The image of my tall self compressed within the confines of a car loaded with four passengers (myself inclusive) is a fix I strategise to outmaneuver since I started making the almost daily trip from Utako to Nyanya.
Before the mini buses as the cheapest means of transportation vanished from Abuja city’s roads, I had only one major challenge – sitting for about an hour in a bus that gave very little room for my six feet one-inch frame. I would sit with my knees battling for a comfortable angle within the limited space, a prayer for my destination to draw closer than the traffic allowed always on my lips.
But the traffic always frustrated that prayer, although time and fate that pulled my destination closer despite all odds never failed. So when the mini buses became history and paved way for the mass transit buses and cabs, I heaved a sigh of relief, but not for too long.
The cabs have one major problem, and this is no other than a ‘portable’ or ‘more compressed version’ of the former. They cram four adults in the rear sit and seem to hail themselves for the single passenger they allow in front for fear of the Vehicle Inspection Officers (VIOs). One day I complained to a driver and he shut me up with the words, “Since we are allowed to carry four in the back and the VIOs allow it, what is your problem? Is it not just a short distance?”
The driver probably forgot that the VIOs were standing by the side of a spacious road while I was squeezed in the middle by three king-sized adults at the back seat of a cab with poor shock absorbers. Certainly, he should have a heart for my plight, I thought. Another day, we the four passengers at the back seat of another cab complained as we were packaged and driven to Nyanya. When we lamented, the driver retorted sharply, “This is Nigeria!”
This remark got me upset. “What do you mean by: This is Nigeria, I queried,” and the driver went mute. “Are you trying to tell me there is no hope and that we can never do better than this? Look at Abuja. This is somebody’s dream. Twenty years ago, could you picture Abuja looking this good?”
I went on to narrate to everyone in the cab my experience as I travelled recently to Kaduna in an unmarked saloon car from Zuba motor park. I told them how, before we started off, I advised the driver to take one passenger instead of two at the front seat and he refused. “I will not make any profit,” he had claimed, and so I shut up. However, just before we entered Kaduna, two VIOs accosted our vehicle and our driver mumbled a supposedly uniform men’s code language to identify him to the road marshals. Clearly upset, one of them asked: “Do you know why we stopped you oga?” Our driver then replied stupidly, “No, but I am a policeman.”
“You are carrying two passengers in the front seat of your car and that is unacceptable,” the VIOs told him.
“I will not do it again,” our driver said and they reluctantly let him drive off.
The exchange between our driver and the VIOs opened a new line of discussion in the car as three youths chastised him for not setting a good example as a law enforcement officer, thereby making the job of others difficult. The driver, who appeared to be in his early fifties was quiet and sober all the way. However, an elderly man at the back seat suddenly branded us the youth as the major problem of Nigeria and began a sermon about the impossibility of change in the country. He accused us of not starting a revolution and only making a lot of noise without action about a situation that could never change. “We are in Nigeria,” he concluded abruptly.
Again, this was what got me tickled. “Sir, are you trying to tell me that I as a person cannot make a difference in my own little way?” I asked him. I went on to tell him how the action of one man could bring hope and change to many people. I told him how I was asked to invigilate the students of a school in Shabu, Lafia, Nasarawa State where I served as a youth corps member, and how I carried out my work to the latter, thereby preventing the man who claimed to have come from the Ministry of Education and the students from engaging in examination malpractice. How I was almost mobbed by the students after the end of the examination and the police later showed up and arrested all the other teachers engaged in examination malpractice. I finally told them of how my single act could give hope to students who may have believed that there is a total and irredeemable rot in the system.
As I narrated what happened, with more illustrations from my Abuja to Kaduna journey, our Utako to Nyanya cab driver grew silent and brooded all the way to Nyanya. But what I did not tell them was that the young men in the vehicle shook my hand with renewed respect as we all disembarked at Kaduna and one of them said something I will never forget – “Keep making a difference my brother,” he said. Also, I did not mention that when I crossed the road to board a motorcycle I met the controversial elderly man we had travelled with; who smiled sheepishly and shook my hand with unmasked respect. Indeed, I had initiated a mindset change in my trip to Nyanya and journey to Kaduna; and being a journalist is just part of it.
Sunday trust
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