Ikorodu Road, Lagos — Midmorning
The sun hung like a white-hot coin in a bleached sky. Heat shimmered over cracked asphalt, thick with the diesel breath of a thousand engines.
Yellow danfos and sleek SUVs crawled through Lagos's infamous go-slow — a metal river of impatience and survival.
Horns blared. Hawkers shouted. Afrobeats leaked from a broken speaker.
The smell of roasted plantain mingled with exhaust and sweat — survival, heavy enough to taste.
Inside a black SUV that barely moved an inch every five minutes, ADEBAYO "BAYO" ADENIRAN sat untouched by the madness.
Cool air whispered from the vents, sealing him off from the city's humidity. His shirt was crisp, his wristwatch gleamed, and his face was calm — too calm.
He spoke into his earpiece, voice clipped and final.
"The projections are non-negotiable, Tope. If their numbers don't align by the close of business, we walk. My patience is a line of credit they've already spent."
A pause — static, then Tope's voice.
"Bayo, that'll kill the deal. The commissioner's office won't take that kindly."
"Then they can choke on their inefficiency," he said. "You can't build clean air with dirty numbers."
He ended the call and stared into the side mirror.
The reflection that looked back was composed, yet behind that calm lingered fatigue.
Not the fatigue of work, but of watching rot dressed as reform.
Street vendors tapped the glass, waving chargers and bottled water. He waved them off gently.
None of it touched him. None of it ever did.
This was his world — controlled, ordered, efficient.
The illusion of progress behind tinted glass.
Yet beneath that order, something restless stirred: a memory of fragility, of nights when breath came shallow.
He knew how precious air could be.
His phone vibrated. A soft ping from his environmental-monitoring app:
AIR QUALITY: HAZARDOUS.
He dismissed it absently. Lagos had stopped listening to warnings long ago.
The lane ahead cleared slightly.
He smiled.
Then it stopped again.
Surulere — Late Morning
Traffic spilt into every side street. Horns rose in waves — the sound of a city running out of patience.
Up ahead, chaos brewed at a supermarket gate.
A black Corolla was boxed in by three LASTMA officers and a growing crowd.
A middle-aged man pleaded, shirt soaked through.
"Please! My son's not even moving anymore. I just ran in to get his medicine!"
One officer smirked.
"You people always have stories. ₦70,000 or we tow it. From the yard? ₦400,000 to release."
Laughter followed. The boy inside the car gasped for air — chest rising and falling, eyes fluttering.
The wet wheeze of collapsing lungs.
Something inside Bayo cracked.
He opened his door and stepped into the heat.
"What's wrong with him?"
"Asthma," the man said, shaking. "Please — help us."
"You tow a car with a dying child inside?"
The smirk vanished.
"Get his things. I'll take him to the hospital."
"You're a stranger," the man said, trembling.
"I am," Bayo replied. "But your son is dying."
Together, they lifted the boy into Bayo's SUV.
The officers watched but said nothing — perhaps shame, perhaps fear, perhaps neither.
Faithview Hospital, Surulere — Late Morning
The ward smelled of disinfectant and stale fear.
Nurses rushed the boy onto a gurney. Oxygen hissed to life. The doctor barked orders — nebuliser, IV, steroids.
Minutes stretched into forever.
Bayo stood outside the glass door, arms folded — helpless before something as simple as breath.
At last, the doctor emerged.
"He's stable. You brought him just in time."
Bayo exhaled slowly.
He hadn't realised he'd been holding his breath.
₦89,000 later — medication, oxygen, emergency fees — he called the boy's father.
"He's safe. Still on oxygen."
The man sobbed over the line.
"God bless you, sir. They've taken the car… ₦385,000 to release it. That car feeds my family."
Bayo's jaw tightened.
"I'm coming."
He glanced back through the glass — the boy's small chest rising beneath the mask, the sound of air fighting its way home.
Something flickered in Bayo's eyes — a memory half-buried, as though he'd seen this struggle before.
LASTMA Yard, Iponri — Early Afternoon
The compound was a grey sprawl of impounded vehicles, heat, and hostility.
Officers lounged under trees, laughter mixing with the generator drone.
The father waited by the gate, shoulders slumped.
Bayo strode straight in.
"Your men towed a car with a dying child inside," he told the officer-in-charge.
"The father was buying medicine. The child nearly died."
The man frowned.
"Who authorised that?"
The junior officers avoided his gaze.
"Release the vehicle," the officer snapped. "No fines."
The father broke down, tears flooding.
"You saved my son — and my life."
"Your son is breathing," Bayo said quietly. "That's enough."
When the man tried to kneel, Bayo lifted him.
"Stand tall. You've done nothing wrong."
But the father's voice trembled.
"Sir… they say release, but I must return Monday for clearance. They say it could take weeks."
Bayo's jaw hardened.
"Of course it does."
He handed him his card.
"Call me if they delay. Lagos can choke on bureaucracy — but not your boy."
The officer-in-charge looked away, pretending not to hear.
Outside — Afternoon Sun
The air pressed heavily with heat and noise. Danfos honked. Generators coughed.
The smell of burnt oil thickened like old resentment.
The father stood beside the gate, clutching his papers like oxygen.
His voice shook.
"They said to come back Monday for clearance. Maybe they'll release it then."
"Keep pushing," Bayo said. "And check on your boy before sunset. He'll need to see your face more than this car."
"God bless you, sir. The nurse called — he's breathing better now. They said the oxygen helped."
Bayo exhaled, relief flickering behind his eyes.
He reached into his pocket and handed the man a slim white card.
"My number's on it. If anything changes, call me."
The man held the card like it was more than paper.
"Sir, what do I call you?"
Bayo paused, then smiled faintly.
"Just someone tired of watching people pay to breathe."
He turned toward his SUV.
The father stayed at the gate, clutching both his documents and the card, as though one could help reclaim his car and the other his faith.
When Bayo's engine started, the city's noise returned in full force — horns, smoke, restless motion.
But beneath it all, for the first time that day, Lagos seemed to breathe.
Evening — Bayo's Apartment, Surulere
The sun bled over the skyline, painting the smog orange and gold.
Bayo's apartment was minimalist — clean lines, quiet order, the sanctuary of a man who fought chaos for a living.
He loosened his tie, poured a glass of water, and stared out as the city glittered with false peace.
Below, a generator hummed while children splashed in puddles from a broken pipe.
He opened his laptop. The Lagos North Environmental Contract blinked back — numbers, projections, promises.
Somewhere inside those figures, he smelled the same rot he'd seen on the road.
A child's struggle for air.
A father's desperation.
An entire city suffocating under its own rules.
He rubbed his temples and whispered,
"Maybe air was never free after all."
His phone buzzed — a message from Tope:
Chief Balogun wants to meet. Tonight. Private.
Balogun — his mentor, his father's old friend — now a man too comfortable in the system he once vowed to cleanse.
Bayo looked out the window.
The city breathed, shallow and strained, like the boy on that gurney.
Thunder rolled across the mainland.
He straightened his shirt, grabbed his keys, and murmured,
"Let's see who's really choking Lagos."
He stepped into the night —
and the city, for a moment, held its breath.