Escaped three accidents in a day en-route ICT events – 1 of 4

From Challenge,  Ibadan to Yaba, Lagos.

 I narrowly escaped fatal accidents on three different occasions, on three different public transports in Lagos last Thursday, 7th of September.  I had to attend two events in Lagos on Thursday, one is the Afro-India ICT Expo at Eko Hotel in Victoria Island and another is the Nigeria Innovation Summit taking place at Sheraton Hotel in Ikeja. I took the Bus from Challenge, Ibadan to Lagos. On the way, the Bus kept making a shooting sound from behind where I was sitting, not sure if this sound is coming from the engine or the tyre. Everybody seems to be OK with this noise but I wasn’t. I made a casual comment about it, no one responded and I was worried about making a fuss that could get everyone turned against me as if I am wishing for the worst to happen. I have had this very experience several times trying to call attention to something this is obviously wrong and I had been shouted down and insulted by the driver and mostly backed by some other passengers. So, I felt a bit hesitant to make a fuss. The only thing I could do is pray silently to myself for safe landing at the other end and hoping this shooting sound is nothing.

One of the major problems I believe we have in Nigeria is wishing away something that is obviously wrong, not doing anything about it till it becomes irreparable. There are countless number of vehicles on our roads that are not roadworthy, but these vehicles are let loose on the roads resulting in countless number of fatal road accidents we see everyday on our roads. Many lives are lost simply because some people price profit higher over safety and lives. I can’t believe that these people think about their own personal safety either, otherwise, why would one deliberately go on the high-way road with a vehicle that could potentially explode anytime. I believe there should be more done in seriously addressing this issue because it is not limited to a place. I have lived and traveled in four different states in the south-west and it has always been the same experience while traveling both inter-state and in within state.

We got to Lagos quite right but not yet to the final destination of the bus where I need to get off and join another connecting taxi to the venue of the event I was attending. The driver stopped at a petrol station to drop off a passenger and he drove out of the station to join the road again. No sooner had he joined the road, a few metres from the petrol station, the bus suddenly halted with a big jerk. I was shocked and frightened because of the sudden halt in motion. Luckily, there were no other vehicle close to the bus from behind or in the front, there could have been a collision that could proof fatal. We escaped that accident and the driver came down without any apology, explanation or feeling of remorse for this sudden halt that sent shocks through the spine. I thought, what kind of a person is this? he just went about checking up the bus to see what happened with the passengers still locked up in the bus with no explanation as to what is happening.

I had already been too late for the event that started 9am, the time was  already 11am then. I asked the driver to give me my change so I can get on to another bus to get to my destination since his bus seems to be broken down needing some work done to get it moving again, I can’t wait till then. He bluntly refused to give my change telling me he hasn’t got time for change now. For the life of me, I have not been able to understand why people in this country can’t seem to admit their wrong and apologise to others to whom they’ve caused inconvenience. I have experienced this countless of times, even you are shouted off and insulted when you try to make them see reason why they are wrong or just asking for amends or just a simple apology. One of the passengers who was willing to wait asked to give me the change on behalf of the driver and he can collect it back later. I agreed to this and collected the change from him and went off to get on a BRT bus to get another connecting taxi to the venue of the event.

I was already too late for the event, the talks I marked down to attend were already gone and I couldn’t wait for too long because I need to attend another event. Instead of sitting in the remainder of the talks, I went to the exhibition to see what I wanted to before leaving for the next event.