Nigeria Content Online

When my friend Aniedi fell out of a danfo the other week, two
things troubled him. One was how he came to be under the same bus that threw
him out earlier, with the first violent swing of the steering wheel. The bus
then hit a curb, smashed the wire meshing for flowers, and came to rest in the
middle of the road. And yet Aniedi is discovered under the fender, when he
should have been lying way back, a signpost for where the accident began.

“When we get to heaven,” said Ani who likes to keep his hopes
high, “I will ask to see a playback of that scene, in slow motion.” He thinks
God is a movie director who keeps reels of tape of the pivotal moments of our
lives; evidence that will save or condemn us on Judgment Day.

When he was able to focus again, Ani heard voices screaming,
“There is someone under the bus, person dey under moto!” and thought, “Oh dear,
they should do something about the poor fellow, under the bus.” But of course,
it was Aniedi they were talking about, the poor fellow.

The second mystery concerned the conductor. Ani could not
understand how he came to be standing there without a scratch when just before
the accident, he was the one at the door, hanging there by the tips of his
fingers, pushing his face through the front window to talk to the driver.
Shouldn’t he have been the first casualty in any accident?

Yet there he was helping Ani up with that look of disdain that
conductors show their passengers, an arrogance that is beginning to make sense
to my friend. Because surely, anyone who could survive a crash while hanging
from a bus, when people sitting inside were being picked from under, deserves
to feel superior.

The whole thing bugged Aniedi. “Do you think he saw the accident
coming and jumped?” he asked. I said, “Well, for all we know he didn’t even
jump; he probably kept hanging on to the bus like a trapeze monkey, swinging
this way and that as the bus careened off the road, air-floating with the
flow.”

At that point, someone asked the 24.41 percent question, “Are
these conductors human?”

There is some evidence of that, of course, but probably not
enough to convince a jury. The things that conductors do, normal people can
only contemplate. I have seen one face up to a police officer who refused to
pay his fare and ‘abuse’ him well. “You are talking to Mopol like that?”
demanded the officer, raising his gun. And the conductor sneered, “Do your
worse.”

I was in a bus when another conductor took on three friends, men
bigger than him, holding two by their collar while the third pummelled him
until they all fell off the vehicle. But he returned with a new N20 in place of
the torn note they had used to pay him. I have seen them shoo old women who
didn’t have the exact fare out of their vehicles, and made pregnant women run
to catch the bus. On many occasions, acting as the driver’s rear mirror, they
would look behind and seeing an oncoming trailer, nevertheless growl to the
driver, “Enter, no fear.”

This morning, acting on the advice of his conductor who appeared
to have impeccable sources, our driver decided to dump us well short of the bus
stop. There was a mighty row: everyone approached the conductor, demanding
money back. The lad walked a few paces, turned his back on us and proceeded to
pee right there, threatening to turn his hose on anyone who came too close.

Rude and reckless, harassment seems to be their chief goal.
Yesterday, when the conductor refused an old woman her small change, she lost
control and began to curse. She told him that his life would be a misery and
his children vagabonds; that he would die in an accident and rot while vultures
picked at his bones. It was all quite eerie.

When she left, I asked if he was not afraid. He looked almost bored. “You
don see vulture for Lagos before?” he asked.