Walking Under Death Wires: A Kano Evening That Should Alarm Us All, by Zekeri Idakwo Laruba
We were meant to attend a naming ceremony that evening in Kano. Everyone was ready. I got into the car, but it quickly became clear there wouldn’t be enough space. I stepped aside and let the others go.
As the car disappeared into traffic, my boss turned to me and asked casually, “Zekeri, would you like to go for a walk?”
I said yes without hesitation.
It is his habit—almost a ritual. Evening road walks. In Abuja, he does it religiously, sometimes with his wife, sometimes with one of his children, sometimes with a member of staff. Kano was no exception. We had done it twice earlier in the year: once in September during the PRNigeria Young Communication Fellowship, and again in December during Image Merchants Promotion Limited’s annual staff retreat.
That evening, we walked again.
As usual, he paused intermittently, glanced at his smart wristwatch, and asked how far we had gone—measuring distance in minutes and kilometres. Almost every time, another colleague, Shuaib Agaka, and I got it nearly right. Agaka, incidentally, is one of IMPR’s sharpest young minds, recently named Staff of the Year for developing a software solution that saved the organisation significant time and cost on one of its most critical media review services.
But this walk was different.
The moment we entered Gwarzo Road, near the Federal College of Education by the old Bayero University site, he slowed down and drew our attention to something deeply unsettling.
Rows of shops lined the roadside. Welders worked with sparks flying. Traders displayed goods. Artisans repaired equipment. Makeshift stalls buzzed with life, commerce, and survival.
And above all of them—hanging silently, ominously—were high-tension power lines.
What I saw was genuinely frightening. Scarier, in its own quiet way, than banditry. More dangerous than kidnapping. That may sound like exaggeration, but it isn’t. I have seen this danger before. I have seen what happens when people unknowingly build livelihoods under death.
Typical of our system, we often wait for tragedy before acting. We prefer what I call medicine after death.
Those wires are not ordinary cables. They carry lethal voltage. Electricity does not forgive ignorance, poverty, or hustle. It does not negotiate. One snapped cable, one heavy downpour, one accidental contact—and lives can be erased in seconds.
Across Nigeria, the evidence is already written in blood: markets razed, families shattered, breadwinners lost, all because people worked daily under wires that should never have been within reach.
The most painful part is this: many of these people are not reckless. They are uninformed. They are not challenging fate; they are simply trying to survive.
Kano is a city of commerce. Trade is its pulse. But no economy should thrive at the expense of human life. Development without safety is not progress—it is negligence masquerading as normalcy.
That walk stayed with me long after we returned.
It felt like more than an observation. It felt like a responsibility.
I therefore call on the Kano State Government, the Ministry of Environment, electricity distribution authorities, and relevant regulatory agencies to act—urgently. This is not a matter for endless committees or distant policy drafts. It demands immediate enforcement, public sensitisation, relocation where necessary, and strict regulation of activities around high-tension corridors.
Other states have shown it can be done. Lagos cleared markets and structures under power lines. The process was controversial, but it saved lives.
We should not wait for headlines soaked in grief before doing what is right.
Some dangers do not announce themselves loudly. They hang quietly above our heads—until it is too late.
Zekeri Idakwo Laruba is an Assistant Editor and Fact-Checker. He can be reached via [email protected].