Once, I had to board a bus to school, back
from vacation. It was a Sunday and I came
from church to the park. I was relieved to be
the first passenger on the bus – why? If you
didn’t know already, a lot of perks come with
being the first passenger -first, you get the
choiciest of seats and you get to put your
luggage in the bus first and avoid the hassling
from area boys
“Sister, nye anyi 500 for your load”
“Oya bring 300”
-pause –
This is totally unprofessional I dare to say and
only obtains in backwards third world regions. I
don’t even want to be politically correct on this
one,leave me alone.
Back to the story!
Sundays are slow days and if for anything,
because people are still in church, so the wait
for the bus to fill up was lengthy, Beyoncé’s
voice from the ‘mi gente’ remix was filling my
ear drums, so I couldn’t be bothered, even
when the wait was nearing two hours.
The bus was almost full when they sent
another bus and told us to enter it instead. I
sighed at the inconvenience and hoisted my
bag on my shoulder, pulling the rest behind
me, when a random park tour popularly Called
‘agbero’ accosted me.
“300naira for your load, oya! ”
I was stunned at the manner he was shouting at
me, one would think I snatched his wife. He
had a glare on his face, as if daring me to
challenge him, and I told him I won’t pay a
dime for the load as the bus I was just in
accommodated my luggage fine and nobody
bothered me,plus I had paid the fare. He looked
at me in derision, told me to get out of his sight
and loaded another person,denying me access
to the bus that was about to move, after my
two hour wait.
I don’t think confusion is the word I want to
use here, the drivers around were watching and
silent. I approached them and they tried to talk
to him, he refused. I asked to see the manager,
they said he went out. The assistant? Out too.
All the while, the tout was hollering, that since I
refused to pay for the luggage, I should sit in
the park.
A part of my brain flipped. Generally, I am the
triple C’s – cool, calm and collected when
dealing with such people, because I believed
arguing with a stupid person is coming down to
their level and of course, they’ll beat you with
an outstanding amount of stupidity. This time,
however, I lost it. The warri part of me came
out and I gave it back to him word for word. He
was stunned, I mean he had expected that a
tiny girl – yes, I’m really tiny, on glasses would
be too timid to call him out, but I stood my
ground and asked him why we blame Buhari for
everything when we behave like this, I reminded
him that he was just a park tout and why he
was still like this is because he kept selling his
destiny to load buses illegally.
Writing this now, I can’t believe how upset I
was, I could feel the anger in my throat – hot
and brown. At the moment, I was prepared for
a showdown, to return every slap for a slap.
The drivers around began to calm me
down,pleading with me to wait for the manager
“Sister Abeg, no vex ”
They chorused.
It bothered me that they were not confronting
their colleague, I think it was so normal to them
that they hadn’t expected a customer to
protest. I asked them if the bus was not meant
to load the luggages of the passengers, and
what was the essence of buying ticket if you
had to pay for your luggage to be put in the
boot or under the seat, to be trampled by angry
feet? They stared back at me in muted silence.
I was livid! They weren’t helping me at all and I
suspected the only reason they were begging
me was because I was female. I asked one to
watch over my bags while I went to the office
to ask for a refund.
Getting to the office, the woman at the desk
apologized and said it was a mistake – then I
knew it was a normal occurrence with them,
they just didn’t expect a passenger to protest.
She begged me to take the next bus and I
obliged her, because I had wasted a lot of time
at the park already,and if not that I didn’t want
to arrive my destination at night, I would have
staged a one-man protest till my money was
refunded to me – sorry wasn’t going to cut it. I
entered the next bus and the driver who helped
watch over my luggage was hot on my heels
“Sister, find me something na”
Ugh. I couldn’t believe he was asking me for
money after all I had just been through.
Exasperated, I fished in my bag and found a
100 naira note which I gave to him, ignoring his
excited exclamations of
‘Thank you, sister! God bless you”
Writing this now, I’m still livid. We let A lot of
things slide in this country because enforcing
your rights generally as an individual is a
herculean task – the system just doesn’t work.
I believed, in developed countries, I would be
entitled to some compensation if I decided to
sue, but this was Nigeria where we leave
everything to God, the cost of pursuing justice
being greater than the grievance. Hence, things
like this slide until they become normal and
nobody bats a lid.
I’ve been in the market before , harassed and
cussed out, if not because they didn’t like my
dressing – you’re not allowed to wear clothes
without sleeves to the Nigerian markets no
matter how decent it looked, they would grope
and grab you, or because I priced their goods at
a price they felt was an insult – Haba! Na poor
I poor, I no kill person, abi should I let you
obviously rip me off when I could get a better
price elsewhere.
I don’t even want to go into the travails of
being a small person in Nigeria,maybe someday
later, I’d write a post on that. At 5″6,i know I’m
generally considered average height, but I have
totally no body fat, so I appear a lot younger
than my age and have been mistaken several
times for someone in junior secondary school. I
have been expected several times to give up
my seat in a bus or squeeze into a tiny space
because I was smaller, I mean, small people do
not deserve any human feelings, they’re like a
pillow you can squeeze into any hole or crevice
without problems . Most of the time, I’ve had
to put my foot down, especially when I’m being
disrespected for a service I pay for, and it
works.
When you’re a small person, people tend to
only behave themselves when you stay ‘woke’
or in pidgin parlance, when you ‘tear eye’.
These things happen in countries like Nigeria
because nobody bats a lid and if you dared
protest, they would ask you who you thought
you were.
I am a Nigerian and I am angry.
