It was on a sunday morning and I was going to church. All dressed up and the day was bright. My church is in oshodi and I live at Maza-Maza area close to Festac. This is not a religious fact or prove of God's power, but some persons will want me to still thank God for being alive to narrate this story.
So, off I go. Bided my family “bye bye” and I left. From Maza-Maza, I waited for bus going to Oshodi direct. When I couldn’t find and the time was was running against me because the service starts by 9am. So I decided to move forward a little bit towards Mile 2 and took a bike that will stop me on “top bridge”. When I got there, there were precisely four danfo buses “loading”, so I entered the one at the front. Very clean looking bus.
FIRST MISTAKE: Without looking or scrutinizing the persons in the bus, I just entered like that with no suspicions on my mind. When I was about to enter, the guy sitting close to the door, moved his legs so I could pass and go in, I did that without thinking anything about it. After all, it was a normal thing for people to not want to move into the bus and prefer to sit close to the door and since he was there before I came, I made nothing out of it. We were three passengers inside the bus. So if I have to include the bus-conductor and the driver that will make it up all five persons. After I entered, the bus started moving.
I was surprised and I told the driver. “ol boy why are you moving na, your bus is not yet filled up and there are passengers. Why can’t you just wait a little bit and fill the bus up”. But he didn’t answer me and he started driving off… That was when it dawn on me say wahala don land. “Monkey don go market…whether this one go return na another matter”
What happened next happened so fast…so so fast! I just noticed that the bus-conductor gave the guy next to me a signal and he started pushing me inside. Then it dawned on me that I have entered a “once chance” bus. For the benefit of those of you who will read this, “one chance” is a local slang in Lagos which is used to describe robbers who uses public buses to rob innocent and unsuspecting passengers.
By then the bus was speeding off. So I asked myself, what will I do now? I decided that I will rather die inside this bus with these guys than be killed for nothing. Let it be in my record that I fought for my live than let these guys rob me or use me for rituals. So my first target was the bus conductor. As soon as he tried to close the door, I sprang on him and pushed him off the bus. My speed of light action took all of them by surprise. As he went down, so also I tried to jump off with him too, but the next guy to me held me back and was trying to keep me in the bus.
I have to admit that God was on my side, for the guy next to me held a gun, but just did not see the chance to shoot. Instead of them to try to subdue me or kill me, the one holding me at my side and the one at the back where just busy checking all my pockets to see what they can get out of my pocket. Haba, what manner of foolish robbers are these guys? That action again gave the power and the chance to launch another massive attack. I grabbed the guy next to me and held him tight. As I wrangled him, he lost control of himself, I pushed us both out of the bus and we landed on the side lane off the express-way. The bus sped off without even stopping for their guy.
Then on the road, we started struggling with each other and fighting heavily. By then we were close to iyan-isolo bus stop. Other onlookers who saw what happened came to us and separated us and took us to iyan-isolo but stop fully, under the bridge.
AND THE STORY CHANGED. There at iyan-isolo bus stop, the story took another turn for the worse. I am not going to slight the Yorubas here, but what happened to me that day made me to ask myself a big question. “Is Nigeria really one country, or a pack of directionless individuals fooling themselves under one entity and location in the west of Africa and calling themselves on nation”. (Forgive my language but “who feels it knows it”…Bob Nesta Marley).
Back to my story. When they separated us, some groups held me, while some groups held him. As I started narrating to them what happened, one person from God knows where came out from the blues, behind my back and gave me a dirty slap that covered my eyes “gbam”! I was totally blinded for some seconds, and was shocked at the action. He started speaking Yoruba (This is not proving that he is from the tribe, but that was what he spoke). Then I asked the people near to me, what he was saying and why did he slap me. They said the other guy (the one chance guy o) told them that I am a thief and that he is a police officer trying to arrest me and I tried to run and jumped off the bus. Imagine! Like Sound Sultan would say, “the hunter has become the hunted”.
Before you can say jack-silver…all the agboros under the bridge started shouting in Yoruba language and carrying woods and were hitting me from all corner and like I said, I suddenly discovered that I have become a target of tribal difference. The hunter has turned to the hunted. They slapped me from every corner even when I was shouting and telling them that the other man is the thief and he has just tried to rob me. They were speaking Yoruba and I was lost! Then, I broke down and started crying and shouting at them while the other guy was just standing there smiling and having a field day. I will not wish what happened to me that day to happen to even my enemy. It was hell on earth loosed upon an innocent person.
Some good Samaritans came in, pleaded on my behalf and took me to one side. They asked me which tribe I am from and I told them. I was then advised to do all I can and try to leave the place immediately, before something more terrible could happen to me. One of them got me a bike and told the bike man to speed off from the place and take me away. The bike man did as instructed, and that was how I left the place. That was how I survived both “one chance and mob attack”
All these while, I never knew how much injuries I had sustained. Not until the bike guy got me back home. People on my street gathered and asking what happened. When I looked at myself in the mirror…oh men! I looked like the ALUU4 guys before the fire was set on them, only that at least I had my clothes on…(May their innocent soul rest in peace). They took me to the hospital. That was when the inside injuries I had sustain began to bite me from within, real hard and I passed out. I only got to know where I was some three days later.
Right now I am very fine and everything is fine. But please this Christmas period, while you board buses and do your thing for the Christmas…always remember that EVERYBODY IS A SUSPECT and you can be a victim.
Look at the busses very well. Make sure there are many persons in the bus you enter. Make sure, that there are men, women and children in the bus before you enter. And even if your own mother is in that bus…if your mind tells you not to enter…omo no enter o. I rest my case here. Like Americans will say…GOD BLESS NIGERIA!
Be safe!
Samuel Ab
Email: wilmotonline@gmail.com
23 Old Ojo Road,
Maza-Maza,
Lagos
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