WARNING: Please don't laugh at the writer, he's not happy he wrote this. It is the Nigerian condition he has to put up with, at least for now...and don't pity him. You may be tempted to laugh, muffle it. Find a middle course...and yes, try to comment after reading. Welcome to the jungle where life is nasty, brutish but long. The road to the Abakaliki motor park could be very dusty. Cab drivers anxious to leave the park with their human cargos manoeuvre through the crooked track and cause more problems for the road as they lock horns with other impatient road users. Then guess what follows? Swear words.Tantrums.Blame trading.As a visitor,it could sound more like a babel.A confusion of tongues, sort of because you can't decipher a word. But such rowdy scenes are not peculiar to Ebonyi. Only that the state has its own particularities. I have never seen such height of greed in my life. I'm serious. Please continue.
The motor park is located at the centre of the Abakaliki main market. On this particular day, the sun had over-played and caught napping, was hastening to its home where it could conveniently cover its shame in the shielding horizon.Darkness was fast closin in.But I was determined to get back to Ojiegbe,the place of my primary assignment which is a few kilometres away from Abakaliki the capital of the salt state. I had been ill and had gone to see a doctor who had given me some smelly drugs.I took some and threw some away.They were just too disgusting to me (don't feel disappointed o, I don't like taking drugs.In fact, I hate it wit passion.I am well now...but my docky must not know this,so help keep it as our little secret.Promise?)
As I ascended the steep hill that leads to the park,two men advanced in my direction and scuttled for my bag.Robbery in broad day light? I was startled, shocked, afraid.... Their approach was uncultured, sorry,uncommon is a better word.They were actually the 'garage boys' who led me to the right cab to convene me to my destination. It was here I saw greed with human face. Please read on.
Ideally, a cab is supposed to carry four passengers, plus the driver making five. Isn't it? Please don't tell any Ebonyi cab driver that theory o, or he would stone you to death. Let me be a little graphical.
Here in Ebonyi, a cab could take as much as eight mature, fully grown adults! You are asking how? Fix the puzzle- three sit in the front with all their luggage, four squeeze themselves at the back like hurriedly packed sandine and another adult finds existence in the boot. I mean in the boot! The same boot is heavily stuffed with industrial consummables like cartons of drinks, biscuits, sacks of cassava, heavy duty bags of potatoes, oranges, among others. Him be animal? Probably. That's not all.The top of the cab has some ghana-must-go bags strapped to it with some thick ropes. In the end, you have some shoving, struggling and sweating souls crammed into a tiny space and bound together by fate and hate.They must endure this hardship for about an hour.And for your passage through this human coffin,you must part with N300.Here, you pay to die and you have no option.
You can trust me that I won't keep quiet in that horrible, inhuman condition. I shot at the driver: 'How can you people be so carlous endangering people's lives with your greed? This is shameful!' 'It's not our fault o, blame the road, we have terrible roads, and the police' he retorted. Then he burst into a hulabaloo of Ibo. I kept quiet. We had three intermittent stops on that road. Why? Police settlements. They unabashedly demanded their share as they hailed the poor man. I was dumb. I've always thought Lagos is the only corrupt place where police officers are shameless. These ones appear worse. Maybe the driver was right. The system is bad. He must endanger our lives to make hands meet.
I must survive, I shall not die but live...though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death of Ebonyi... the Lord is my shephered. As I made this frantic prayer, I took a quick look at the back seat, and all I saw was that despite the inconvience and my jeremiad, the village women still managed to sleep and snore in the cab. They are inure to the pains already. Oh can you imagine, somebody was even drawing saliva...Oh my God!
Nigerians, what's the way forward?
Culture Shock. It is quite obvious that you've never been out of Lagos state. These 'human coffins' as you have termed them are common place in any other city in Nigeria.
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