The screams were faint at first, then louder.
“Somebody help!”
But no one stopped. Not one soul.
In the middle of a hot Abuja afternoon, traffic sped by without mercy. Drivers honked in frustration. Bystanders glanced from afar, shook their heads, and walked away. Lying on the side of the dusty expressway was an old man, probably in his late sixties, dressed in a white kaftan now stained with fresh blood and mud. His walking stick lay broken beside him.
A few minutes earlier, a reckless taxi had hit him and sped off. He had rolled off the pavement and collapsed by the roadside, groaning in pain.
The crowd stood watching, but no one moved.
Just a few meters away, a young girl in a red jacket and black jeans pulled her delivery bike to a sudden stop. The time on her phone flashed urgently: 12:43 p.m. She had only 17 minutes left to complete a crucial delivery, or she would be fired. The goods in the delivery box behind her were labeled urgent, fragile, prepaid.
