Lagos was by midday yesterday a tinderbox of anger and resentment waiting to explode, writes David Orr. Plumes of black smoke rose from barricades of burning tyres laid across the highways. Shots rang out as armed police and soldiers fired into the air to dispel gangs of youths carrying rocks and flaming torches.
Scores of people have already died in violence since the death on Tuesday of Nigeria's leading dissident, Chief Moshood Abiola, according to Western diplomatic sources.
"My God, my God," cried my taxi driver, Sola, as we approached a blazing roadblock on Ikorodu Road, a motorway running through the heart of the mainland.
We drove forward. "Turn back, turn back," screamed a passer-by running up to our car, one of the few on the highway. "There's rioting up there, they'll burn your car". Sola needed little persuasion as the angry faces of the youths ahead could now be seen. He gunned the engine, turned the car and raced back in the direction from which we had come. Protesters carrying banners bearing the name of Chief Abiola ran down the almost deserted road.
We were on our way back from visiting the home of the late Chief in the Ikeja district of mainland Lagos. We had found the courtyard of his modern suburban villa thronged with mourning relatives and supporters. "They have succeeded in killing Chief Abiola", wailed one distraught middle-aged woman. "Our leader is dead, the breadwinner of the house is dead", cried another. The late politician's youngest wife, Dupe, sat slumped in a car parked inside the entrance. His younger brother, Bashiru, was also there but too upset to speak. A group of local journalists who had kept an all-night vigil at the house stood in front of a white marble tomb where Abiola's first wife, Simbiat, is buried. His second wife, Kudirat, gunned down by an assassin two years ago, lies at the back of the house.
According to Muslim tradition, Abiola should be buried within 24 hours of his death. But his entourage recognises that an autopsy must first be performed and that it is in the country's interest that it be conducted by an independent pathologist. His family and supporters find it difficult to believe there was no foul play involved in his demise. Some of them have come out openly and accused the regime of Gen Abdusalam Abubakar of murder.
"This is very terrible", said Abiola's personal assistant in Lagos, Mr Alhaji Oje Akinteye, in a shaking voice. "This is very shocking. Now I can't speak anymore, please excuse me". A book of condolences has already started to fill up. We left quickly to avoid the trouble we had earlier sensed to be brewing on the streets. On our way to Ikeja we had passed burned out trucks and other roadside debris from the rioting which had broken out the night before.
Having been turned back on Ikorodu Road, we realised it was a race against time to get back to Victoria Island. But the eastward stretch of Apapa Express Road was also blocked by a blazing barricade, as was Western Avenue. There was one option left: southward on Apapa Express Road.
There too we were confronted by a burning barrier and Sola spun the car around as shouting youths ran towards us. Then shots rang out and the demonstrators scattered, leaving a single policeman armed with a handgun kicking the barricade apart. The other policemen chased the youths up the road.
Once again we turned around and drove down the deserted highway towards the dismantled roadblock. The policeman cocked his firearm and waved us through.
"This country is going to break", said Sola as we passed throngs of pedestrians heading across Eko Bridge from Lagos Island where shops and businesses yesterday remained closed. "I pray to God we don't have war".