Okay, so I work in a Christian missionary university/organization called Youth With A Mission/University of Nations as an administrative staff in one of its branches in Nigeria, Lagos precisely, early this morning, I received a call from one of the Leaders of the university in Africa to run an errand for him at Benin Republic, woah!! I said, I never expected it, but as a disciplined son, I packed the needed and headed straight to Benin Republic from ajah, it was one hectic journey, but i wanted it.

On getting to the border, I did the necessary things, was stamped in and off I went, I boarded a Hausa man's bike, was speaking English to him and he was calling big money for me, I was like, see this man o, to just cross border? I have everything complete o, my yellow card, my stamp etc, I am not asking you to smuggle me in, he was still speaking grammar, immediately, I switched to Hausa, as a man born and bred in the middle beltan part of Nigeria, hausa was no problem as I was fluent in it, the man was shocked to hear me speak hausa and he started laughing, well, at last, he brought it down to N500.

So we crossed the border and my Nigerian sim started loosing service, the hausa bike man brought me to another bike man in seme, I explained to him that I needed to go to Market Otokpa and he said my bill was N2000, I was like "Bros you know how much I pay from Ajah reach seme? E no even reach 2k, you want carry me go Abidjan ni?", and he started saying that the place was very far and I will witness it myself, I noticed he was one of the few who could speak little English , I told him I wanted to get a Benin Sim card to call my host before leaving, he said that since I wasn't staying long there, I didn't need one, that he was going to use his phone to call my host, my host was an elderly man from Burkina Faso but living and serving in Benin Republic (those familiar with YWAM will understand), he couldn't speak good English, he could only say a few words, well, he ended up asking the bike man to bring me to his destination which was "Okotome" or something, suddenly, my bill increased from 2k to 4k, I was like, Bros I be like oyibo for your eye? 4000 cefa or naira?", naira he said, I told my host on phone again and he said that the man was even kind to me, that it could be more, well, I had no choice than to board the bike.

I first asked that he takes me to an ATM, he didn't know what an ATM was, I told him I needed to withdraw money, "Ahh!!! POS" he said, I replied, ATM, not POS, he said it's POS he knows, then I asked, will POS give me money? Yes, he answered, so we went, I withdrew some cash, changed some to cefa, as I was changing it, I noticed our currency was higher than theirs, na there I begin feel oyibo, at least, my currency beta pass una own, that was what was on my mind, I bought a Sim card and we soon zoomed off, I had this bad impression about Benin Republic, I was expecting to see a terrible looking place, but only seme was an eyesore, I was fascinated by the amazingly clean roads, how organized the transport system was, how bikes had their specially created lanes, how organized there taxi service was, etc, I was like, see better taxi for common Benin, I was falling in love with the place already, the street lights was everywhere, even in some local looking streets, I was wondering when many Nigerian states will be like this, Lagos is just too disorganized to be like this, only Abuja could compete with the calmness here, we passed the sea port and the air port, it was quite beautiful, as we went, I saw a very big beach by the side of the road, no fence or anything,, "how much do you pay to get into the beach" I asked the bike man who was already forming a good conversation with me, "shi shi" he replied, just go anytime, everything na free", I was shocked, in most beaches in Lagos, you have to pay N1000 to get it, he started laughing, I noticed that the beach was clean, the sands looking radiant and everything just seemed perfect, beside the beach were volleyball courts, football pitch etc, I noticed new trees were beautifully planted in a very nice pattern, this place has captivated me.

To be continued

We continued going and as the bike man expertly drifted, I was wondering, why is Nigeria so disorganized? How can some bunch of thugs just go to a beach that God gave freely, and ask people to buy tickets before going in, I now understand why my German friend Manuel was saying when we visited Elegushi last month and we were asked to pay before going in, he was surprised and was laughing, well, Benin just seemed perfect, light everywhere, clean roads, nice buildings, and beautiful ladies too, there was traffic along the normal road to where my host was so the bike man, who was extremely friendly, had to take an alternate route which he doesn't know too well, he was asking for directions after every 5 minutes and the people were very kind enough to take a minute out of their day to direct us, who get your time for Lagos? Everyone is naturally in a hurry, I still can't understand where we are all hurrying to, it was a struggle for me to get used to Lagos "sharp sharp" lifestyle when I moved here 5 years ago, as a man who spent most of his life in Jos where life was much slower, people were much friendlier and things were much easier, I noticed that almost all their bike men wore helmets and had the bike mirrors intact, in Nigeria, you are considered old school if you leave your bike mirrors on your new bike, well, we continued talking about the beauty of the country, when out of nowhere, the bike man said "Oga you fit come sleep for my house if you want, e dey close to border or if you no want I fit carry you go good hotel"
For my mind, I was like, does this man know what he was doing? You just met someone some 30 minutes ago and you are already offering him a place to sleep? It seemed suspicious, I just said I was going to sleep at my host's place or at the Benin branch of YWAM, he said okay, we continued going, the journey was a long one, over 2 hours on the way but we finally got there, I paid him but he refused to leave saying he has to hand me over to my host since he just took me to where he was asked to take me, I met my host and we spoke a bit, his English was terrible, he asked we go inside but I noticed something, the bike man had a Jesus bracelet, had a cross and some other Christian things on him, he wanted going but something told me to stop him, I stopped him and told my host that I had somewhere to sleep, he shouldn't bother

Tbc

Pictures na
Honestly speaking I'm enjoying your nareative.

Sounding interesting

Poor Nigeria!!!