The gross failure of emergency response in Nigeria's healthcabre system, stood exposed once more, this time to the global audience, last Monday, when heavyweight boxer Anthony Joshua and his friends suffered a horrific crash on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. Social media videos captured voluntary bystanders pulling Joshua from the wreckage and seating him in a police patrol vehicle. Not a single ambulance or paramedic appeared on scene.
It was another day of shame for Nigeria's leaders, but a grim silver lining (save for the lives lost and injuries inflicted) that could join recent national scandals to force real change. "Where are the ambulances?" "Where are the paramedics?" Those questions echoed from countries where such basics are routine.
The honest answer is that such facilities barely exist in Nigeria-not even on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, a route officials know is a death trap.
Federal Road Safety Corps data underscores the peril. From January to March 2025, 175 crashes involved 1,271 people, claiming 73 lives and injuring 393. February recorded 30 fatalities, the highest, while January saw the most incidents (155) and injuries-a dip in crashes from prior baselines, yet a rise in deaths.
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Longer-term figures are even more damning. Over 27 months to early 2025, 1,557 crashes ensnared 11,396 people, killing 645 and injuring 3,964. This 127.6 km stretch, spanning Lagos, Ogun, Oyo states, and linking major regions, ranks as Nigeria's deadliest highway.
Just days before Joshua's ordeal, on Wednesday, December 10, 2025, a crash near Otedola Bridge wiped out a family of three. Two others lay critically injured, and were rushed to the Lagos State Emergency and Trauma Centre.
Both the Federal Government, which owns this killer road, and the hosting states, know the risks full well. Yet no ambulances or paramedics patrol the Expressway, not even during Yuletide, when traffic peaks. This happens only in a nation where lives are cheap and rulers couldn't care less.
One stark lesson, however, from the crash that killed Joshua's two friends and nearly claimed the life of Joshua himself is this: this thing called "Nigeria" can happen to anyone, even to superstars and foreigners who innocently come to "experience the country."
All hands, local and global, must therefore unite to demand a functional Nigeria. National sovereignty is hollow rhetoric when systems collapse and people die like flies.
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Perhaps Providence is at work. In mere months, Nigeria's core crises and leadership failures have seized global attention. Nigerians must in turn seize this momentum to actively demand fundamental changes. The era of tolerating clueless leaders must come to an end. As we all know, heaven aids only those who help themselves.
