DANFÒ EXPERIENCE

'A hell of a ride'

Artwork by Gabriel Esu

Finally, I snapped to life. Had to sit-up sharply with inspirations from watching Undertaker series, else I would have wasted another hour moaning, groaning and grumbling in bed.

It is 4 am, not too early in a city like Lagos where life leaves everyone behind at some point. If you stand still for a second; you are running backwards before you realize it. To beat time, I got up to have my bath and get set. By 5 am I was out, and guess what; yea you guessed right, people already bathed the city roads. "Oh Lord!" I exclaimed "Don't they sleep?" I screamed inward. 

The first thing I noticed was the yellow buses called Danfo(a popular commercial vehicle in Lagos), they were everywhere, I thought it's an advertisement for MTN. Funny thing is, from different parts they all, knowingly, trooped into a narrow path that led to a hell of traffic jams.

At first I wasn't bothered till I realized I was heading in the same direction. Lost in thoughts, I heard a conductor shout-singing "ahpap-ahpap-ahpapa." It took a while to figure out he was saying "Apapa" where I was heading, so I followed the voice and landed in front of a tattered Danfo. Reluctantly, I struggled with many others for a place in the bus, and right there I understood why people keep their shoes in a bag and come to the office wearing slippers. Eventually I won a sit, I couldn't cry, in my hometown we turn down dirty cabs because we know many others will pass by and we won't have to bother about congestion. But here you have to make do with vehicles that look as old as Methuselah. Traffic has frustrated the Danfos so much that the body is slightly bent over to one side and covered with stretch marks developed from clashes, thereby plying the roads like a penguin with bowlegs. You hardly see a new Danfo in Lagos, as a matter of fact you hardly even see the kind anywhere else, and so I've always wondered where they get them from. 

They substitute proper vehicle seats for plywood. How could they be so heartless, we literally sit on a bench, in a vehicle!! It is more terrible when the passenger sitting behind you has long legs; he literally romance your buttocks with his kneecaps. If you are so unfortunate to get a sit at the edge close to the door, you have to stoop because you cannot rest your back. At the end of the journey you jump off the bus with hunchback.

Shortly after I got in, I noticed dusts all over me, when I looked down I saw it coming in from a leaked part of the bus floor, and it was not funny that I had to make do with it all through the time I was in the bus. A while after, I began to inhale a flavor of smoke from the engine, I thought I was the only one till I looked around and saw others coughing and covering their nostrils. We all could have suffocated, no thanks to the fresh air that couldn't make its way through the windows that were made originally for buildings. 

The drivers and conductors are two contrary set of people working together. The former acts as the master while the latter acts as a servant. The drivers are usually neater, calmer and soft-spoken, they only raise their voice when it comes to dealing with other drivers on the road, "alaye if you jam this motor, Sango will come down," my Danfo driver screamed at another vehicle’s driver. 

A conductor can't be calm in the job, always gingered, they growl at everything and everyone. Before you enter the bus they're already fighting you, "oga if you no get change no enter, mio fe werey o" (I don't want madness o). The only passengers they respect are soldiers, they dare not misbehave, and the respect is so much that conductors urge them to hop in without pay, my God they even put them in the front seat. 

It also baffles me that Conductors do not always have 'change' until you are about to alight. They are quick to ask for money but slow to give back. The more you pester for your change, the more he holds on to it. For your money he'll start giving you options like "bring 50naira make I give you 100naira," If you refuse a tattered currency he'll tell you to throw it away or dash him. And there's always that passenger who is good at family planning, she would gather everybody's fare from behind and sort out the change for everyone.

If you have not noticed, they rarely get to your destination before the driver stops the vehicle intentionally or unintentionally. By unintentionally I mean the vehicle miraculously develops a fault when it's just one kilometer from destination, they always make sure you walk the rest of your money.

Passengers on the other hand can be so dramatic and frustrating. They keep telling you to "shift" till you become thin. They poke their noses at everything you do on your phone. If you ask one for directions, two others will confuse you with their opinion. And yes, they know everything about the government.

When we got to a bus stop, 6 more passengers hopped in and the conductor called out to the driver "gbe body e." Shortly after he asked for their fare and 5 of them responded with theirs. At first he acted as if he doesn't know someone's yet to pay. After a while, he called out that a passenger is yet to pay but nobody replied nor paid attention to him, he called out again but still no reply. Suddenly he tapped a woman with two kids on her lap, "madam wetin happen, you no won pay me my money, you think say I no see you?" The woman then barked back "you no get change joh, na one thousand dey my hand." Trust me I was dumbfounded, so this woman was deliberately quiet the whole time the conductor was asking for money. "Okay bring the 1k I get change" the conductor said. Suddenly the woman started begging him that she's coming from church and there's no money on her. The conductor was furious "so na how to trick people you go learn for church?" From begging it turned to argument and insults, she even insulted other passengers that tried to interfere. She was quite lucky the conductor is an elderly man; a conductor in his 30s would've burgled her and the kids out of the bus.

I was thrown into ecstasy that I didn't realize we've gotten to my destination, "o wa o" I said loudly. As the conductor tried to open the door for me to get off, it fell off completely. I was short of words.

On getting back home late at night, I saw kids between 7 and 12 years of age, playing with an abandoned Danfo. "Bariga! Bariga!! Wole pelu change e" a 7 years old was singing loud. I shook my head and walk away. 

What a DANFÒ EXPERIENCE.

This article was partly written in Lagos traffic and it reminds me of what DJ Cuppy once said, "One can write a book in Lagos traffic."

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