The Spirit of Lagos.

I love Lagos for many reasons but if I have to live in Lagos then I will buy a car fully air conditioned. So I had an urgent meeting to attend and I left the house early. While in the bus, a scene happened.

A middle aged lady who is in her first trimester was seated at the bus seat but wanted to change her seat close to the window so she can always spit out or take in fresh air, while she was about to do this change of seat, the bus conductor and the new passenger who was about to come into the bus started insulting her.

The bus conductor spoke in Yoruba and he said ‘olo run, koshi kuro, eri bosheri, iwin’ it means ‘dirty smelling lady, take your nonsense away, look at her bushbaby’ mhen…I opened mouth and couldn’t close it. Like what has she done to deserve this kind of insult? I and an elderly woman kept telling her to be patient and ignore the conductor. The conductor wouldn’t stop the insult and the lady told him that she would make sure he is arrested.

The new passenger too insulted her and said she deserve to be insulted since she couldn’t make up her mind on where to sit. The lady alighted from the bus and the rest of the passengers started talking to the conductor and his attitude to the lady. Now Karma played itself right before my eyes but the lady was not present to witness it.

The passenger who was the reason the conductor insulted the lady started on each other. OMW! They insulted each other with no remorse. The passenger is almost forty years of age but ganger and hot drink has made his body look older than his age more or less a stiff bone and the conductor a little above 27 years of age with dirty teethes and crooked voice disturbed the peace of the morning.

……………

Later in the day, I was returning home. Hungry and tired. I was thinking of alighting at TFC and eat before going home but I thought of my cousin who would be waiting for me to return and I decided to just go home. The shuttle bus I entered had a well grown man as the driver but as the case is, he is frustrated.

The driver was drinking water from a bottle and after he finished, he threw the bottle away on the road. One of the passengers, an elderly woman berated the bus driver immediately. She said ‘oga what you did is wrong’ another passenger a young man said ‘you are joking with 15 thousand naira.’ Other passengers went ahead to say their displeasure against the driver.

The driver didn’t see what he has done wrong, rather he went ahead to justify himself on how he is not the only one who dirties Lagos and how leaders are the ones destroying our society. He kept on saying all sort of stuff about the government but the passengers didn’t let him, they equally tackled him. Eventually, I said to him ‘Oga accept your fault and stop blaming government’.

The driver said to me ‘I don dey think am say na only you get sense for dis bus, why I go drink wata tro d bottle for inside my moto. Ehen! If I wan cari my moto comot for morning, I go see gala, biscuit, bread leda for my moto, I go see lacasera bottle and malt can for my car, I go come dey wonda winch dog com for mid nite play for my moto. Ashey, na hooman bin.’ Omo!, I just gave up.

So the driver fought with all the passengers, from those who did not tell him they didn’t have change to those who didn’t talk in time that they were alighting.

The driver stopped to pick a woman and she told him she had #500, he told her to come in that he would make change from ‘Agbero.’ When we got close to the Agbero, he told the lady who was seated in front to give the man the #500. She gave the Agbero and the Agbero gave her #400 instead of #450. The driver started insulting the woman he said ‘Madam you are veli veli stoopid. I say you are mald.’ The woman got angry and told him ‘you are an idiot, what right do you have to insult me?’

The driver said, ‘you are dating that Agbero, that is why you dashed him the #50 and I won’t give you the change. The woman replied ‘I will show you Festac is my town, I will show you I was born, brought up and married in Festac. Leme call my people.’ The driver now called her ‘Ashawo’

The woman retorted ‘you are a useless man, a mad man and a foolish driver.’

All the while I was giving the woman thumb up.

Then one of the male passenger said ‘madam you are wrong, how can you call a man useless….’ At this point, all my hunger disappeared. I told the man not to say that again. I asked him what he meant.  Why should the man call her ashawo…. The driver now got angry with me oooo instead of dropping me in 23 road he carried me to KFC/Mobil.

Since I have used my hunger to fight for my fellow woman I just enter the place jejely to eat before I quench.