THE REVERSE NORM

THE REVERSE NORM

“Ẹ kúrò níbè, make I pass!”

“If you try it you‘ll see the other side of me!”

“Go jor, you no fit do anything!”

These loud verbal exchanges between two drivers preceded a completely unexpected situation on a road in Lagos one day. The next sound was from a collision. Following that, the front bumper of one of the drivers’ vehicles fell off. It was badly damaged. “Ye!” everyone seemed to scream. The lady behind the wheel stepped out. Her brand new SUV just had its first collision. On seeing the damage done to her vehicle, she was enraged. Yetunde had worked very hard to purchase it. To have this experience, barely a week after making the purchase, was something she was not going to take lightly. Pointing angrily at the other driver, Yetunde yelled, “See what you’ve done? I warned you but you didn’t listen. You must pay for this damage.

The other driver, now out of his own vehicle, bowed his head in regret, crying pitifully. He was a danfo bus driver. “Sorry, madam; abeg, no vex; na mistake.” A mistake! Was that the best he could do; beg her and state that he had made a mistake? Yetunde was not having any of his pleas. It was not unusual for danfo drivers to flout traffic rules in a bid to quickly drive past others and they typically escaped, unchallenged. “You will repair my vehicle! You people never learn. You kept on insisting while I was being gentle with you on the road and now you want to beg your way out of trouble? It will not happen.” “Ah, no be so I want am o!” the man exclaimed. “No vex, ma. Na the first time I don get this kind matter before. Abeg forgive me. I no get money; I be poor man. How I wan take fix this motor?” The man prostrated before Yetunde, with tears running down his face. His humble expression was completely different from the defiance he had demonstrated before the accident. Yetunde was not willing to allow the man go without a commitment to repairing her vehicle. With the position of both vehicles on the road and Yetunde’s insistence on the man’s commitment to pay for the damage, a traffic gridlock was about to occur.

At first, only a few people showed any interest in the drama that was playing out until it was obvious that the traffic congestion that would result from it was going to have an enormous effect on vehicular movement. The passengers in the bus started to plead on the driver’s behalf. As much as she wanted to listen to the passengers, Yetunde could not quite bring herself to do that. She thought about the fact that they had no financial stake in the situation beyond whatever little amount they must have been charged by the bus driver. Why would she listen to the pleas of people who had paid less than two hundred Naira for their transit when the damage to her bumper would likely cost something in the range of two hundred thousand Naira, in view of a replacement? It did not make sense to her and so she ignored them. “Madam, abeg help am; I be woman like you”, one of the passengers in the bus said. The statement infuriated Yetunde. “Have you seen the damage?” Yetunde asked. “Can you write me a cheque for the repair now, so I can forgive him?” The bus passenger suddenly realised that her request to Yetunde might have been unreasonable.

Other road users gathered around the scene, some looking at the damage to the vehicle, others trying to persuade Yetunde to drive off to another side so that they could pass on by. Yetunde was adamant about remaining on the spot, as she believed that moving away would allow the driver of the bus make a run. She was determined to secure his commitment for repair, at whatever cost. The pleas of some other road users and their accusations at her, saying that she was insensitive and self-centred, angered her the more. “Insensitive?” she yelled at one man. “Do you consider yourself sensitive, for asking me to let this man go when he stubbornly ran into me? He left his lane on the road and veered into mine several times, back and forth. Give me a two hundred thousand Naira cheque now and I will leave. Do that if you are sensitive!” Hearing Yetunde’s estimate of the cost, the driver became faint. People had to hold him up. The man who had accused Yetunde of selfishness slowly backed away. Two hundred thousand Naira was a lot of money.

The difficult thing about the situation Yetunde faced was that nobody seemed to be reasonable enough to proffer a solution. She knew she should not prevent the free flow of vehicles but she risked having the driver of the bus run away and no one was offering her a solution to that. Everyone seemed concerned only about having a path to drive through. As others began to rail more accusations of insensitivity at her, she considered her safety. “What if I’m eventually mobbed by some of these people?” she thought. She considered counting the situation as a personal loss and moving on but a part of her believed that she had to stand for what was right. The driver had been callous, even at a time before the collision, when she had wound down her window, he had waved his hand abusively at her.

The situation was getting worse. Even the passengers of the commercial bus had become abusive towards Yetunde. “Take this your jeep away!”, “Wicked woman!” one man shouted. Another implied that she was not the owner of the vehicle. One other person even dared to imply that Yetunde had been at fault for not allowing the driver room to pass by. Horns were blaring all around Yetunde. Still in contemplation on what to do, she took a heavy breath. She wondered why in spite of her innocence, she had to put up with so much unkindness from the other road users that she had thought should have been more sympathetic. People were all around her at that time and she was about to have a panic. Before she could make her next response, she noticed three men walking briskly towards her. She heaved a sigh of relief when she saw who they were – two officers of the Nigerian Police Force and a civilian. As the people in front of her made room for the passage of the men walking towards her, she felt sure that the matter would finally follow a logical sequence and that she would get justice.

“Good day, madam” the more senior police officer said. “What is this about?” Yetunde proceeded to inform the men about the situation. She narrated how everything had occurred. The bus driver agreed with her account but appealed for mercy. Before he spoke, some of the people standing about the scene had begun to withdraw. They weren’t interested in having an engagement with the police. They were afraid of the police. Before Yetunde gave her account of the situation, however, some of the passengers of the commercial bus had tried to dissuade the police officer from giving her any attention. They openly accused her of fault in the situation. The bus driver had been quiet all that time. He could not shake the feeling of guilt he felt because it was obvious to him that he had caused the situation. The civilian who was with the police men asked the passengers of the bus to be quiet. It turned out that he had witnessed the accident himself when it occurred and he had gone to call the police officers when he felt that the situation was likely to end with injustice for Yetunde. On hearing the bus driver’s admittance to his fault, the passengers of the bus were no longer daring to make further accusations against Yetunde. They were all mute.

Gbenga, the more senior police officer, did not see reasons to ask for more witnesses since the danfo driver had admitted that Yetunde was honest about the situation. However, people around the vehicles started to give their own testimonies and the majority admitted also that the danfo driver was at fault. This was a surprise to Yetunde. The same people who had been insensitive and who were not proactive in helping her out of the situation were expressing their opinions in her favour nonetheless. Why then were they not more sympathetic earlier? It may have been the typical behaviour but it was not proper. What would have been right was for them to help her get things sorted out, rather than simply accuse her of obstructing the flow of traffic. It would have been best for them to empathise with her and help her with a way forward, rather than simply seek their interest in driving past, since they clearly understood what had happened. To be certain that there was proof of the accident, Gbenga asked his junior colleague to take photos of both cars and their relative positions, using the junior officer’s mobile phone.

Gbenga and Festus, the two police officers, made haste to get everyone back in their vehicles but first they instructed the danfo driver to refund the transportation fares to his passengers. “E jówò ẹ má bíịnú“ the commercial bus driver responded. He explained that he had beckoned on an empty bus, close by, to help him convey his passengers for the rest of the journey. Typical; they usually had difficulty refunding collected fares. Festus, the junior officer, sat inside the danfo bus, as a guarantee that the driver would not escape. That encouraged Yetunde as she walked into her SUV and made an attempt to adjust its position so that the danfo could move through. When the accident happened earlier, she had made sure that she blocked off any reasonable space through which the driver of the bus could pass if he intended to drive away hurriedly. The damaged bumper of her SUV was now resting on the back seat of her vehicle. Within a short time, when both vehicles were safely parked, not obstructing traffic, the other danfo bus arranged by the driver was available to take his passengers to their intended bus stops. The passengers got into the other danfo and were driven away along the route.

The driver of the danfo continued pleading for mercy. He turned towards Gbenga. “Ẹ jówò sir, tọrí Ọlórụn. It was a mistake. Na accident, true to God!” Gbenga asked him “Was it me you hit? Focus on the person you offended.”  He turned to Yetunde. “Ah, my sister, please help me beg the officer, make them no put me for jail.” Yetunde ignored him as he lamented and shed what she believed were crocodile tears. “Ah! Mọ tị gbé!” Ah, my own don finish” he kept exclaiming. Yetunde turned to the gentleman who had brought the police officers with him. His name was Tunde. “Can you imagine that this man wants me to just let this go, after he willingly hit my car? Where would the justice be if I did that?” “Don’t mind him”, Tunde said. “He is just pretending. If you let him go, he will do the same thing again, or even worse. These people sometimes act as though they don’t have consciences! A few years ago, a friend of mine was hit from the rear, in his car, by a danfo driver. The impact was so great that my friend in turn ran into the danfo in front of him. The driver of the one in front came down from his bus, with his conductor, and they started beating my friend. Rather than admit to his fault, the danfo driver that caused the accident joined in the beating until someone called some police officers and that was how my friend was saved. He was hospitalised for days.” Yetunde had goose bumps, as she imagined herself as the victim in such a situation. “You should thank God nothing worse than this happened, while trying to do the right thing”, Tunde said.

“At a point I almost gave in because the pressure was too much for me. Even the passengers were calling me names.” Yetunde said. “Well, that is the unfortunate thing about our dear environment. People reject what should be the norm and accept the reverse instead. I hope such behaviour change for good. All it takes is for people to remove their eyes from themselves for a while and to consider others.” A panel beater and car painter had been called in. They looked at the damage to the bumper of Yetunde’s SUV and the scratches on the front side of the vehicle and they gave quotations for repairs. Following that, the police officers took Gbolahan away in his bus, while Yetunde and the panel beater followed them in her car. Yetunde thanked Tunde for his sacrificial effort and they exchanged phone numbers, promising to stay in touch. As Yetunde and the others left, Tunde entered his own car, which had been parked ahead of the scene of commotion and he drove away.

Ẹ jówò –Please

Ẹ kúrò níbè- Leave There

Ẹ má bíịnú- Do not be angry

Ẹ jówò tọrí ọlórụn- Please for God’s sake

Mọ tị gbé- I am ruined/dead/in trouble

Danfo Bus- Commercial Bus

By Ikenna Anyadike

Edited by Chukwudifu Onianwa, of ChuDifu Projects

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