You must meet this deadline by fire by force. No traffic whatsoever will deter your success this Monday morning. So you set out from your hole in Ipaja at 4am. Actually, you barely slept. The anticipation of your pursuit of progress got your nerves on edge all night. You had been up most of the night following the full broadcast of the Hilary/Trump debates and were solidly convinced that the man is a lunatic that needs to be locked up before he pulls another Hitler on the world. By the way, how did anyone not even see that coming? Hitler was, of course, destined to be a HIT man, now a Trump, which literally means a winner or a fart, nonsense, or old bald-headed fart. I am sure we all know the obvious definition of this one. You muse on this as you slip into sleep, only to be awakened by your alarm at 3:30am. You barely even dried the water off with a towel before your clothes hugged your back rather uncomfortably. You dash out and make it to Ikeja without any stress. The problem started when you hit Maryland to either connect to the third mainland bridge through Town Planning Way at Anthony or ride it through Ikorodu Road onwards through Funsho Williams Avenue, through Apongbon, CMS, then inwards to Victoria Island and straight to Lekki. The usual hullaballoo that ensures at the filling station decided to start at 5am today. Danfo drivers and their agbero goats block the main access into Ikorodu road all in the name of hustling passengers right in front of a fuel station without fear of explosion or accidental discharge from the police officers in the several cubicles spread around the traffic lights, looking uninterested in the bustle but rather waiting for an opportunity to cash in on any offenders. Something has to give, no matter the crime. “Do you ever sleep, Pepu?”You ask yourself but quickly get pinched with a guilty answer, “You know why you enter the road at 4am?” “No be wetin you go chop you find?”It is simply a case of the goose and the gander. You patiently grit and whine till you make it through and blow straight towards Shodex Garden to navigate and climb onto the Gbagada Express. Lo and behold, this huge tanker belonging to one of the big business conglomerates has broken down just in front of the filling station in the service lane. You have no choice but to find your way onto the Ikorodu road highway, drive ahead and enter through Obanikoro to Ilupeju, find your way through Coker and back into Town Planning, then onto the Gbagada express. You get lucky and make it past the usual frenzy at Iyana Oworo/Berger; fortunately, the goats here no longer congregate on the highway because the governor Ambode administration recently built a new-look garage in keeping with the megacity plan.You cheerfully pick up speed, enjoying the almost free road except for a few brake lights coming off and on ahead of you, obviously in every attempt to dodge unfamiliar objects in the road. This is the perfect time to save fuel, so you turn off the AC and throw down the windows to allow some mammy fresh air from the lagoon beneath to spread into your most prized possession. You gaze out to look at the back end of the University of Lagos, your alma matter, and recall your days of bliss with your bae, Nifemi. Those were the days. How time flies. She is heavy with children, as you would think for some guy that can barely write his name correctly but controls an empire in the transport world. How she ended up with a NURTW man still beats you. Is it because he gets “daily money” that is bankable and assured? Or is it because she felt she could add more value to his semi-literate life, having studied so hard to earn all those honours and still not get a job? She probably just saw the easiest way out. If only he had stopped her from going to that party where the bastard came to spray his influence around on the dance floor and hooked her with his juju, how could she say she was in love with such a riff-raff? You snap out of your riverie as you approach Obalende. You need to make a quick decision. Should you climb up to Osborn, go through Gerrard and make it to the IKOYI/LEKKI toll gate? Those thieves will collect twice the normal toll, so you decide to go through Onikan to Ahmadu Bello through Eko Hotel, enter through Oniru market, and continue onwards to Elegushi. There’s no point going through Ozumba Mbadiwe to go and join the early morning traffic at Law School, 1004, Four points by Sheraton Junction and you still pay 120 Naira for a Tokunbo Toyota. You raise your head and see a tail of lights at the bridge descent to the back of Muson Centre. Obviously, a moving truck that came to move equipment from an event last night has broken down at the fork in the road at the foot of the bridge, making it impossible for motorists to make their way into V.I. or climb back to the third mainland from under the bridge. You make a sharp decision as it is impossible to reverse to Obalende or the descent to Onikan roundabout. You head straight to the connection back to CMS through the UBA building at Marina. You are in luck. There is no major hassle until you try to connect to CMS and you hit the bottleneck of cars struggling to squeeze into the tiny space left for road users by the construction company working on the pillars for the overhead rail projects. You move in a bit and hit a standstill. It is 6:30am already. You spend another 20 minutes on this trail before hitting the intersection coming from the tallest skyscraper record-holding building at some point in history, ITT. Here, lots of Lastma officials battle with several Americana wanna be’s claiming their right of way instead of making room for the BRT buses to cross through and make their way into their designated lanes right in front of the Lagos House. From the gridlock ahead, you quickly think of a smart solution. Should you climb back up to the third main bridge and go past Dolphin estate through Osborne, or just go home? Jeje, because as it is, going through Bonny Camp, Federal Palace, Silverbird Galleria, Nigerian Security and printing press, A.D.R.A.O, and NTA does not seem feasible. So you follow your heart and make your way towards the third mainland bridge. Just as you get to the intersection that leads back to the race course, you notice that the broken down truck behind Muson has been moved and traffic is flowing back into V. Hence the blockage ahead, and at the same time, it suddenly dawned on you to take a third option out of your dilema; climb the bridge, go right and drop into Awolowo way, Ikoyi, pass keffi unto Falomo, into Bourdillon, and connect the new toll bridge. You move excitedly until you get past the junction that leads back to Obalende through St. Gregory’s, past the Boat Club, past the EFCC office, and you hit the never-ending traffic courtesy of several banks and six petrol stations on this road. You are even lucky that it is not the fuel scarcity season. Your lane starts to move gradually, courtesy of some siren-blowing officers who broke the keffi junction on their way out of Dodan barracks. You proceed cheerfully and take a detour just before the GtBank and drive past Bogobiri and burst out just beside the now demolished Falomo shopping centre. You muse over what to expect on the now vacant lot, as you are quite sure another mall will definitely be occupying this space soon, perhaps another Shoprite. You are lucky that the road is free up to the main roundabout at Falomo. You take a quick glance at the several placards with the pictures of the abducted Chibok girls placed around the beautiful garden. You are certain you could recognise 2 or 3 of the returned girls, yet their faces still advertise that they are missing. You break your soliloquy when you realize it will be cheaper to take the right, climb to the bridge, and head into V.I through Akin Adesola, or descend back into Ozumba via Folawiyo towers, then re-enter Oniru via Mobil/SandFilled. you are right; your gamble worked. Your flow back into Ozumba is smooth and swift. The law school traffic lights gave you the green light, and as soon as the ones by Civic Centre/1004 sighted your windshield, they waved you through. You hit another red just before the famous Quilox Night Club and decide to take the next right, past the open premises that used to house Nigeria’s first female mechanic. You hit the end of that road and are in luck as the road is free, as it usually is. You wonder why they keep fixing that hardly used road. You take a left and find yourself staring at the beautiful edifice called Mobil Building, sitting on a parcel of land that used to be the motor garage for LSTC buses from the old days when Maroko was the suburb for the common man. You drive past on the right and soon find yourself in front of the famed Amazing Grace Plaza, once owned by Erastus Akingbola. You decide against going straight ahead through Oniru beach, Rock Cafe and Landmark event centre. Instead, you dig left by the traffic light and take another right past the Big Christ Chapel Church and soon find yourself struggling with the large ponds of water in the potholes in the road just after Havilah event centre. So, indeed, the rich also cry. You enjoy a silent chuckle after escaping the swim through and heading straight into the Oniru market. Everywhere is blocked. What the hell is going on? It is just past 8 a.m. on a Monday morning. Where the hell are all these people coming from and where are they going? “you ponder angrily. It soon clicked in your head that it is the last Monday of the month and pay day is around the corner. This is the best period to be a righteous staff member. You sit it out for a bit and decide to drown your pain with the radio, but it gets worse as you tune from one station to the other and all you hear is talk talk talk and all of them in fake American accents, and you ponder whether you are in New York or Yoruba land. You settle for traffic radio and hope they give you useful information on the routes to your destination. But all you hear is details of other places all over Lagos, as far as Agbara and Mowe Ibafo, except where you are stuck right now. Apparently, those who ply this route consider this the norm and have since stopped calling in. You angrily change the dial and catch a familiar tune on metro FM. The sonorous and pitchy outcry of Wande Coal wailing over the synths of the Don Jazzy cooked sound takes you into soothing relief as you find yourself consoled partially by a fellow Nigerian expressing his displeasure with the system. “Sey Na, like dis we go dey dey?” has you bobbing your head and forming an orchestra conductor with a wave of your hands as you follow the strings.You really wish the Mohits hadn’t broken up. The blaring horns of the car behind you jolt you back to reality. A sole Lastma guy had trekked all the way from the Lekki expressway to serve his father’s land by dismantling the traffic. A few morning abuses and threats here and there, but he refused to be intimidated, rather insisting on which car and who should go first. Only one guy became law and order. He took on the jobs of a traffic warden, police officer, KAI official, VIO, judge, and jury. Imagine what 10 guys would achieve if encouraged with good pay. You love the guys’ enthusiasm, selflessness, and tenacity. You wish you could do the same, but are reminded subconsciously that if you die in the line of duty, you would have died for nothing. No security. No future is assured. You focus on your goal of making your own bread and name without this much stress. After all, 4 years in university should not be wasted on waving at cars. You see an opportunity and quickly sneak into the tiny space between one mama’s ‘wosi wosi’ kiosk and a highlander SUV forming Baba Alaye. You break free and dodge into Fran Kuboye Street, the late soul and jazz humanitarian married to Tunde Kuboye, who you heard was a cousin to the Afrobeat legend Fela Anikulapo Kuti. You enjoy riding on this particular street as you recall your memories of coming to their Jazz 38 open field years back when the whole of this axis was nothing but sand. You drive out of this avenue, get back on the highway, and soon find yourself in the Elegushi kingdom. You drive past the roundabout that houses the Nike Art Gallery and you ponder how she comes by those head gears. Between her and Madam Kofo, you wonder who should be appointed satellite dish Ambassador for Nigeria. You slow down and turn onto a partially dirt road that leads to a cluster of estate buildings, and you wonder how these structures appear out of nowhere.Is it that someone digs the soil and, like germinating seeds, tosses in a few hands full of cement, waters it, and a duplex is born?You get to your destination and park. It’s exactly 9 a.m., just in time. You look around and try to figure out the address in the message you got, but all you see is a vacant lot except for a small fabricated metal container and a young lady cleaning and preparing for the business of the day. You read through the broadcast on your BBM again and discover that you were instructed to call a particular number. You dial the number and get the irritating feedback from the answering machine lady: “The person you are trying to reach is unavailable. Please try again later.” You get down out of frustration and walk up to the lady as she arranges her materials. Excuse me, good morning. Please, do you know where one company is conducting interviews for job applicants?” “Ah, no!” she retorts, “This is a building materials shop.” We have a shovel, a pan, cement, nails, and everything else you’ll need to build a house.”You realise the only way out of this predicament is to communicate in your mother tongue, so you toss away your posh and finesse and humbly bring your tongue to its knees in yoruba. “E jor sister mi, where am I? I have been calling the number of my contact but it is not going through.” “You dey Femco shop, original construction materials are not gbaruf.”You let out a big sigh of disgust and looked around, hoping that what you sought was on the other side of the road. You read the text again and realise that it states that Firmco Nigeria Limited is recruiting. For more enquiries, call or visit our offices at Klm 12, Lekki Epe Expressway. The lady looks at you with pity. When dem reash here, the number no dey go. I hope this helps. you do not send too much money to apply for the job. The last person who came here to find work sent 50k to the agent account to secure the job. Some people send 30k, some send 100k. For the first time in your life, you were glad and grateful that, despite your sufferings, you hadn’t made a phone call and paid into a scam. You turned to the lady and quipped, “Thank you sister, I did not pay any money. Um, please, do you sell pure water?”
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