Have you recently been in one of
those Lagos bus rides that served to jolt your memory of the nature of the city
you were travelling through (as if it were ever possible to forget). You know,
one of those where your amused reaction was to shake your head at the often
comical display of madness on the roads, or where you were the unfortunate
victim of a reenacted episode of Midtown Madness.
Well I was in one today as an
amused observer. Here’s the detailed, albeit shake-my-head-worthy account of
the day like many others, transiting through Lagos.
The bus was headed for Igando
from Egbeda via Isheri (a sort of halfway point of the journey). The bus
departed with just about a third of its passenger capacity. The fare was
N70 or N50 to Isheri. (Yes, for the benefit of the unacquainted, there is no
qualifiable logic for determining trip fares in Lagos).
I was sitting beside a young man
in a black suit, who volunteered to test the efficacy of my leg as a prototype
hand rest. The vehicle’s spare tyre occupied the floor space where both of us
would have placed our feet, so we both had to place one foot apiece (his left
and my right) on the tyre to attain some measure of comfort despite this. I
didn’t protest initially, hoping that as we moved on and he adjusted, he would
realize what he was doing and make amendments. In my wildest dreams! The
gentleman sunk his elbow more forcefully into my thigh. I had to glance at him
to ensure he wasn’t trying to pull a practical joke. Oh, he was blissfully
unaware of his actions. I casually shifted my legs away from his reach. That
worked only momentarily before his elbow once more found my thigh and dug in
again.
About two stops later, a fair
skinned middle-aged man boarded the bus alongside a couple that appeared
to be in their sixties and six teenagers who ‘lapped’ to occupy three seats.
As the bus accelearated towards
Isheri, the fair guy inquired about the fare. He was going to a bus stop which
was just three bus stops after Isheri. The conductor charged him the fare for a
regular Egbeda – Igando trip. The man exploded.
‘What! How I go pay seventy
naira? Me sef dey carry people dey drop for there and na fifty naira I dey
collect. If your driver be correct guy sef, im for sabi me for this road’.
Fully tuned in to this dialogue,
I feigned disinterest and kept looking out of the window beside which I was
sitting.
‘Na seventy naira be your money
o!’ the conductor protested and then shifted his attention to the other
passengers.
‘I no fit pay seventy naira o. I
no be JJC’.
The conductor ignored him. I
noticed the driver glance at this passenger through his driving mirror. He did
not however, comment on the issue.
‘Your money?’, he asked the
older woman who had gotten in at about the same time. She reached into her bag,
I believe (she was seating right behind me so I couldn’t see what she was
doing) and stretched out a sum of money.
The conductor made to collect as
he asked, ‘Na where you dey go again?’
‘Idowuegba’, she replied.
(Idowuegba was a bus stop about halfway between Isheri and Igando).
‘Ya money na seventy naira.’
The woman did not reply but
simply withdraw the cash and kept silent. Sensing trouble the conductor briefly
withdrew to another passenger.
‘This conductor gentle o!’ I
chuckled to myself.
The conductor collected the
fares from the other passengers and returned to Mr. Fair-Skinned who kept
insisting that he would only be paying fifty naira. The driver quickly
intervened.
‘File jare’, he addressed his
conductor. ‘File’ being Let him be, in the native Yoruba dialect.
‘O ko sharp. Kilode tio sofun
koto wole,’ he added, paraphrased to mean, 'You are not sharp (smart). Why
didn't you inform him (the passenger) before he boarded?'
The conductor
uncharacteristically for someone in his line of work, did not retort. The driver
sensing trouble with this passenger advised his conductor to accept the N50.
The other new passenger (the
sixty-something year old man) glanced back discreetly at the fair-skinned man (he
was seated on the row just in front) and shook his head as he muttered
something under his breath.
The conductor returned to the
old woman. ‘Madam, pay me na’.
‘Sebi you no wan collect am?’
she retorted and then added for the benefit of the audience, ‘I give am money,
e no collect.’
‘I say Idowuegba na N70 o!’ the
conductor protested. He wasn’t doing too good a job of intimidating the woman
into compliance.
‘Come collect the money na,’ the
woman challenged and with that turned away from the conductor. Grumbling in
protest, the conductor went about his other duties.
‘Isheri…..Old garage….Orheptal….’
he called out.
‘Orheptal wa o!’ Mr.
Fair-Skinned bellowed, for he did have a fairly loud voice. ‘Abeg I go stop
before you reach Orheptal o!’ he added.
I glanced at him in exasperation
and could only wonder what the driver and conductor were thinking. I saw the
driver glance at the man through his mirror again.
The bus zoomed past the Isheri
and Old garage bus stops and approached Orheptal.
‘Driver, slow down o, I wan drop,’
the man reiterated. The conductor glanced in from his perch at the door. ‘Bus
stop no dey here,’ he said. ‘We go reach Orheptal first, make you come down.’
‘I no go delay una. I go quick
jump down,’ he insisted stubbornly. The conductor seemed at a loss for words or
logic to pursue the argument and retreated to his perch. The bus rolled on
towards Orheptal. The man increased the volume of his protestations. The driver
reinforced his conductor’s sentiments.
‘We no dey stop road o! Police
go catch us,’ he declared.
‘Dem no go catch you,’ the man
insisted.
Mr. Sixty-something glanced back
again and muttered to himself.
The driver ignored him and kept
going. The bus stop was within sight and about a stone’s throw away. Just
before the stop was a U-turn point which happened to be busy at that moment. The
driver slowed the bus briefly but swerved towards the side of the road in
typical Lagos ‘danfo’ driver style, to continue moving without giving way to
the traffic that was navigating the U-turn just then.
‘Abeg, make I come down,’ Mr.
Fair-Skinned said. I turned just in time to see him hanging in the doorway
alongside the conductor. I have no idea how and when he had gotten there.
‘Driver, owa! Owa o!’ he cried. The
bus was still slowing down and at a speed he gauged was satisfactory, he leaped
from the bus unto the sidewalk amid light protests from the driver and conductor
at his recklessness. With skill definitely borne of out some experience, he controlled
his momentum and came to a halt. I shook my head again. The bus arrived at the
proper bus stop less than 30 secs later. I could still see the guy strolling back
along the sidewalk.
To be continued
