I was bending over holding the side of my stomach in one hand and a back pack slung around my other shoulder gasping rapidly in synchronistic resonance to my heart beat. By sheer derring-do, I probably must have just shattered any held record in motor-sport timed ‘Okada’ racing to the airport. Having wasted valuable hours in typical Monday morning traffic Hold-up, I was doomed to miss my flight in the next thirty minutes if I had tarried in my foolhardy display of sheer faith. So, I infused ebullient ‘works’ into my fast fading faith. Burying my pristine manners and ego, I jumped down from the wobbly-wonky container on four tyres with many cables I couldn’t call a bus I had boarded. Flagging down the next available bike, I paid less attention to his mouthed fee and told him to ‘just fly’. Figuratively, he indeed flew and we arrived in record time.
I demounted quickly, tucked the money into his palms even before they were fully opened, and raced to the terminal building under my load in a manner that reminds me of TeleMatch in the 80’s(a reality show of many games where you raced against time competing with several other opponents). In Lagos, you are always in a tele-match even when there are no ‘teles’ and camera. You competed fiercely with other usually bitter and belligerent rivals to take a bus, buy a stamp, buy food, pay NEPA bills and even see a doctor at dying point. Trust me; other potential die-ers would still want to beat you to it in their coma.
With the boarding pass, I had to queue up with other ‘longer-throats’ who prefer aero’s ridiculously discounted fares (you know now?). I was behind sisi oge on the queue. She was an epitome of Fela’s typical ‘lady’. Meeen! She was ‘decked’ up to the teeth, glossy all over and rendered in more colours than the rainbow. She was tall; perhaps just some millimetres shy of six feet. You can’t say she was fat, but a little in-the-round. Her figure was a perfect figure eight heavily endowed with whooping ‘Nkiru’ and ‘Azuka’ (or for a choice of better euphemism- ‘TUface’ and ‘IDIbia’) gifting her with much to sway and bounce with each premeditated cat-walking stride. She smelled of a concoction of a dozen perfumes and her eye lashes were as long as ACN’s campaign brooms with her dressing complemented by blings all over. Alas! The scanner was a respecter of no persons. It was her turn and the scanner kept screaming at every attempt she made at stepping past the threshold while we patiently waited. One by one she painstakingly removed every metal-ware; four pairs of earrings, nose ring, un-engagement rings, neck chain, a bundle of wristbands and bangles, belt, leg chain, shoes etc. With exception for diplomats, the rest of us were all equal in the eyes of the scanner. She kept cursing the poor machine to our amusement while we quietly laughed at her self-imposed predicament. I wondered – all these we endured because of one spoilt brat gone bonkers? “Abdul-mutallab, e no go beta for u o”.
Coming bare, sisi oge scaled through this time much to our relief bounding away awkwardly while ample flesh from private places behind occasionally peeped to stare us in the faces. She had no time to spare for redressing.
She darted towards gate ‘7’ in a manner that suggested to me that all Nigerians have their “pako” tendencies embedded within a thick pretentious skin. Such tendencies quickly spring to the fore like this when we ‘ditch’ our levels to catch a flight we are late for. My relationship with the scanner was cordial as it was apparent it preferred passengers who travelled as light as I did. As I moved on, I glanced back to see the white man behind me scaling through the scanner hurdle, clumsily holding unto his hand luggage in one hand and his pants from falling off with the other. Pity!
We hit the tarmac not to find our plane but a German-built shuttle bus. It was designed with less than five seats presumably for the old and infirm. The rest of us were to stand calmly clinging to overhead bars and side posts for our dear life. I was standing elbow to elbow with Mr Jack Robinson (the name I gave him). He was a full white breed with features that stood him out from the rest of us. His nose was the longest I have seen. His nose was long and concave turning in like an eagle’s beak to almost kiss his upper lip. He looked sombre. Probably worried that for a person of his colour, the Naija-Delta city of Portharcourt wasn’t a good travel destination. I kept stealing some glance at the nose till we reached our ‘bus-stop’ on the tarmac where the big bird was perched.
Now I understood why the plane was parked far away from the terminal building. It was a very small plane of about forty five passengers not worthy of participation in the dance involving bigger masquerades. In the place of jet engines, it had propelling fans and the cream coloured rudder looked like a huge plaster covering an injured fin. It certainly was condemned to be shy and couldn’t dance with bigger birds. To my dismay, I found my sit to be by the window, right beside the spinning fans! Its noise kept me awake throughout the short journey that took a longer time than was normal.
The whole journey can be briefly described as an hour in the air with our chest initially up for the first half of our travel time and our faces down in the other as we ascended and descended respectively.
As if they heard my discontentment, we were awarded a bigger plane in the reverse journey with the captain employing all manner of delay gimmick to ensure that the plane was full before we took to the air. If his resume was made available, I wouldn’t be surprised to know that he rose from being a danfo driver to his present status. His attitude was just akin to it. The last passenger to come in was Gordons- the comedian. Like a mole-rat, he couldn’t help but stand out with a big voice and much charm; he made sure we all laughed all the way back to Lagos with rib-cracking jokes and sit-down comedy (if there’s anything like that) all free of charge. The trip was shorter; the engines were now jet and bigger. So we arrived in Lagos within hours and it was already dusk.
Flying over Lagos placed me at a vantage point of beholding Lagos in a manner I have never done all my life. From my tiny window, I could see the whole of Lagos in that brief moment of its apparent complete beauty. NEPA was in a rare benevolent mood too and there was power in almost the whole of Lagos. The entire landscape was lit up by countless light bulbs of various shades and colours like a million fire-flies covering the entire horizon. The lights glimmered, gleamed and glittered in their own accord forming a big page of patterned visual music. Adding to the panorama, were many long rows of pairs of lights formed by the head lamps of vehicles stuck in traffic. The truth is that the beauty was all about the lights. Not necessarily visible features. Oh! How I marvelled at the sight. So, Lagos can be this beautiful?
The picture I captured from above was a complete aberration from the true state of the former federal capital. Believe me, if you hadn’t been there you may never have known. This was a presidential view exclusively for only the privileged ruling class. Now, I understood the reason why all of our leaders quickly and easily forget the plight of the common man who never flies but crawls on the surface of the earth with whatever vehicular means- danfos, okadas, molues, bicycles or ‘legzus’. They have no feel of the true state of the Nigerian economy, Health facilities, Social amenities etc. How would they? They fly in and out of Lagos and are lifted by choppers to their exotic residences.
They’ve forgotten many things. They don’t know how many litres of sweat a Nigerian loses in avoidable traffic hold-ups weekly; the imposed suffering endured by resilient Nigerians. They never realise that the Nigerian landscape is constantly alit by headlamps of cars powered by individual batteries of Nigerians plying roads that don’t have street lights. They don’t know how many man hours are wasted daily in hold-ups. They are unaware of how long it takes you to travel a kilometre on Lagos roads; how many avoidable accidents occur daily on our bad roads; how many adults and children that are run over by berserk danfo drivers as they try to cross express roads built without pedestrian bridges. They probably do not understand the reason why the life expectancy of Nigerians is just about fifty years. They have also forgotten the cost of living vis-a-vis the paltry minimum wage paid a worker yet want us to worship their benevolence.
On top of all this in their benevolence, they deem it fit that the price of fuel would be just affordable for the common man at N141 a litre. Did the children of biblical Israel have it this bad in the hands of Egyptians? They really don’t feel. The Nigerian example made me realise it’s possible to hold a meeting of a hundred decision-makers without one single person putting on his thinking cap. They don’t understand our plight, they are not in tune with our situation and live in another utopian world.
Like the richest fool in the universe they sit like an overfed chimpanzee atop the tallest tree in our devastated and rotting vineyard, savouring their exploits amidst squalor, hunger and decaying corpses. After all, the lights sing their praise in welcome. And I can imagine them smile to themselves in vain satisfaction that all was well with Nigeria.
I woke up from my reflections to discover that after touching down in Lagos, our plane had been practically ‘trekking’ for about thirty minutes on the tarmac. Why? Because the newly built domestic terminal’s runway lights had gone bad and is out of use for months now. So, we had taken a detour and landed at the international airport only for the plane to trek back. All is well in deed!
HAKUNA MATATA

(Raises a bamboo vessel in salute)
Hakuna Matata.

thanx man nebulae! humbly loyal here,

I love what u used the beautiful woven words to address;the plight of the common man.I wish they could feel our pains.