Musa had always heard stories of the big city and the numerous oppurtunities that came with it and so many peoples stories that turned from grass to grace within a few months and bearing this in mind Musa made up his mind to use his one year youth service posting to Lagos(The largest and most populous) city in west Africa to the fullest.
Every morning before sunrise, he pushed open the massive umbrella of his tiny POS store beside a noisy junction in Oshodi. The Pos usiness had just become in vogue and as such instead of loking for Atms to remove money, people just went to POS svendors and their service is to give you cash for a small commission. They came in handy where the areas were too remote and the area had no ATms or if the cash in the Atms had been exhausted and so Musa intended to take full advantage of this scheme. Danfo drivers shouted insults at one another, hawkers chased after buses with sachet water balanced on their heads, and the smell of fried akara filled the humid air. It was chaos, but it was the kind of chaos Musa had learned to survive in.
He came to Lagos during his youth service program with nothing except a nylon bag of clothes and the phone number of a distant uncle. Back home, insecurity and poverty had destroyed opportunities. Lagos was of course harsh but at least it gave him something. His small POS stand had become his livelihood. Most of his customers were traders and bus drivers, they had no time to go to the bank to withdraw cash. Musa barely understood their language, but business had taught him enough broken phrases to get by.
That Thursday afternoon was unusually tense. Network failures had plagued banks across the country since morning. Customers complained nonstop, and the retailers tried to console them, even though it was no fault of theirs. They complained bitterly. “Your machine no dey work!”, “Are you trying to scam me?”
Musa on his own path remained patient, apologizing repeatedly even when insults came his way. At around 4 p.m., a tall, dark-skinned man wearing a Barcelona jersey approached the kiosk angrily. “Deposit twenty thousand,” he barked angrily, Musa collected the card silently and processed the transaction. The POS machine froze briefly before printing a receipt marked Processing. A few seconds later, Musa’s device showed a debit alert from his own account(meaning the transfer had likely gone through from the bank’s side) to the mans account.
The man checked his phone, frowned briefly and then muttered “No alert yet,” Musa explained in broken English, “Network slow today. E go enter now now.”(the network is slow today, it will soon go through). The man hissed impatiently but eventually collected the cash and left without another word.
Musa thought nothing of it. About thirty minutes later, just as evening traffic began thickening, the same man returned. This time around he was not alone, three other men followed behind him, their faces hard with anger. “That’s him!” the man shouted in Yoruba. “Ole! Thief!” Musa immediately sensed danger and his heart started beating rapidly. Crowds in Lagos gathered faster than flies on spoiled meat, they were always waiting for the next drama. Within seconds, market women, bike riders, bus conductors, and idle boys or rather touts surrounded the POS stand.
The man began shouting aggressively in Yoruba, waving his phone in the air. “He collected my money! The transfer failed! He stole from me!”
The crowd erupted instantly. “Beat am!” “Scammer!” “These Hausa boys na criminals!” Musa’s chest tightened, he tried explaining in English. “No, no! Transfer dey delay! Network problem!”. But unfortunately his voice drowned in the crowd’s fury. The man continued speaking rapid Yoruba, exaggerating dramatically. Musa could not even understand most of what he was saying, but judging by the reactions around him, it was bad. Very very bad.
A woman pointed angrily at Musa and said “I no trust all these people!”. Another man grabbed Musa by the trousers and thrashed him around angrily with such ferocity. Musa panicked, he had never been in such a situation before. “I no thief anybody! Check later, alert go come!” Musa said with much panic in his voice, but reason had already left the scene. Musa tried to show them the receipt, that it showed "processing" but they paid no mind to the clear evidence before them.
One of the boys slapped him hard across the face, another kicked over the POS stand and the machine crashed onto the ground. Musa was terrified. He suddenly remembered stories he had heard before of petty thieves beaten to death over ordinary misunderstandings. In Lagos, jungle justice moved faster than truth, the crowd grew more violent.
Someone picked up a stone and another person shouted, “Burn him!”. He thought about his mother in Kano who believed her son was finally succeeding in Lagos. He thought about the younger siblings depending on him for school fees, was this how everything would end? Over a delayed bank network? The accusing customer kept fuelling the mob. A danfo driver grabbed a discarded tyre from nearby.
Musa’s knees nearly gave out, he looked around for any eyes with pity that could come to his aid but he saw none, emotions had taken over already. Then suddenly, a ringtone pierced through the noise and the man accusing Musa froze, he tried to quickly pocket the phone and continue edging the crowd on but the phone fell and someone else picked up the phone and the accusers expression changed instantly. The credit alert had arrived, twenty thousand naira received.
Silence spread through the crowd. The same people shouting moments earlier suddenly looked away awkwardly, people started muttering “I knew he was innocent”, “their was no way he could do such a thing”. The man stared at the screen in disbelief while Musa stood trembling, sweat pouring down his face. “It… it just entered,” the man said weakly.
One elderly Yoruba woman stepped forward from the crowd slowly. And said “So all this was because of network?” The crowd began dispersing quietly, embarrassed, almost disappointed that it was all for nought. But Musa could not move, he was shaking violently. The danfo driver dropped the tyre silently and walked away. One of the boys who slapped him avoided eye contact completely. Within two minutes, the crowd that had nearly killed him vanished back into the busy Lagos evening as though nothing had happened.
“I thought you stole am,” the accuser said. Musa stared at him silently, no apology could repair what had happened. No apology could erase the image of that burning tyre, he would be traumatised for life. That night, after closing what remained of his kiosk, Musa sat alone outside his tiny room under the dim yellow glow of a streetlight. For the first time since arriving Lagos, he seriously considered returning home to Kano, but noo he told himself, he returned the following day to the same stand amidst the same people and they now turned their faces away in shame.
IMAGES ARE A.I GENERATED