The Bedlam Of Lagos Traffic and Its Nexus With Crazy Las Gidi Behaviours

It has been quite a while that I penned an article for my readers to savor and critique. Livelihood pursuits and sundry distractions et al have pre-occupied yours sincerely. How has it been for you? 

Download the first chapter of The Storytelling Series: Beginners’ Guide for Small Businesses & Content Creators by Obehi Ewanfoh.

So many issues in the news – Baba Ijesha’s alleged abominable escapades with a juvenile, a budget presentation’s ritualistic hollowness, the endSARS cavalcade’s defeat of the doomsayers’ apocalyptic voyeurising which left the well-kitted agents of state angry at the total lack of target practice at the toll gate, then the Abuja-Kaduna dynamiting of commuters’ last option in a dare-us-not maneuver by outlaws once thought manipulatable.

Check out also this article – ‘We Can Do Better as A People’ Is Not a Curse?

Just when the C-in-C had told them to ship out? Whew! Then Otedola’s cornering of First Bank with a bang! What is Nollywood waiting for?

Can someone please tell the Sheik who sometimes doubles as the bandits’ envoy to advise the ‘boys’ not to reply the President’s verbal threats with earth-shaking dynamites?

Haba, they should respond to a press statement with a press conference. That is called reciprocity in diplomacy. Their response was excessive – a whole train and hundreds of citizens were targeted due to a mere verbal threat? Haba! Did they think Femo Ade was on board?

Now, to Lagos – the city of dreams with the allure that still attracts like a magnet. With a huge population and market that creates endless opportunities, Lagos is the entrepreneur’s dream as well and the fraud’s cesspit. Welcoming to the astute businessman as well as the escaped criminal looking for a nondescript safe, yet bustling, haven.

So, you get pulled by the attraction that is Lagos – now renamed Las Gidi by the Olamide generation. I had walked away from it all in 2019 and begun to enjoy the more sober ambiance of Igodomigodo with a cool sip of ice-cold Guinness at Benin Club now and then or the friends’ parliamentary debates at Option1 on Okpiabhele Close, off Ihama. Then the pull again, and your head back.

Lagos traffic, especially the Ajah variant, like the cursed delta incarnation of the Wuhan coronavirus, has gotten more ‘deadly’. Ambode’s roundabouts solution has worked, but the volume of relocating estate dwellers seem to overpower any measure targeted at traffic alleviation.

Check out also this article – Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai (the Governor of Kaduna State) And The Limits Of Deceit

While the mutant virus causes death and imposes travel restrictions, the Lagos go-slow that Lagosians call traffic leads to mental problems! This manifests in various forms. But before I discuss these various forms of craze as the indomitable Abami Eda called it, I will like to issue a disclaimer – I have not discussed this with the shrinks at Aro, Uselu or Yaba Left.

So, if Sanwo-Olu decides to sue me for defamation, my alibi is straightforward: it is due to the insanity of Lagos Traffic. As Ivor Ekpe would put it, sue me! Shikena!!

Unnecessary Shouting

I will concede that there are noises of all hues in the Lagos metropolis except on environmental sanitation days or when the Kai brigade is raiding shopping areas. Loud music blaring from loudspeakers in various states of raggedness in most parts of Lagos – Banana Island and Ikoyi excepted as those are really not Lagos and the madness there is of the drug-induced quietude variant.

However, this noisiness has led to a habit of shouting even when totally unnecessary and the most guilty are the commuter bus drivers and their conductors. Please do not tell anyone that my spouse sometimes accuses me of the same ailment but mine is due mostly to factory experience.

They speak a certain lingo that confuses the newcomer who was told to take a bus from Ojota to Mushin. All he heard is ushi-olosa, osodio, balende in a drunken voice damaged by paraga and various agbo concoctions and drugs.

This state of these operators with no sympathy for a pregnant woman or a commuting amputee is ingrained and the din they cause even where there is no noise rises many decibels way above recommended for healthy living. They shout even when they are just two talking and shuffle with a stagger when moving.

They create bedlam and to add drama when a place is sober, they deliberately wait for the bus to move some distance before running madly and jumping in with a flourish, then hang precariously by the open door speaking their crazy language loudly to would-be passengers. Lagos na wah!

Shameless and Careless Attitude

There is a demographic in Lagos traffic that cares less what others feel or think. They do their thing and invite you to go to hell if you do not like it. A case in point is the woman (of Eastern accent) who discussed violently with whoever inside a 30-seater bus I took to Ajah from Lagos Island last night.

The loud conversation about a business deal and employment started at Lekki toll gate by Oriental hotel and was not completed till she dropped off at Ikota near Mega Chicken on the Lekki-Epe highway. Everyone on the bus heard everything and it was like a one-woman market. But, hold on, all this was on a mobile phone!

The fact that she wore no nose mask and there was no means of checking her vaccination status made the atmosphere scary indeed. Thank God it was not in an airconditioned BRT bus. Those had closed at the time. My first time in those buses and a weird first impression…

Horns, Honking, Hooting

All cars, motorcycles, motor boats, and ships have horns. They were invented to enable drivers, riders, and sailors to warn others, especially those who cannot see them coming, of the imminence of a collision if they do not take an action.

They are also meant to frighten animals off the passage through which such mechanized vehicle is going to pass so as not to cause such animals bodily harm or death. Not so in Lagos! Horns are a means of terrorism. No less.

You will not disagree with me on that scary conclusion if you have ever had a loaded tipper lorry behind you in traffic for a few kilometers. With their insanely loud horns blaring behind you continuously and for no reason at all, you continuously mumble prayers till you are able to escape alive to another lane.

Even then the noise continues to assail your ears till you veer off into your street or the noisy monster arrives at his destination before you do yours. Then you breathe a sigh of relief.

You might also like to read – What Is The Meaning Of Half-Caste? (Well, Double Caste Is All I See)

But you wonder how other commuters appeared to be at peace in that bedlam while only you felt discomfited and used some hand signs to beg the hooligan to stop the barbaric hooting and honking. Unfortunately, sane-looking, well-dressed ‘gentlemen’ and ladies, some with heavenly slogans posted on their exquisite SUVs and luxury sedans are involved in this lunatic pastime!

Those who have lived all their lives in Lagos have developed a thick skin for these annoying environmental and behavioral aberrations. I was in that mode in 2007 at Ikeja. Until Ghanaians, Kenyans, South Africans, Philippines, Jamaicans and some British/American nationals joined us in Project Everest to implement SAP across Guinness operations in West Africa.

Yours sincerely was Manufacturing Process Lead. Their complaints as they got bussed to our Ikeja Brewery offices were always about the endless hooting of horns by Lagos commuters.

For us Nigerians, and especially myself who tended to overly react to any criticism of my country and countrymen, we did not ‘see’ what the fuss was all about. I hit back. But I felt ashamed when I got to Accra to work for some time.

In Accra, they would stay on a single line half a kilometer long, and you will not hear a single horn blown! You sometimes wondered whether horns are not installed in Ghanaian cars.

In East Legon where I stayed at Erata Hotel, you would see a roasted corn seller first drop her wares, and sweep the entire surroundings, before setting her fire to commence the day’s business. She carries the refuse away to dispose of by herself.

She repeats the same routine at the close of the day. Ours throw theirs in Lagos drains for the commissioner of gutter affairs to clear! Why are we like this? Wich kain mega-city be this?

Empathy Deficit

In sane climes, if you stumble, onlookers run to your aid. If you sneeze, total strangers say ‘bless you’. Hmm. In Lagos, most laugh at you. Those that run to an accident scene are not there to help, but to watch the spectacle and have tales to tell of how the burning man’s leg kept twitching!

If your car stalls, what you hear is the blaring of horns and loud abusive comments harassing you to get out of the road and take your ‘stupid car’ away. Not a word of empathy or offer of help. If help is rendered, it is a miracle and the exception rather than the rule.

No Short Distances In Lagos

In most other Nigerian cities, you can do a quick hop to see a friend and return to work or go back home. Not so in Lagos. A quick dash to Ikeja say from Apapa, to drop a parcel can finish that day for you and you get held in endless traffic, sweating profusely in 37 degrees centigrade heat if your air conditioner packs up.

So, you find that it is easier and faster for you to come from Benin City and visit your friend who lives in Sangotedo than to visit him from Festac within the same Lagos. It is that bad! Rail, surface or underground, would help Lagos.

Extorters And Extortees

Uniforms, uniforms, and more uniforms. Sometimes you are never sure who sewed them and if someone did not just wake up and sew his own! What is common among these uninformed folks is that they all extort to various levels.

Those who swear they have never extorted anyone are probably able to do so either because they have not had the opportunity or the bottlenecks deliberately created for that purpose have been dismantled. Or they just joined the gang.

They merely bid their time. Even the uniformed security agents that openly extort okada riders draw only pity rather than a rebuke from me. Talk of the downtrodden extorting his fellow downtrodden. Impunity-driven extortion or poverty-induced impunity; I cannot tell.

Check out also this article – Good Governance For Nigeria & The Nay-Sayers Brigade

It is gratifying to see that LASTMA like EDSTMA of Edo State has transformed into an agency that makes motor traffic move rather than an ambushing extorting agency that it was under Fashola. Just like Ambode changed their mindset and modus operandi, Obaseki has changed the Oshiomhole gestapo to a traffic flow facilitator. Pockets of bad boys still exist though.

This essay is a tiny touch of the iceberg that is the bedlam of the Lagos conurbation. While those at the helm of affairs are doing their damnedest best to modernize the city-state and improve the quality of life for the people, they must not only focus on physical infrastructure.

The mind infrastructure, if left unattended and invested in, would unravel whatever you do about roads, rail, electricity, or stadia. Education is key. So is law enforcement.

Public rewards for exemplary conduct that reinforces expected behavior by citizens must be part of governance processes at all levels. And the government itself must model good behavior. As it did during the last endSARS anniversary and its aftermath. That will reduce, and possibly ultimately, eliminate the current bedlam.

Ajah, Lekki Peninsular, Lagos. 23rd October 2021 – Austin Isikhuemen

Download the first chapter of The Storytelling Series: Beginners’ Guide for Small Businesses & Content Creators by Obehi Ewanfoh.