Naughty wife talks: My first Lagos trip

I can laugh about it now, and it has become one of the stories I use in entertaining my friends and acquaintances, but I tell you, my first trip to Lagos wasn’t funny at all at the time.

I was newly married, young with stars in my eyes and ready to go anywhere with my gallant husband by my side, even to ‘This Is Lagos!’

Well, we were having a pre-Easter programme in Lagos and we had to go in a convoy with other members of our youth group in Abuja. It was fun until we entered Lagos and came face to face with the city’s infamous traffic jam. We had to abandon our vehicles and trek the rest of the way. I think I walked two kilometres that day and I was some weeks pregnant! That was the day I confirmed that truly women are created strong in some way.

After the short programme, we decided to take a jaunt into town and see our aunty before heading back East for Easter. We took a commercial bus. Our first mistake.

I forgot I was no longer in Abuja where you stop a bus in the afternoon and expect the driver to reverse and come and meet you where you are standing chatting on your phone and ask you, ‘aunty where you dey go?’ There in Lagos, before the bus applied brake my husband, who had lived in Lagos before, had flown into the bus like a frigging James Bond and was yelling at me to do the same.

For fear of being left behind, I ran after the rickety bus manned by a devil of a driver who was also screaming at me to jump in kia kia. Na wetin you dey wait for? See dis one o’

In my mind, I was like ‘thunder fire your blokos.’

Hian! I held the door of the bus, hooked in a foot while the bus was still on the move, my arse was out there and I was biting my lips, my eyes wide open with fear. In fact fear made me throw myself into the bus and grab a seat. It was later I discovered that I was sitting away from my husband. And I became angry when he made fun of the amateurish way I entered a Lagos bus, is it danfo? He actually had the nerve to make fun of me when I was almost losing my mind with fear. Young men!

I refused to join him in the back. Let him sit there like a damned bachelor. That would show him for making fun of me. I still haven’t forgiven him.

Anyway, while we were still bumping our way across Lagos, the seat were like metal and my arse were as raw as if I was crossing Sahara desert on the back of a bony camel, with the driver making a hell of a noise with the radio turned up to the highest level and talking or howling at the conductor.

Then the bus turned off into a local road where we were stopped every two meters by ruffians they call alaye. They will argue with the touts, shout all over the place and then proceed to another checkpoint for more shouts and arguments. It was like the journey would never end.

I was tired, hungry and anxious. I didn’t really understand what was going on but was reassured when my husband told me it was the standard procedure.

Then, the bus picked another passenger, an elderly woman and before long she was involved in an altercation with the driver and the conductor. I thought the old woman would mellow and leave them for God. For where? She threatened to burn down the bus.

I thought she was joking. But, before I’d knew it, the woman grabbed a gallon of petrol that was inside the bus and started dousing the whole place with the fuel. I screamed and darted to the back of the bus where I had earlier refused to join my husband. The driver was shouting, the conductor was screaming and wrestling with the woman for the keg of petrol.

By now, I was scared shitless with my hands on my head screaming and begging the woman. Is this how I will come to Lagos? Chineke!

After the fight, the woman calmed down and we continued our journey. Then, we were passing a bridge, underneath it was a billion people doing their businesses. We passed another bridge and my husband tapped me and said mysteriously, ‘hold your breath.’

I was like, why? Then it hit me. The kind of stench that could only have come from the pit of hell assaulted me. By then it was too late for me, I had already inhaled a noseful. I shouted, it was even worse then, I gulped a mouthful. I then wisely held my breath until my husband told me to release it.

What the hell was that? My husband gave me one lame explanation about a dumping site. How could it be a dumping site when I clearly saw people living on top of it like they were vacationing in Obudu Cattle Ranch?

Thankfully, we finally got to our bus stop, and while we were waiting beside the road to cross to the other side, one man ran into the road and – that was where I saw that someone could be hit by a car twice within a second – an SUV on top speed hit the poor sod, threw him into the air, met him while he was still mid-air and hit him again. The man landed on the road and scrambled out of the road on his own steam. It was a miracle I didn’t faint that day.

We finally dragged ourselves to our aunty’s house which was away from the maddening crowd and had a restful two-day visit.

You see why I don’t blame people who behave funny if they were from Lagos. The city was designed to crazy people.

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