As part of his many duties, a conductor is expected to be a mobile map, a regular GPRS. He must know where all the checkpoints are; the places where the police, LASTMA, road safety and VIO officials are stationed. And when they move, which they do often enough, he must find out where they have gone and constantly update the driver who must then avoid such routes.
Yesterday, as soon as we left Iyana-oworo for the Ogudu road we were stopped by the police and the driver was livid – not at the police, but at the incompetence of his conductor. “You are a fool,” he said. “Didn’t you tell me this road was free?” And he proceeded to call the youth a string of unpalatable names.
“But they are not supposed to be here today,” the conductor said. This excuse enraged the driver further. “So why are they here? Idiot, I am asking you why are they here then?”
“Driver, I beg look where you are going,” said a passenger beside him as the bus almost hit a curb. As the driver turned to face the road however, the conductor gave us a broad smile and made a face to indicate that the driver had smoked something. Some passengers chuckled, there had been something excessive about the drivers’ rant.
Unfortunately, the driver caught the exchange in his rear view mirror. “Is it your father that you are talking about back there?” he asked the conductor. “Your father must have been a great fool to give birth to an idiot like you. Oloshi.”
The conductor, who seemed to have cared about his father some, stopped taking the matter lightly. “Please stop insulting my father. The police took your money, my father is dead let him rest in peace.”
“Well that is good to hear,” said the driver. “It is good that YOUR FATHER IS NOT ALIVE TO SEE THE IDIOT YOU HAVE BECOME.” The conducted seethed but said nothing.
As we rounded the bend, we came upon the Ojota roundabout and a policewoman suddenly stepped onto the road, barring movement. I felt some sympathy for the driver: it was obviously not his day.
Yet, when I looked at him, he was smiling. “Aaah,” he said to the woman in obvious banter, “You want them to say I killed my own wife? Stop doing dangerous things like that.” But the woman was in no mood for play. She just stood there, her face black as night. “Ok, let me go and I will see you when I come back,” the driver said. The woman said she would do no such thing. “You think I be fool? That was what you said yesterday and I didn’t see you again.”
There was no getting past her so the driver forked out the N50, and the policewoman smiled for the first time. And what a beautiful smile. But the episode seemed to have disturbed a middle-aged woman sitting at the back of the bus.
“This kind of thing is not good for a woman,” she said. “They should let the men collect the bribes. It is better that way.”
“Spoken like a true woman,” said a man in thick glasses. “So as usual men should do the dirty work while women enjoy the money. Is that what you are saying?”
“But look at it now,” said the woman, “She is so young. Who will marry a woman like that? Some things should be done by men is what am saying.”
“The women are more wicked o,” said the conductor. “They don’t like to show mercy.”
“Shut up,” shouted the driver. “People are talking and the fool is also talking. If you do your job we won’t need to give all our profits to these people, men or women!”
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