Can you imagine anything as chaotic as Lagos traffic, I mean seriously it's a mad house.
My friend always told me how awesome Lagos is but that traffic tells a whole different story.
How else do you explain getting in a bus and then the tire busts, the conductor puts you in another bus and that once tire busts too, all this when you are in a hurry! Wow! Then the Yeye conductor will open his brown teeth and be laughing, seriously.
Lagos traffic has the ability to change people, it turns a perfect gentleman into a beast, a lady into an animal. It literally transforms you. But I guess that's what you have to do to survive.
Off the road they are perfectly normal but Once they get on the road it's like something goes of in their heads and next thing we hear is hulk smash.
Lagos traffic turns a ten to fifteen minutes journey to one hour fifteen minutes journey. I mean I have to get up at ungodly hours not to do ungodly things which would have been expected and/or accepted but no, it's to go to work, seriously!
Me that used to complain about waking up seven to go for an eight am class.
I remember one morning in the bus, this little girl was sleeping on me, I mean full scale sleep and drool. I tried to wake her but she didn't bulge. But who can blame her, it was after all an ungodly hour and me too would have been sleeping if only I was not too scared of Lagos.
I even tried to get the adult who came into the bus with her, but guess what? He too was sleeping.
Lagos traffic is just pure madness, but there are a few who seem to thrive on it. I mean I remember the bus driver who vowed to take some people to the hospital with him that day, his driving was so rough that passagers started begging to come down for fear of losing their lives. But did he listen ? No of course, he is a Lagos driver.
What about the day I entered a bus and the door fell or the bus conductor who only spoke Yoruba and I was like huh throughout.
And how can I forget how the prices of buses can double or triple at a moments notice, I mean it's so expensive. I mean I will enter a bus and pay 500 just to go one place, and it's not as if the bus is even comfortable.
And what about crossing the roads. Crossing the roads is like a death sentence, I mean you literally hear cars screaming for your deaths.
So I remember the day I thought I was used to Lagos and decided "hey why don't I use the fifteenth minutes journey which officially became two hours everyday to catch up on some sleep".
I close my eyes for like a second (which actually turned out to be like 20 minutes) and opened my eyes to see that they had passed my bus stop long time ago.
I hate Lagos traffic.
Signed
© E. D. Oghre
Artwork via: Artinthepark
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