“Olosi, Oloriburuku, omo abi pa be...” those were the other high pitched utterances that filled the air besides the unpleasant but unavoidable consistent honking of car horns and the soul vibrating revving sounds of the engine.
My mission – to get to Lagos in one piece and in peace filled conveyance, if possible.
Location? Some place on the “luxury laced” Nigerian roads between Ile-ife and Lagos.
Just as the vehicle was about to take off, I had to establish the face behind the steering one more time. If he were above his second decade in existence it couldn’t have been for more than two years and the person behind this face was to chart our course through the various “luscious” pot holes with arms wide open to receive every inch of the tyres that attempt to evade them.
My only concern was the fact that we might be driven to Lagos by “youthful exuberance”, but as pertaining to my mission – a failure was impossible especially since ‘He who promised is faithful’.
No sooner had we embarked on the journey than the incessant curses and swear phrases rocked the air. The key that opened up the house of vocal chaos was his ‘unnecessary speed’. The ‘wisdom-loaded’ passengers that myself and my two other friends shared the air in the vehicle with even attempted to get the attention of members of the Road corps and our favourite ‘green-naira-note highway magnets’. Just then, I cautioned my friend who attempted calming them down not to bother wasting his time as that did not help matters as they picked on him as though he had a second steering in his grip.
As they succeeded in lacing the already polluted air with invisible bubbles of saliva in the curses, they also succeeded in making the driver lose focus- as he, on a lot of occasions attempted to respond to their curses.
Caught in crossfire, I was sick of the chaos but more importantly on the fact the driver was now loosing concentration on his most important task (which was now endangering my own mission)-driving.
My questions were:
1. Who would drive the vehicle to Lagos, were the road corps to arrest the driver or on the assumption that the ‘green naira notes highway magnets’ yielded to their flagging and stopped the vehicle (did i hear you say magnets only attract metal?)
2. Why on earth are people this insult driven, vehemently unpleasant and void of basic communication and relationship common placed skills?
3. When would our roads be free of the “Naira note magnets” that adorn our roads and have done so for eons?
4. Even the road corps have started gaining magnetic powers, maybe the government should help break the magnetic flux or entirely remove the magnetic fields on our once sane roads-say construct new ones.
Through this i have learnt to be more courteous and communicate more effectively while striving to be pleasant at all times not forgetting to PRAY for my great nation NIGERIA.
NIGERIA, GREAT PEOPLE, GREATER NATION!
