LESSONS from the BUS

I must say, before moving any inch further that for the past 2weeks, my sleeping pattern has drastically changed. Thanks to my newly found love-INTERNET. I now go to bed as late as 3am and would wake up at intervals to check out one or two things (that are not of relevance to you). By 7am, I am fully awake-ready to face the day’s business.

Today was no exception-I woke up fully by 7:13am. By 9am, I was well on my way to Ikeja (to attend to some of my business concerns). To get to Ikeja, I had to take a bus from campus to Yaba (under bridge) and from there, I’d take another to Ikeja (under bridge). The catchy moments of this day happened in both buses.

In Bus 1, after about 5 minutes of complete silence on board, suddenly, a voice from the back commenced singing in an ascending tone. Within a short period of time, the man was chanting so loud that I could hear sighs from other commuters, including me. Though he was singing Christian Songs, the loud echo made it loose its essence.

However, the message that the man preached afterwards made me forget about the seemingly inconvenience that I thought he had caused me. He spoke of people who know what ought to be done but whose lives portray nothing close to that which they know is right. He taught on the need for Christians to yearn for Christ which by necessary implication would lead them to eternity rather than strife to chase vanity which would lead to eternal damnation. I really needed this message to remind me to always put first things first.

Having experienced this mind-soothing revelation, I thought I’d had it for the day. I was so wrong: there was still one more lesson I had to learn for the day. When I got to Bus 2, there were already 8 occupied spaces- 4 more to go. So we had to wait for the remaining 4 seats to get occupied. 5 minutes. 10 minutes passed- not a single soul came close to entering the bus. At that point, everybody started clamouring for the bus driver to drive off. If only he knew what was to be his fate, he would have drove off that instance. But No! He employed every delay tactics known to man to make sure he got his bus ‘filled up’.

He initially started with trying to adjust a seat belt that was no better than a worn out piece of cloth. This, he did for over 3 minutes. Thereafter, he moved the bus some 10inches away from its original spot: in his mind, he had fooled us into believing that he was ready to leave. Proper M.U.M.U! The passengers kept on screaming ‘driver, go now!’ His reply all this while was ‘these other cars wey dey for road no wan make I pass.’ Within me, I was like ‘do you honestly think that we are a bunch of 2month-old babies?’

Within the twinkle of an eye (or should I say the movement of a shadow?), 3 people had left the bus. N300 gone. Just like that. Another space worth of N100 was also on the verge of becoming vacant. Going. Going. Gone! At that moment of reality, it dawned on the driver that if he did not stop fooling himself, he would lose the remaining passengers before his very eyes.

At this point, knowing that we now had him at our mercies, we all threatened to board another bus. ‘E ma binu’(don’t be angry) became his outburst. One of us then told him that for wasting our precious time, we all would pay N20 less the original fare. He accepted this offer with arms wide open.

Pride, they say comes before downfall and greed is the machine that pushes one into the factory of regrets and helplessness. This I learnt from my experience in Bus 2.

All in all, I had fun.