For strangers, who intend to visit Lagos, there is always one peculiar hitch which they do have to consider, on how to manoeuvre the busy Lagos traffic. For Lagosians, themselves referred to as ‘Omo eko dada ni’. The first thing they do when they hit the hay and wake up, with listening ears, they heed to the radio noisily. The enthusiastic responses from the OAP would be energetic. I was confronted with this dilemma in my last visit when as a novice of either using a bolt or uber, after I had agreed with Prof. for an early morning meeting in Ikoyi, on how to facilitate our modus operandi for the upcoming book launch. I hopped into the rolling coaster bus when I heard the bus conductor shouting.
‘EKO. APAMGBO CMESSSI. EKO AKPAMGBO CMESSSSI’ The previous day, the sky almost fell upon me. The Uber driver who drove me, amidst the traffic jam in surulere quickly thanked Holy Mary, at a single stroke, turned his air condition off, slit the car seat behind, passively he wrapped his two hands together and buried them safely under the hollows of his arm, fat as a big cow he began to snore. Before I could fathom a thing, the meter was already bolting away in 000 digits, naira bill which I whoppingly paid for only been snared on a busy Lagos traffic jam sitting on the back of an old Camry car, so on this very hazy day just like a new yorker would act in a rush hour in new york city, I behaved like OMO EKO DADA. When I hopped into the rolling bus. It was an early venture, our roller-coaster bus aka molue, got snared into one of the busiest traffic jams in the world, right on the middle of the Third Mainland Bridge. A hazy day, we sweated down to our pants, most of the drivers were impatiently clanging their horns but something eclectic happened inside this roller coaster bus, a damsel, brittle in silence. Who sat at the Ledge of a row, During the damsel tugging to outwit the difficult emblem of sitting on a Hard raw texture of plank, a flat foam, a weary black leather her slip-on made off her toe and Plummeted on the tarred granite, as the roller coaster bus undulates its way to our destination, through the glass pane, I watched the china sandals trounced by upcoming vehicles. The Damsel’s frantic effort to divulge her plight to the bus driver came back unheeded, she took no time to dig into the heels of the loquacious conductor, who was bent over counting naira notes, came off abhorrent ‘’kuro n be joor. Abi oloshoni? Aahh ahh!! Na me do am? hooted the loquacious conductor. When I looked up, I saw the driver full of respiration fighting over the round big wheels.
‘’Ohhhhhh!!help am joooor. Some of the curious passengers dug into the conductor’s heels, swearing in the name of ODUMARE, IFA, CHUKWU OKIKE ABIA MA. That if they were in the same plight like the damsel, they would have exhumed the conductors visceral, in his utmost reply the conductor turned callow while on the other hand, the damsel, with a pretty face sat untowardly. Raptly, I dug into my wallet and gave the damsel some cash enough to acquire another china sandals.
‘Thank you, sir! Oga. Thank you! The damsel to my utmost surprise greeted me. When the coaster bus finally arrives at her destination and choked in by the roadside behind other yellow buses. I saw to my utmost surprise the damsel tiptoeing to a shoe stand. I was struck by the audacity of a pittance to which it had given her hope. What if she had a job interview just like I do? I bade her farewell. She gave a chin up, we parted ways.