The Night My React Skills Landed Me in a Lagos Tech Thriller

Three nights ago, I was grinding on a client’s website redesign in my small, cluttered apartment in Lekki.

My laptop was glowing like a beacon in the dimly lit room, lines of JavaScript and React components sprawling across multiple tabs.

I had headphones on, Spotify playing some lo-fi beats, and coffee cooling slowly beside me. Everything was calm-or at least, it was supposed to be.

That’s when my phone buzzed.

“Hey, need urgent help with your WordPress site? Major bug on the home page. Client freaking out. Can you look now?”

I squinted at the screen. It was from Chidi, a fellow full-stack developer I sometimes freelance with. I texted back, “Sure, send me access. What’s the issue?”

Seconds later, a Zoom link popped up. On the screen was a frazzled Chidi, hair sticking out like he’d been running through the rain.

“Man, it’s weird. The API integration for the contact form keeps breaking, and the CSS is all over the place. Mobile version looks like it got hit by a tornado. I’ve tried debugging, but… nothing.”

I rubbed my eyes and stretched. “Alright, let’s take a look. Share your screen.”

The next twenty minutes were chaos-lines of HTML and CSS flashing across the screen, a rogue JavaScript function refusing to cooperate, and Chidi muttering under his breath about “responsive design nightmares.”

I leaned back and sipped my coffee. “You know what this looks like? Classic misconfigured front-end routing. I’ve seen this a million times.”

Chidi groaned. “Yeah, yeah, Mr. Code Guru. Fix it fast, my client is breathing down my neck.”

I smiled, “Relax. First, we’re gonna tackle your broken API call. Then, I’ll show you a trick to make your React components render properly on mobile.”

As I typed, lines of code started to magically line up. The colors on the website adjusted, buttons responded smoothly, and the dreaded error that kept popping disappeared like it had never existed. Chidi stared at me like I had hacked the matrix.

“Bro… you’re a wizard,” he whispered.

“I just read the manual and use Stack Overflow,” I replied, smirking. “Now refresh.”

He did-and boom. The site looked perfect on desktop and mobile. SEO-friendly titles, meta descriptions, and fast load time all intact. Even the animations were smooth, thanks to a subtle tweak in CSS keyframes.

We leaned back for a moment, both of us grinning. “Man, if coding were a video game, this would be the boss level,” Chidi said.

I laughed. “And we just beat it. But hey, you owe me pizza for this overtime.”

Just as I reached for my soda, my phone buzzed again. It was a DM from an unknown number. I opened it cautiously:

“Hi. You just fixed my client’s site. I need your help… but not with coding. Meet me at Victoria Island, 10 PM. Bring your laptop.”

I blinked. “What the hell?” I muttered.

Curiosity won. By 10, I was parked near a sleek lounge, laptop bag slung over my shoulder. The door opened, and a girl in neon sneakers and a hoodie emerged, carrying her own laptop. She looked… frantic.

“You’re the developer, right?” she asked.

I nodded. “Depends… are we talking web development or life development?”

She laughed nervously. “Both, I guess. My startup’s site got hacked, and I think someone left a backdoor in the code. If they push live, everything crashes, and I’ll lose my seed funding.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Show me.”

Two hours later, surrounded by dim lights and the soft thump of house music from the lounge, we were knee-deep in debugging. I spotted it immediately-a hidden JavaScript snippet calling a mysterious external URL every time the page loaded.

“This… is why your analytics were off,” I said.

She groaned. “Exactly. How did you see it so fast?”

“Years of staring at code until it speaks to you,” I replied dramatically. “Or maybe just too much caffeine.”

Finally, we removed the malicious code, fixed the front-end responsiveness, and reconfigured the server-side security settings. She leaned back, sighing with relief.

“You… saved my company,” she whispered.

I shrugged. “Just another day in the life of a web developer.”

We were about to pack up when my laptop pinged-a message in her project’s Slack channel. It was from the person who had inserted the malicious code…

“Thanks for catching me. Let’s meet IRL. You owe me a favor now.”

I blinked. That was… unexpected.

She smirked, noticing my expression. “Plot twist, right? Coding’s fun, but the real world? Way more dramatic.”

I laughed. “Next time, I’m just sticking to debugging APIs and React components, not mystery thrillers in Victoria Island.”

As we walked out into the night, city lights reflecting off glass towers, I couldn’t help but think: web development isn’t just about coding-it’s about adventure, drama, and surviving plot twists.

And honestly? I kind of loved it.