Hi Folks,
Sometimes I wonder if we will ever have a sane society.
You will wonder why I should be coming in with such negative vibe being a bubbly Lagos boy.
Well, the events of the past couple of days has seen me go through all sorts of tumultuous experience, from physical to mental.
So I decided to relieve my growing up experience as a gidi boy and do danfo against the use of my truck or the cab hailing fellas.
The wait at the bus stop wasn’t such a bad experience as there were a number of beautiful sights to behold. Beautiful girls, comical bus conductors and what have you.
It was fun all the way as we moved from one bus stop to the next. The passengers were a different story entirely, we were a collection of folks from the corporate world, public service and market women.
You can only imagine the kind of conversations we had. We could reach a common front, you sabi Naija now. When it comes to politics, we can never face the same direction.
The only common denominator was the issue of “agberos”, the park managers for ease of communication. They invade the driver/conductors like pests and bombard them with all sorts of tickets, this in itself is not the problem but the attendant force and brutality that they bring along.
You get to see this at least 8 times before getting to the last stop, this brought all the passengers together as we tried to make summary of the total total toll collected in this one trip and the effect on the populace.
Nigerians are a brilliant lot, they dropped all sorts of opinions and solutions. The most resounding of them being the one from that rotund woman who boarded with a heap of weed, “ẹ̀fọ́ tẹ̀tẹ̀”. She said, “is it not possible to have a central collection center physical or online where these tickets are paid for on a daily basis”. She went further to emphasize how it would promote accountability.
Besides the hardship on the public; there is also the pain on the side of the drivers and conductors or have little or nothing left at the end of the work day.
I am worried for the day these guys will hit the wall and revolt. It may just be beyond control.
Now, these are the kind of conversations I like to engage in. It is healthy to the public and the solutions are practicable.
I think the government should bring these debates to the public space where we can get sense from everyday street people.
I understand that the situation is little or no different in other states of the Federation.
What are your thoughts, do you agree with this market woman? Please leave your opinions in the comment section.
Remember to make someone smile today with your acts of kindness.
Yours,
Ilupeju B