I must first of all start by saying a lot of unprecedented
praises are always been heaped on Lagos state for reasons I find it hard to
understand. While looking at Lagos from the outside as a local Ibadan boy, I
was full of admiration of the commercial capital of Nigeria. I loved the way
Lagos was represented in the movies and mostly songs by music artistes as they
all sang about where they grew up. I admired the way the addresses of several
companies in Nigeria carried the Lagos tag as they were mostly headquarted in
Lagos state. As a student of the Obafemi Awolowo University then, a lot of course mates and room mates told me mostly 'lies' about Lagos. Yes, I purposely
called them lies because events were highly exaggerated. Now, I am in Lagos now
struggling to adapt to the rigour of activities here called ''the hustle''.
Don't get me wrong, Lagos is a great place with an enabling ground to horn your
skills, talent and develop into greatness. On this piece, the Village Town
Crier will be picking on the amazing state of affairs in the Lagos buses. I
have experienced several bizarre occurrences which I have decided to create
humour out of. As usual, you see the buses looking so tattered, old, unkempt,
overused and adjusted seats (to create more space for increased profitability),
faded black and yellow paint, stressed vehicles engines constantly smoking, dangerous-looking
bus drivers and their conventionally lousy conductors who will never buy the
needed megaphone to practice their trade.
Sorry if my introduction seems too long. I can perceive my
reader's eagerness to see the keypoints of this article. Below are classes of
people you will likely find in a Lagos bus:
(1) The Preachers:
These set of people have a way of testing the faith of
Lagosians. They are mostly christians. As you board the Lagos bus that never
comes to a halt completely, struggling to find a seat at a very tiny spot in
between people, stepping on toes and apologizing simultaneously as you sweat
from the short struggle, you hear one voice from behind proclaiming the ''Good
News'' of Jesus Christ. As the high peach of the voice is maintained, you find it
annoying and irritating, one part of you prompts you to cut the preaching short
by cautioning the preacher but out of the fear of appearing to revolt against God, you stay calm and patient with the hope
that it ends soonest. Its almost unbearable when the person is sitting beside
you with the loud voice protruding through your ears.
(2) The hot-tempered class:
This class is mostly dominated by the Igbos and Yorubas. They
are highly controversial. You can never please them. They frown their faces
terribly as soon as they sight the black and yellow bus. The bus conductor who
is like an attendant in the bus (for the sake of foreign readers) understands
the nature of such people. He immediately takes a defensive position. He screams at the top of his voice saying; "Enter
with your change oh" No Change oh" "I nor want wahala"
These set of people are ready to flare up at the slightest provocation. Their
moody look gives you the impression that you are in danger. Stepping on their
feet in the bus or over-leaning on them due to the lack of adequate space in the
vehicle could attract a death penalty. I am not exaggerating. Some of them
purposely attempt to beat down the transport fare which they know its
impossible just for the purpose of raising tension in the bus. They pay the bus
fare with utmost bitterness and demand for their change immediately like they
anticipate a foul-play from the conductor. Even if their change remains an
amount as low as N5, they are ever ready to shake up the bus and abandon their
destination to recover what rightfully belongs to them.
(3) Marketers:
I hereby tender my apology to say that I see the marketers as
very weird people. They are mostly of two categories, some sell varieties of
items ranging from Sausage rolls to La casera or Viju milk drinks, recharge
cards and other consumables OUTSIDE the bus which is highly acceptable in
Nigeria and Africa, even though I have never been outside my country lol. The
second category have no destination, they will board the vehicle with you. They
are mostly rickety and hungry-looking old men with the appearance of a secret
herbalist capable of causing maximum collateral damage spiritually. They will
not take a seat in order to gain the advantage of addressing the passengers.
They mostly sell drugs that are reportedly capable of 'curing' ailments
world-class scientists are almost giving up on like Hepatitis, Sickle cell
anaemia, Hiv, cancer and the likes. The amazing point is that, their
appearances give you the impression that they may have a combination of all the
ailments they claim to cure. As you settle down in the stuffy Lagos bus
with every passenger giving you this kind of hostile attitude due to the
frustrations and stress of the day, you will shockingly hear the cracked voice
of one old man wearing a T-shirt that is big enough to be a bed sheet, shouting
on top of his voice to advertise a drug or any other commodity. This worsens the
already poor state of the bus. A times I feel so strange that this kind of
weird occurrence paints the scene of a movie shoot to me.
(4) The sneaky class:
This class of people contains the enemies of the conductors.
They look as peaceful as a dove. They are not easily noticeable. They enter
quietly with the purpose of also leaving the bus quietly without due payment.
The bus conductor stretches his neck at the risk of a possible dislocation to
fish them out. Most of them are experts in this field. They will keep a
straight face while others are paying for their transportfares. At the bus stop,
they exploit the opportunity of the rush out of the bus to innocently sneak out
with the alighting passengers. It hurts that so matured men who are old enough
to govern a country are in this act too.
(5) The Sleeping class:
The act of sleeping in a commercial vehicle used to be so
strange to me but when I came to Lagos. I soon realized it was almost normal.
Sleeping in a Lagos bus is almost as unsafe as a soldier sleeping at a war front
during an attack. Anything could happen, the moment of sleep comes swiftly
likes its diabolical. This is due to the fact that some people leave their
houses as early as 4am in the morning to reach their working place at 8am due
to the bad traffic. This is what happens when you are living in a place like
Akute and Ikorodu which is virtually a part of Ogun state, and you are working
on the Lagos Island. The same set of people return home as late as 11pm in the
evening or later than that. You can't cheat on nature, you will certainly sleep
off willingly or unwillingly. Surprisingly, these set of people are so
accustomed to sleeping in the bus that the bus has become their bedrooms, two
minutes after entering the vehicle, they are already off to the dreamland.
Shockingly, I also see some policemen sleeping in their patrol vehicles. That
is totally unacceptable. God is our greatest security operative in Nigeria
anyway.
(6) The Fat Alberts:
These people are like cheats. They are like the politicians
while slim people are the masses. Mostly plus-sized women with gigantic
backsides that could be compared to a contruction truck. Some chubby women will
innocently occupy the space of three people in a bus leaving the others being
almost squeezed out of the bus. This causes regular fracas in Lagos buses day
in day out to the extent that only the affected people complain. The unaffected
passengers tend to stay out of the argument because the next bus could entangle
them in the same predicament. Its a rotational syndrome. Lagos passengers could
be so gross, you will hear the backside being directly attacked verbally. On
one occasion, one lousy Igbo man who felt cheated by a fat passenger looked at
her 'truck' and said ''Una where u see this ur nyarsh from?, una biko the thing
too big, na die oh!" The woman looked at him and angrily said ''Na ur mama
you dey follow talk'' As usual, a movie was shot from that scene lol.
(7) The Pick-Pockets:
These are so unwanted like virus-infected files on your
computer. These people could make a highly esteemed person in the class of the
Governor of a state embarrass himself publicly. These set of people enter
solely to steal from targeted passengers. Your phones and wallets are commonly
their targets. A friend of mine was rocking a song on his newly bought Iphone 6
with the aid of an earpiece. The phone was safely placed in his pocket and he
nodded his head simultaneously to the beat of the songs. He boarded the bus
with the normal conventional hot rush common with large crowds. He noticed the
song stopped playing, he ignored it and tried settling first in the vehicle.
Few minutes later, he tried to change the song, shockingly the phone had
already developed wings and probably flown to an unknown tree to relax. He
starred at his earpiece with tears welled in his eyes. Behold, it was like a
temporary moment of madness for him.
(9) The market women:
When you see the women, you will know the hustle is real in
Lagos. With due respect, they are not they kind of people you will want to sit
with one the day you are wearing your best cloth to work or probably a very
clean white shirt. They are very dirty people due to the nature of their jobs.
They have this natural fragrance that is unique to them. Personally, I feel it
is the greatest scent ever existed. The smell is a combination of crayfish,
dried fish, fresh fish, dried meat, vegetables, dirty clothes, onions, armpit
smell, mouth odour and sweat from stress. Imagine the combination of all these
in one. This is what you directly face when you sit around them. The most
annoying part is that they will never keep quiet while in the bus. They always
interact with their fellow market women in strange languages sounding like
tongues spoken in churches. They come with heavy loads their litter the already
deplorable bus. Sometimes you unluckily have one of those filthy loads hanging
around you but you politely stay quiet out of fear of offending a suspected
witch. The bus conductors have a terrible way of treating them which they will
never take personal.
(9) The Phone call class:
This is a minor class anyway. We all answer phone calls in
public vehicles especially when a high priority is attached to some callers. In
the Lag bus, some people are so lousy with calls. They pick important calls
shouting as if they are making an important Public Service Announcement. They
go as far as revealing dirty family secrets. Some go as weird as reigning
curses through the phone, they express their emotions freely. This act forces
some bus passengers to console them in most occasions. I find it uncomfortable
anyway. Some ladies pick calls and loudly flirt on phone too. Love is a
beautiful thing, we all want love, we are happy that you are happy but I feel
your relationship life is private and should be kept private. I was shocked
when one businessman angrily told his caller he was heading to the bank to
withdraw N500,000. That was an easy way of selling yourself to a potential
robber who may not be nursing intention of robbery at that time. Later on, we
Nigerians will blame the police force.
The posh class:
This class is the ideal class. It is filled with well behaved
and good looking individuals. They are always looking neat, wearing nice dresses
which maybe out-rightly cheap, they use good phones, smell nice and talk nice
with fake accents. A times they almost miss their bus stops due to their
inability to shout like a thug that they are alighting especially when the
conductor fails to announce. They stay quiet in the bus with innocent looks,
they endure the discomfort because it is temporary, they ignore the bus
conversations and hold back their laughs no matter how funny because they
believe they may be in the bus but they are not of the bus.
Well, every reader would actually be wondering the class of
the writer. As a Village Town Crier, I may not be rich as I am still struggling
to settle down in Lagos but I strongly feel I belong to this class. *Laughs*
I hope I forced down that smile out of your strong looks?
Thanks for joining me again on this one. Feel free to share the posts with your
friends so that the network can grow. This ministry should move to its
permanent site this year loooool.
*Hops into another Lagos bus* Orileeeeeeeee!
Oyingboooooooooo!! Hold your shangie ooh, na God I dey use
beg u oh!!!
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