Something interesting happened on my way to Oshodi
this morning. At the park this rough mean-looking
conductor also known as “agbero” in Yoruba was
screaming for passengers, his vernacular oscillating
between Yoruba and pidgin English.
“Oshod! Oshod!” He shouted angrily as I along with some
other passengers scuttled for seats. There was this
beautiful young lady who couldn’t throw caution and
decorum to the wind but waited patiently until the bus
was almost filled. Then she pleaded to sit by the agbero
until somebody came down then she would pay for a
proper seat.
The agbero didn’t even look at her pretty face, he hissed
and shouted to the driver to move that why didn’t she
rush when others were rushing. The girl started pleading
in Yoruba and clean ‘oyinbo’ english; “please, ejó, help
me out sir, I know you are a good man, never mind all
this shout you have been shouting (people burst into
laughter). Let me sit by your side please”.
Finally with much squeezing of face the agbero relented
and she sat beside him. It was a tight squeeze but she
didn’t complain but rather started praising the agbero. He
in turn started teasing her, speaking (and sometimes
spitting by mistake) into her face but the girl never
looked away, she never let the smile leave her face. He
asked her where she worked and she replied that she was
a student in the University of Lagos (UNILAG) studying
accounting. He teased her in Yoruba about her boyfriend
and car (maybe asking why her boyfriend didn’t drop her
at her destination…she laughed it off and continued to
gist with the guy in Yoruba.
When she reached her junction the agbero alighted the
bus for her to come down. She did and paid her transport
fare, then the agbero told her to give him a peck on the
cheek for being so ‘gentlemanly’. At this point some of us
became indignant, haba! He had been teasing her since,
he should let her go. Another argument almost ensued
between the agbero and the passengers although it was
not as if the agbero was really serious, he told her to go.
Then it happened! She jumped forward and gave him a
peck on the cheek! We all shouted, the agbero was quiet
out of surprise. She then waved bye and ran down to her
street.
The driver and other people started to hail the agbero,
see hailing! The guy was just forming boss, saying he
knew he was irresistible etc and others were yabbing
(taunting) him, some were yabbing the girl and we moved
on and suddenly the bus was quiet, show over. Then the
agbero put his head down and became uncharacteristi
cally quiet. The driver soon asked the guy why he wasn’t
calling out bus-stop abi the girl don do am jazz (cast a
spell on him). The agbero said something in Yoruba I
didn’t get and then his voice became emotional and
believe it or not HE STARTED CRYING. Others were now
consoling him in Yoruba. When I asked what the problem
was, the lady beside me explained that the agbero said
he just realised he would never be able to get a girl like
that in his life because he’s an uneducated bus conductor
and she was going to be a graduate. He was weeping
because he knew no girl of her class might ever do to him
what that girl just did, to touch a dirty person like
himself; that the girl is nice and well brought-up and if he
had money he would have chased after her. So the
passengers were consoling him in Yoruba that he would
go higher in life and be able to marry a girl like that. He
should not cry because itwas not the end of the road for
him.
That really touched me.
For a moment in that agbero’s life, his facade of a street
thug fell away and he was a vulnerable emotional aspiring
young man, just like everybody else Source: http://storried.com/the-love-story-of