Escaped three accidents in a day en-route ICT events – 3 of 4
From Ojota garage, Lagos to an accident en-route ibadan
I went to Ojota garage to take the car to Ibadan, the car did not leave until after 6pm, waiting to get the car full with passengers before leaving. The journey was quite smooth as the driver wasn’t speeding as some would do on the express way. He seemed to be a very level-headed type of driver and you feel safe with him driving you. Though the sitting arrangement was not very convenient, which I complained about but the driving was OK. But that feeling of safety was soon to turn right upon itself to the feeling of utter fright. All of a sudden, after we had passed the main trailer park along the express way, the car skidded off the road yet again and the driver seemed not to be able to control it.
Spontaneously, I screamed out “Bismillah, Bismillah, Bismillah, Laa hawla walaa quwata illa billah, Laa hawla walaa quwata illa billah, Laa hawla walaa quwata illa billah, Yaa hayyu, Yaa qayyum, bi rahmatika astagith, aslilih shani Kullahu wa laa takilni illa nafsi tarfata aynin” I repeated these several times till the car came to a halt just when it was about to head into the bush on the side of the express way we were. There was no concrete road-side guard on that part of the road yet, possibly because the on-going road construction work has not reached that part of the express way. The words I screamed out were the words of remembrance as a Muslim does in every situation, good or bad and the words had special meanings to me in this situation apart from the normal meanings and the spontaneity of saying them is just part of who I am, always seeking refuge in Allah(swt).
We were lucky not to have plunged right into the bush and more so that there was no concrete road-side guard that could have served as a lever that could have projected the car into the bush on impact if the car was on high speed. Because the driver was not speeding, the impact could only have stopped the car with some friction on impact. Neither of the above scenarios happened, the car halted somehow and we were spared a fatal accident, third time lucky in a day. I heaved a sigh of relief but highly frightened out of my skin. The driver got out of the car to open the bonnet, supposedly to check what happened, he came back to say that something came off the steering wheel, which explained why he could not control the car. The last time I looked at the time before the accident, it was 7:44pm and the time by now would have already pass 8pm. It was very dark already and the flow of traffic on the express way has subsided, which explains why there were no other vehicles behind or in front of us as the accident happened, otherwise, a collision would have been unavoidable. The scenario is totally the same as the two earlier accidents.
The driver let us out of the car and I asked him why is it that he did not check his car before driving to make sure all is OK, he retorted that how would he know something like this would happen and to my dismay, the other passengers supported him on this, saying, it was not his fault. Somebody nearly got us all killed and they are saying it wasn’t his fault, unbelievable! I could not understand this kind of thinking, it is the responsibility of the driver to make sure his car is in good repair order before taking it out on the road, especially when it is being used to convey people other than himself alone. If it is not his responsibility, if it is not his fault that this accident happened, whose fault is it then? Who is behind the wheel? I still do not understand why Nigerian people still think it is OK to leave their safety to chance, I understand tying your camel first.