The Heart of Darkness in Our Capital – Abdul Mahmud

By Abdul Mahmud

On Wednesday, September 3rd, 2025, a family of three – a father, a mother, and their young son – left a shop in Abuja with a brand-new refrigerator. They never made it home. Minutes later, their Toyota Highlander was rammed against a concrete pillar under Mabushi Bridge. Their bodies were flung into drainage water. Death was instant. How did this happen? Not by an accident of fate. Not by some mechanical failure of the car. Not by an act of God. They were chased to their deaths by agberos; men who roam our roads unchecked, men who harass, extort, and threaten motorists in a capital city that should embody order. Three agberos forced their way into the family’s car. They dragged the steering wheel with the driver. In the chaos, the car lost control. What followed was a tragedy. Viral videos show how the remains of the dead were tossed into a police pick-up van like garbage. No ambulance. No emergency response. No dignity for the dead. This is not just a story about one family’s loss. It is the story of a country where law and order have collapsed.

O ma se! Too bad.

Abuja was meant to be a world class capital city. A planned city. The capital of unity. Today, it devours its own. Families who should be safe on its roads are hunted like prey. Agberos operate in broad daylight, and in plain sight. They collect levies. They snatch steering wheels- a behaviour they copied from police officers with poor policing practices, rogue Vehicle Inspection Officers (VIOs) and over-sabi Road Safety officers. They terrorise commuters. Everyone knows it. The police know it. The transport unions know it. The government knows it. But nothing changes.

This family’s death is not an isolated case. It is the logical consequence of a system that allows chaos to thrive. A system where agberos have become overlords of public spaces. Where the state has abandoned its basic duty: to protect lives. These questions are avoidable: what kind of country allows its citizens to die in such a way? Where were the police when agberos first attacked the family’s car at Berger? Where were the traffic officers? Where were the patrols And when the car crashed, where were the ambulances? Where was the fire service? Where was the emergency response? Nowhere. Instead, police officers came with their rusty pick-up van. They dumped the bodies of a father, mother, and son as if they were refuse.

There is tragedy upon tragedy here. Tragedy for the family left behind. Tragedy for the country that has become numb to such deaths. Tragedy for citizens who know, deep down, that this could have been them. What happened under Mabushi Bridge is more than an accident. It is a symbol. A signifier for something troubling about a country that can’t get governance right, even at the backyard of its presidential quarters. A portrait of our country today. Lawless. Uncaring. Indifferent. A place where agberos run free while citizens die like animals. We all pretend that Abuja is different. That it is an island of order in a sea of chaos. But, Abuja is no different. It has become Lagos, without the sea. A place where agberos dictate the rhythmic life of the roads. A place where security forces exist only to extort, not to protect.

We are living in what the British explorer, Henry Morton Stanley, once called the “dark continent”. His words were racist. His worldview colonial. But look around Abuja today. Do we not resemble that darkness? The Polish-British writer, Joseph Conrad called it “the heart of darkness”. Achebe resisted that idea. Africans did. We all wanted to prove him wrong. Yet, the heart of our capital city beats in darkness. Tragic.

At the centre of this tragedy is the question of value. What is the value of the life of a citizen? The answer is clear: little to none. If life had value here, agberos would not run free. If life had value, emergency services would have arrived in minutes, not hours. If life had value, the bodies of that family would have been treated with dignity, not dumped in a truck. Sadly, today, in our country, we value power, not people. We value money, not lives. We value survival, not dignity. That is why families are chased to their deaths. That is why children drown in drainage channels every rainy season. That is why patients die on hospital floors while politicians fly abroad for check-ups. That is why our country endures the paradox of its leaders looting while the citizens die. While the rulers make laws they do not enforce. While they set up agencies but do not fund them. While they preach order, yet preside over disorder. Our citizens know this truth. They live with it every day. They live with agberos at motor parks. They meet them at junctions. They confront them in markets. The agberos wear no uniforms, yet wield more power than the police. Didn’t the recently removed Force spokesperson, Muyiwa Adejobi, once dismiss MC Oluomo’s threat against the Igbos as nothing more than a joke?

The deaths of this family under Mabushi Bridge should shame us. It should be a mirror. A reflection of how low we have sunk. But will it? Probably not. By next week, the story will vanish from the news. The cycle will continue. More families will die. More agberos will rule the roads. More officials will look away. This is the true tragedy. Not just that lives are lost. But that nothing changes. That we have become numb. That we accept the unacceptable. Every citizen must ask: is this the country we want? A society where parents cannot take their child home in peace? A society where the dead are treated like refuse? A society where agberos are kings and citizens are victims? Our country can do better. It must do better. Abuja deserves better. Law and order are not luxuries. They are the foundations of civilisation. Emergency services are not optional. They are the lifelines of every society. The dignity of the dead is not a privilege. It is a basic human right. The father. The mother. The child. Their names are unknown. Their sad end, known. Their story is well too familiar. And their story must not be forgotten. Their deaths must not be another footnote in our endless tragedy.

But, every family must see themselves in this family. Every parent must imagine the terror of that chase. Every child must imagine the final moments in that car. Only then can we grasp the urgency of change from the darkness around us. The darkness is not just in Abuja. It is in every corner of our country. It is in our roads without lights. Our hospitals without drugs. Our schools without teachers. Our streets without safety. Our leaders without conscience.

Our country stands today at the crossroads. Our choice is: confront this darkness, or surrender to it. Build and sustain our country with laws or perish in lawlessness. Value human life or remain what we have become: the heart of darkness.

On September 3rd, 2025, a family died in Abuja. They should not have died. Their deaths were preventable. Their story is our story. Their loss is our loss. Our rulers must not look away. Citizens must not forget. Our country and the citizens must not become so numb that nothing shocks them anymore. The day our citizens stop feeling, the day our citizens stop demanding better, is the day our country finally dies. Until then, citizens must keep asking the same questions: where is law and order? Where are the emergency services? Where is the value of human life? If our rulers cannot answer them, then they are not ready for rulership in the 21st century.