officer. Not in uniform. Just a police officer in civilian clothing. Apparently, this information was meant to end the discussion. Instead, it made it worse.
Then came the threat. A casual statement about harming me. Just like that. As though threatening a young woman at a bus stop before sunrise was a perfectly normal contribution to public discourse.
For a brief moment, I looked around. Surely somebody would say something. Surely somebody would support the very principle they had been standing behind for over an hour.
Surely…
Nothing.
Silence.
People looked.
People listened.
People observed.
Nobody spoke.
I suddenly felt very alone. It was strange. A few minutes earlier, I thought I was defending everyone. Now it seemed I was simply entertaining them.
Thankfully, the man eventually walked away.
No dramatic ending.
No arrest.
No physical confrontation.
He just left. And that should have been the end of the story. But it wasn’t.
Because while all this was happening, a bus arrived. The queue moved. I boarded. Found a seat. Exhaled. Then I looked outside the window. What I saw almost made me laugh.
The pushing had already started. People were shoving. Forcing their way forward. Arguing. Cutting lines. Fighting for space. The exact behaviour I had just spent several minutes defending everyone against. I sat there staring through the glass. And for the first time that morning, I felt tired.
Emotionally.
Because a thought entered my mind and refused to leave. If that man had actually harmed me, what would have happened? Would these people have stopped him? Would they have defended me? Would they have stood up for what was right? Or would they have simply boarded the next bus and continued their day?
The answer came quickly.
Painfully quickly.
The rest of the journey was unusually quiet. I didn’t scroll through my phone. I didn’t listen to music. I just sat there watching Lagos move past the window.
The roadside traders.
The yellow buses.
The endless traffic.
The city waking up.
By the time I got to the office, the incident was technically over. But the feeling stayed. Even now, hours later, it stays. Either way, tomorrow morning I will probably join another queue.
And if someone cuts it again?
Well…
As my legal training has taught me: I reserve the right to remain silent. But I also reserve the right to make a compelling argument.