When We Stop Reacting to Our Problems

In medicine, an induced coma is when doctors keep the body still to stop it from reacting to pain. This is a deep state of unconsciousness caused by controlled doses of anaesthetic or sedative drugs. The person is alive, but they do not flinch.

When I look at our country and how we respond to civic issues, I wonder if we are in a similar state. Many tragedies no longer shock Nigerians. It is like the saying, what is it that we have not seen? A pothole so big it sends a car for emergency repairs or a bridge where commuters are stuck for hours. A budget line that could fix these problems never gets funded. Instead, it is replaced by something that fits the governor’s or his party’s agenda. It could be a killing in a village few can find on a map. Thanks to our short attention span, these issues get a day on social media, then fade away. We share, we sigh, we scroll. By the next day or at most 36 hours, we have moved on to the next trending topic, not because anything changed, but because we have accepted that nothing will.

Last weekend gave us a small example. The deputy governor of Lagos, who is likely to be the next governor, told an audience that “Lagos traffic is not a problem; it’s just a lifestyle.”

Some of his supporters say it was a joke, a nod to podcasters people listen to while stuck in traffic. Maybe. But jokes can reveal what someone believes. This deputy governor seems to think that gridlock is just like the weather: something to endure and even romanticise, not something to fix. Of course, this statement became a hot topic, and Tayo Oviosu, the founder of Paga, was among the first to respond. The deputy governor then reacted, saying he was misunderstood. He read Tayo’s post and showed that he did not know who Tayo was. He probably thinks Tayo is just a political jobber sent by the opposition. The deputy governor of the largest economy in Nigeria does not know the founder of one of the most important fintech companies in Africa. That is a sad story for another day.

Traffic in Lagos is not a lifestyle. It is the result of poor city planning and a failure of many connected policies. It comes from decisions about roads, public transport, land use, drainage, and enforcement. The Danne Institute for Research, with the Financial Derivatives Company, estimates that congestion costs Lagos about ₦3.8 trillion every year. Later, the institute found that the average Lagosian spends over two hours daily commuting, with nearly half spending even more time. In June 2025, the deputy governor’s own government put the loss at ₦4 trillion yearly. This is about the mother who leaves home before dawn and comes back when her children are asleep. It is the trader whose goods spoil on the road. It is the small business losing productivity weekly. To call this a lifestyle is to turn a ₦4 trillion failure into a part of our identity. When suffering becomes part of who we are, no one is held accountable.

That is how the coma works. One statement does not cause it. It is caused by many small normalisations: “That’s Nigeria.” “Na so e be.” “At least we’re alive.” Each one is like a sedative. Each one lowers our expectations of those we pay to govern us. Our leaders do not need to fix what we have stopped asking them to fix.

The hard truth is that this numbness is partly self-inflicted. Many people become numb as a way to survive when outrage does not bring change. We protect ourselves by not feeling. That is understandable. But a citizenry that does not react is one that can be poorly governed forever.

So the question is not whether we are tired. We are. The question is whether we will allow our tiredness to become consent.

Waking up does not need a revolution. It needs memory: remembering what was promised and by whom when they come asking for votes in 2027. It needs us to ask candidates a simple question. Not “Do you love Lagos?” but “What is your plan for the roads, rail, and buses, and when can we hold you to it?”

A coma should be temporary. The danger is not that we were sedated. The danger is that we get so comfortable we never wake up.