The whistling carries the sound and the smell of
exhaust from vehicles,the sound and the smell are not
alone this morning;engines from distance,market
women in their usual aura,commuters using the
road,beggers amongst other fuzzy entities that
characterise the Lagos morning have all charged out
to grace this mornning.
It is 7:00am and Ryan Reus,a software consultant for
one of the leading telecomm companies in Lagos,is
standing in queue at the Mile2 terminal of the popular
BRT bus enroute to CMS. Just like every other
morning,Reus who was based abroad before coming to
Lagos 5years ago is planning to beat the heavy traffic
and get to work before 8:30AM and the BRT bus has
been the most efficient in that regard. Reus is not the
only one who has found the BRT bus useful,a man in
his mid thirties who Reus wud come to know as Wale
later dressed in a simple yoruba attire and standing
2persons ahead of Reus has also benefited from the
BRT system as well as others on this queue. Reus wud
wish he was the only one on this queue bt there are
atleast eighty others waiting for a bus that can take a
maximum of 65persons but he wd thank hs luck today
as he is most certain to get the first bus.
At exactly 7:20am,ticket purchase was done and Reus
is sitted in the BRT bus 5rows away from the driver
and close to the window. The bus is a 65passenger
capacity bus with 2distinct column of chairs by both
sides and a passage in the the middle,each column
contains 16rows of 2chairs to make 64 rows,a few
centimeters ahead of both columns is the driver's seat
and bsyd it is another passenger seat to make 65,From
where Reus is sitted he can get a good view of the
Lagos skyline as well as enjoy the efficacy of the
bus,bsyd him is a man dressed in a simple yoruba
attire,the one two persons ahead of him in the
queue.The seats in front of him has a young lady in
complete suit probably in her late 20s and an old man
wearing a well organised shirt and trouser,directly
opposite them at the other column is a man and his
wife and behind them is a young girl on school
uniform and a stern looking boy most likely an
agbero.
Everything seems normal today as the bus accelerate
in the BRT lane except for a suspiciously looking
young man in his early twenties wearing a white
dalabia sitting bsyd the driver,this is not the first time
Reus is seeing someone on dalabia especially in a city
as complicated in Lagos where you find all the
characters in the world but the sight of this boy made
his stomache rumble as if a thunderstorm is abt to rock
the enclosed food container. The boy does nt look fat
but his dalabia is exceedingly fat,his face is hidden in
hair,rough beards and mustache draw him in close
resemblance to a caveman. His hair is covered with a
turban that seems to have been done wrongly. Such
images have struck horror in the face of many
residents since the advent of various millitant and
terrorist groups but from the picture Reus can draw
from the bus no one seems pertubed so he relaxes,this
is just another Lagosian.
"Gdmrnng,my name is Wale",the man bsyd Reus said
to him in his deep yoruba accent.
"Gdmrnng,I'm Ryan",Reus replies
"u must be an oyibo doing busnes in Nigeria",Wale
"No,nt at all...I'm a Nigerian,born and brought up in
the US"
"oh,ok"Wale,"so u came back to this country"
"[laughs],yh I like it here"
"thats good o,if na me I no go come back"
"[laughs],We all see differently",Reus"Did u notice
that guy sitting bsyd d driver?"
"who,ok that boy that looks lyk an amacha?"
"yh,what do you think"
"he is just a dirty boy,they are the 1s making Lagos
urgly"
"He is nth serious"
"wetin u think sey ihm b,millionaire? Abeg no reason
am na small boy ihm be"
"ok",just my imagination Reus thought.
At exactly 7:35am the dalibia wearing man stands
up,muttering something that sounded cryptic.
"Ogbeni joko jor",the driver shouted at the man but
he seemed unmoved.
"oga sidon jor",the agbero lukin guy at the other side
shouted"abi u think say na danfo u dey"he added.
Everyone seem to be angry at the dalabia wearing guy
bt he just continued with what he was doing,the driver
deccelerated in anger,wanting to push the chaos
attractor out of the bus but in a swift action the
dalabia wearing guy pulled his dalabia off to reveal
the well aligned c4 explosives tied to his body and
the trigger in hs hands.
"Move this bus or I blow it up",the guy said in his
deep Chadian accent.

Reus had his mouth open for almost
5minutes,he was struggling to recover
from the shock of what he saw,it was
like a hollywood movie playing before
him.
"Oh my God!",he was finally able to utter,he looked around and the chaos
around him best explained the terror he
was encountering,right before his eyes
was a suicide bomber with a chest load
of c4.
"Please don't kill us,we will give you anything u want,ye mo gbe o(I'm in
trouble),te mi ti tan(my own has
finished)",Wale pleads to no avail,the
yoruba man has lost his composure,he
was shaking so much u wud think it
was a china phone vibrating;his eyes was mud red and flooded with tears;his
nose did not help matters either,the
stream of catarrh that rushed down to
his mouth would remind you of the
Benue-Niger river confluence,he bent his
head to pray bt prayer has become more difficult for him than it is for ASUU
to avoid strike for a decade,he goes
down on his knees in the moving bus
and finally let the tears run down and
cried out loud. He is not the only one
crying in this bus,infact the only people not crying are those that have
fainted already.
Looking directly opposite them to the
other column is the young school
girl,all she had in mind was studying
today,she even bypassed her parent's persistence to stay at home cuz she was
not feeling too well to go to school but
she insisted because she had a test to
write,had she known,she would have
listened to her parents. If she was to
die,the last thing her dad would remember was shouting at her,such was
the line of her thought. She was
psychologically down and lost her
senses the very moment she saw the
bomb. Her brain and her heart began to
loose count,she would not last the next 20mins even if the bomb does not
detonate. She wud ve loved a little hug
but the most likely person to do that for
her now is the agbero looking guy
beside her but he fainted immediately he
saw the bomb. The terror in the bus did not end there
and the couple infront of the school
girl illustrate further the emotional
effect of the apparent terrorist standing
a few metres away. Their wedding was
just last saturday and they had a great amount of life ahead of them,but all
their dreams and aspirations have been
rounded up within the past few
minutes,at that moment the love they had
celebrated did not reverbr8,the only
thing they could think of was death; "honey,lets pray",the wife said to her
husband,he agreed and they started
praying but what ruled his heart was
not the prayer they were praying but the
sound of that word 'honey' ,the word
that characterised the sweetness of their love,this might be the last time he
would.
"I love you",he said to his wife in an
'all is lost' tone
"I love you too",she replied"Bt we re not
done on earth yet",she added,she is one with a lot of faith.
Opposite

Continue

....Sweat dropped from the face of the
Chadian lyk water running through a
dry tap,he did not need a Frank Edoho
to know he was on the hot seat. His
bodyheat had risen phenomenally,so
much that his cells began to protest. 'What did I do wrong',he thought,'I
stacked the c4 well,connected all the
parameters and made sure the trigger
was right,nth cud posbly go wrong'.
He took more time to examine
everything,did a couple of checks,pulled the trigger again and
nothing happened,he was beginning to
loose it and it was noticeable.
Reus observed the situatn in the bus,most
of the passengers were still in their
slumber bt some have noticed the chadian's failure,the driver being one of
them.
"Oloshi oloriburuku(insults) ma pa e lo
ni(I'l kill u 2day)",the driver said as he
brot d bus to a halt.
In a quick action,the Chadian bursts at the door trying to open it but failed,he
sights some men rushing towards him
from the end of the bus and cud read the
expression on the face of those
within,and the driver was fast closing
in on him. With his right foot planted on the floor and a swift movement he
dives to the window,bursting through
with his shoulder smashing the glass.
He lands on the road outside the bus
sustaining a few bruises but such was
not his concern now,he quickly picks himself and runs ahead,drifting into
the pedestrian walkway bursting
through the stream of pple.
He is not alone in that race,the driver
opened the door and chased after him as
two other men followed. The agbero luking guy apparently brot back to
reality by the occurence jumped out the
window,he is followed by an igbo boy
and they all chase afta the Chadian
who still has the c4s fastened to his
chest. "Ole! Ole!! Ole!!!",they shouted as they
chased appealling to those ahead to stop
the striding chadian who was 6m ahead
of them. A chant that means 'thief' is
common in Lagos and is used when
chasing a thief,it is nt surprising that they cud nt find the word 'terrorist' in
their vocabulary to use in ds chase as
terrorists are nt common in ds part of the
world.
In the bus,words cannot express the joy-
shock mixture of feelings with everyone,even the impressive Elvis Osho
wud fail in this task. It was an
unimaginable drop of miracle,nt even in
a million centuries wud a miracle man
pull that through.Its like having ur
heart in ur mouth and then a new heart developes in its rightful place.
Unbelievable! and the mood in the bus
best xplains it,most of those who
fainted were revived successfully,some
that did nt faint b4 fainted cuz of the
occurence. There were shouts of joy and pple
praising their God. Most prominent of
those is the couple who prayed nt 2
long ago,they were so ecstatic they burst
into tears. Their future that seemed to
have bn shreded has just bn reassembled and it is just unbelievable. The past
few minutes wud be the most memorable
in their life if they leave there alive.
Talkn abt leavin the bus,while some
pple still sit in shock or joy of the
experience,many others are scrambling to get out of the bus,a miracle myt have
just happened bt they are taking no
chances. The rush to get out of the bus
was so much that there was a stampede at
both exits of the bus,and some persons
got bruised in the process,the adrenalin flow made some to even jump out
through the bus window.
Sitted at the exact same spot was Ryan
Reus,he too had gone through the joy/
shock mixture and he took time to contain
himself and bring himself back to his right frame of mind. It was 8:05am
now and the bus was gr8ly
deserted,those left behind were those
who were still in their slumber and a
few others yet to contain themselves.
The only pple in their ryt frame of mind still left in d bus were Reus and
an Edo man by the name Osho,even Reus'
companion Wale did nt think twice b4
jumping out through the
window,stepping on Reus in the
process. Reus looked around to carefully
examine the bus. He noticed a young
school girl lying lifeless on the
floor,the footprints on her body
suggests she was stepped upon during
the rush. Reus dashed off quickly to pick her up,she was already pale and
had no pulse,he tries his firstaid
techniques but none worked,he was
feeling sad now.
"Pls help me lets get her to any
hospital nearby",Reus called out to Osho "Oh my God! She is nt breathing",Osho
stated the obvious
"Quickly,put her on my back",Reus said.
Osho cleared the way for Reus after
putting the skulgirl on Reus' back.
They came out of the bus,saw a clinic by the road and ran there and just as they
were entering the clinic they felt the
impact and heard the sound of an
explosion from a distant. The bomb has
exploded.

NEWS HEADLINES
PUNCH - 80die and several others
injured as bomb xplodes in market
square.
- emergency agencies at the scene of the
incident recovering corpses - FG codemns bombing and condoles
with families of victims
THE SUN - FG declares amnesty for
suicide bomber's ghost as bomb meant
for BRT bus explodes in a market
claiming 100lives and injuring several others
- opposition parties blame bombing on
the present administration
- IGP says its an act of God
THIS DAY - 90die and 50injured as
bomb rocks lagos - world leaders,FG,Rights groups
condemn bombing.
- suicide bomber wud be brot to
book,Jonathan
THE NATION - Emergency agencies
say only 20died and 30injured as bomb meant for BRT bus detonates in market
- FG sets up comittee to investigate bomb
blast
- BKH claims responsibility for
bombings.
VANGUARD - ASUU calls off strike as bomb kills 92 and injures several
others in Lagos
- Opposition parties call for state of
emergency,bus driver who chased after
the suicide bomber was one of the victims
- Young school girl and 2 others die after surviving bomb blast in bus.

The end.