All God's Children Need Travelling Shoes ( 1986)…….Angelou Maya
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I remember my growing up days , that the perculiar lagos transport , the MOLUE was something I really enjoyed, hey it was not the stench , or the smelling bodies of these individuals in the bus that cut my fancy, nope , neither was it the the fear the igbo laden driver drove into me , that I relished, it wasnt the molue itself, which lacked shock absorbers, and vibrated like it was going to fall apart with each pot hole it entered, that I enjoyed , nope it was the people , the banters they traded, the thoughts of these people evident in the words of their mouth, the humour with which they viewed life , the grace which with they bore their sufferings, these were the things I enjoyed, have you ever heard fela’s suffering and smiling, a perfect picture , I remember the guys who sold drugs in these buses, they sold everything from sex enhancing drugs to drugs for intellectual enhancement,
I should have bought that , if you wanted to lose weight overnight these guys had the drugs for it , if you wanted to gain weight overnight, these guys claimed they had the drugs for it, but thank God I never bought any , I might have ended up shorter that I am now,… I learnt some vital lessons about human relationship from these buses, the humor with which the ladies told some guys to sit properly and not rest there bodies on their boobs, the conductor with his foul breathe , asking for his money the 2nd time , after he’s collected it twice already, the hunger famished police man, who is insulted in very creative ways because he has asked for his usual 20 bucks , all these are my memories of the lagos molue, .. and I do relish these long gone days and all the experiences from these days …..
Now I sit behind a Toyota hilux, or a Toyota corolla( the kind my bank people drive in lagos ) going to site and things have not changed much because behind the wheel at different times are people / drivers who tell me tales which Gosh I would never have heard …
Do you rememeber the kaduna riots , and all the tales of woo , which the media houses in lagos fed us with , I heard the humorous side of it, I t was some days ago, I was going to zango kataf , the home of Zamani lewcourt , that chap who stood trial for disturbing the peace in Nigeria some years ago , the driver driving me was from that region , he told me tales of the crisis and what his eyes saw , the crisis had started in northern kaduna, for whatever reason , the uneducated ,poverty stricken youths of northern Nigeria exaction need no reason to kill and injure except the word of the some selfish personal agenda seeking eccentric mallams after Jumat on Friday, I heard that in the last kaduna crisis , the predominately Christian community of southern Kaduna , asked the Christian God to give them leave of Christianity , to allow them fight their battles themselves , they went back to the roots And dug up their charms , and called on their native Gods of the war, the war ( if I am allowed to call it that ) was fought by women, the men don’t fight in southern Kaduna (he claims), these women usually go to the 4 corners of the house ,count 0ne to four and the house comes crashing down on those who lived and were in it at the particular time. .hmm when the Christian God fails , u call on the God of vengeance in your native language, Christianity made easy shey
Some chap told me the story of his brother in jail, jailed for mistakenly being the instrument , a chap who had an appointment with death , used to make his end…..he bagged 22 years hard labor, well after a few years , he plotted his escape from a Nigerian jail, hm… on this fateful night of his escape, one thing lead to the other and yawa gased, being chased by the police he climbed up a tree to hide, the hours soon passed by and the police gave up their chase , at about 2am , still stuck in the tree , he watched a benz car pull up to the tree and watched a man , fat and stocky, a man as big as doyin okupe ( not him oooo), pull by the tree open his boot and bring out a baby, the man slits the baby’s neck and bathes in the baby’s blood , my condemned drivers bother get down the tree and goes back to jail, if the world outside has deteriorated like this , jail then is heaven his thinking…..
On some other occasion , I listen to the tale of the guy who in his mid 50s, tells me of his golden days in England, an electrical engineer , now he drives me all around northern Nigeria, and he calls me ever so often to buy him a bottle or 2 of beer , I oblige I need the company, and at this gatherings I hear all sorts, tales of northern Nigeria in her golden day, tales of the way life does change with the passing seasons, I look on this man who tells me the story of the family he has left in London and how he misses them so often, I listen to him with lots of belief despite my natural inclination to doubt, because at one of our meetings at one of those bars in Kaduna, he ran into an old class mate , AGM with Peugeot, they talked and laughed and in the course of that gist , heard fine Donald, cross river state governor was there class mate in FGC Ilorin, well I sipped my beer, toke in the chill breeze of the evening and just wondered how fickle life can be…
Today, at a site near Jos, on the Akwanga – Jos road precisely I met a contractor, and he told me some marvelous stories too, but before I tell his stories, let me tell you about our meeting…I have been under immerse pressure from my clients /bosses to deliver some sites according to specified quality and within a time frame that required me calling on the heavens to help out with the job, sleep for me became alien, I have been condemned to days of long fast without me knowing, for once the fine boy engineer was lost , I have been working in the rains, and mixing concrete, and shouting myself till my voice lost its strength… but all these was at some other sites, so you can imagine how upset the lagos traveler was when he got into this particular site for the 1st time and all was a mess, concrete looked like a big mushy bowl of eba immersed in watery egusi soup, the dung pits were like shallow graves for a vagabond, I was depressed, here was to stand an 80m tower in her majesty, to grace the skies with her strength and elegance and gosh this engineer was plotting her fall already, "Pull it down" I screamed, "get out" I barked…..the news soon reached Abuja, and big boss himself came running down, well nothing in life is irredeemable, even in death, there could still be redemption, remember lazarus!... well with cool heads we can always see the solution to issues which necessary will not strain relationships or be termed destructive, we soon talked and compromises were made my dear tower will stand and only God can then bring her down, we laughed , shook hands and then he told me his stories…. One day in lagos , coming from the island and going to ogudu, he stopped to buy fuel , with his pregnant wife beside him, a guy walks up to him and greets him, oh another chap begging for money he assumes, but one affectionate look at his wife reveals to him, that standing beside his wife was another beggar with a gun in hand….let your imagination wonder…soon he finds himself on the way to sagamu, sitting between 2 beggars holding guns, and being driven by another with one still in the passengers sit…..the tales of how they drop him is one miracle, but in his state of shock with madam and big belly, he soon meets a good Samaritan who drives him to mowe police station, now the catch, Oga DPO, after listening to his orde2al , gives him 700 naira to get back home , and he gets a call from the police station the next morning to come for his car the following day, his laptop , phone , etc intact life is funny …..sometimes our worse enemies( Nigeria police in this case) are the only friends we really have ….
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These stories remind me of the tales I heard as a child with my dad around, my blurred memories of him, recall him telling me stories as a child, he told me tales of why the Yoruba king carries a horse tale, and why the tortoise has a cracked shell back , these stories are lost in time cos I really cant remember them anymore, may be in time ,old and grey I would finally recall and tell the tale to our children, but somehow I do know that the lessons which he wanted me to learn , I still live with , however right now all I do want to say is that the stories of woe, joys, challenges, victories, defeats, trails, and all which we hear from people or see in the lives of others is to make better people of us, to stir our minds, to help us see that life isn’t just breakfast , lunch and dinner , that inside the man sitting close to you lies an endless reservoir of knowledge, which will always be a plus , that even the bases of man , in jail , has 1 or 2 lessons to teach you, that sometimes providence answers all our questions with the words of the chap next door ,that our eyes and ears are the inlets to our minds , heart and soul, we gat to use them, every creature has a story to tell, listen and watch, for in those words, you might just get the answer to the 1billion dollar question. ”what is the essence of life after all”....
well i sure missed u all..but these days i have been made to work for my money.
My journey continues!
Stay in touch!
The lagos travller.
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