8 Stages of Lagos Traffic, As Told Through the Five Stages of Grief (Plus Three Nigeria Added)

1. Denial. "This go clear before Third Mainland." It will not clear before Third Mainland. It will, in fact, get considerably worse at Third Mainland, a fact denial simply refuses to process.

2. Anger. Directed, with real precision, at a keke that has decided, for reasons known only to its rider, that the road shoulder constitutes a legitimate third lane of traffic.

3. Bargaining. "If I take this one-way, God abeg make LASTMA no see me." A prayer offered with full knowledge that LASTMA officers have historically shown up at the exact moment prayers like this one are being made.

4. Depression. The specific realization that you have now been stationary on the bridge long enough to watch your phone battery drop from full to critically low, twice, and that the car in front of you has not moved an inch in either lifecycle.

5. Acceptance. Switching off the air conditioning to conserve fuel, because acceptance in Lagos traffic always arrives bundled with a cost-benefit analysis rather than any actual peace.

6. Prayer. Genuine, fervent, and specifically addressed to whichever state commissioner is nominally responsible for road maintenance that particular week, a portfolio that seems to rotate faster than the traffic itself moves.

7. Generator Fumes. A uniquely Nigerian addition to the grief cycle, where the exhaustion of a two-hour commute is immediately followed, upon arrival home, by a second and entirely domestic form of suffering, delivered directly to your nostrils.

8. Just Japa. The final stage, where grief does not resolve into peace but instead reorganizes itself into a fully itemized checklist for relocating to Canada, complete with IELTS registration and a newly urgent interest in provincial nomination programs.

Kübler-Ross designed her model for people processing loss. She never sat in traffic at CMS on a Friday.