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A city is not only roads, bridges, drains and rail tracks… A city is also where people release pressure… A city needs emotional drainage… In Toronto, citizens go to an arena to shout for Raptors… In Lagos, we shout too — mostly at danfo drivers… We clap when NEPA brings light… We jump over open drains… We sweat inside buses… And when pressure becomes too much, we throw parties, spray new notes as if the papers are toys
I HAD planned to spend Friday afternoon in Stoney Creek, Ontario, tending the lawn and showing off my gardening skills to my ladies.
Then I saw the price of the Raptors ticket.
Immediately, wisdom entered.
Any lawn that cannot wait for a man who has paid that kind of money is not serious.
So we drove to Burlington Station, parked the car, and took the train to Union Station in downtown Toronto.
That train ride alone was a sermon.
Lake Ontario on one side. Trails, trees, landscaping, quiet communities, industries and civic facilities along the way. It was not just transport. It was corridor planning.
Not near anything you see on a train ride to Moniya in Ibadan.
By the time we got to Union Station, I saw what mass transit should be: crowds, restaurants, movement, beauty — yet order.
Nobody was shouting “enter with your change!”
Nobody was dragging anybody.
Nobody was fighting the system in order to use the system.
Then came Scotiabank Arena.
Twenty thousand seats of organised madness!
Lights. Music. Cheerleaders. Families. Fans. Colour. Noise. Joy.
The Raptors led comfortably by the third quarter. Then the Cavaliers closed the gap. By full time, 104–104.
Extra time.
Blood pressure rose.
With only seconds left, Cleveland seemed ready to steal the night.
Then the Raptors called timeout, returned, and dropped an awkward three-pointer.
Victory!
The shout in that arena could have powered a small Nigerian community for one week if connected to the national grid.
That was when the environmental lesson entered.
A city is not only roads, bridges, drains and rail tracks.
A city is also where people release pressure.
A city needs emotional drainage.
In Toronto, citizens go to an arena to shout for Raptors.
In Lagos, we shout too — mostly at danfo drivers.
We clap when NEPA brings light.
We jump over open drains.
We sweat inside buses.
And when pressure becomes too much, we throw parties, spray new notes as if the papers are toys.
But recreation is infrastructure.
Sports is infrastructure.
Parks are infrastructure.
Waterfront trails are infrastructure.
Clean stations are infrastructure.
Mass transit is infrastructure for dignity.
A child who learns to queue early becomes an adult who does not need a soldier before he behaves.
A city that designs for order does not spend all its energy begging people to be orderly.
Nigeria has been in extra time for too long:
extra time for light, security, rail, clean drains, planning discipline and maintenance culture.
We need cities that allow us to live, not merely endure.
Sometimes, what a country needs is not another committee.
Sometimes, it needs a train, a court, a ball, a whistle, a clean park, and somewhere citizens can scream for two hours without insulting anybody’s father.
*MORAL OF THE SATIRE*
A city that gives its people no place to play should not be surprised when they fight everywhere else.
Mass transit is not just transport; it is civilisation moving on schedule.
Recreation is emotional drainage — and every stressed city needs somewhere for its citizens to release pressure before they explode.
