"EKO LIFE AND DIRECT."

"We are in Eko ", the bus driver announces. Yes Eko at last!Ah!!!. But wait a minute!


when we started this journey from Cala City (Calabar) at 7 a.m yesterday we were told that we would get into Eko at 5p.m the same day. O my goodness, you mean out of excitement, then excitement, then frustration, anger, hunger,and eventually fatigue i slept through all the so call "go slow", no, "traffic jam"; no,no,no.


I actually did not miss much because now i cannot get to Western Avenue In Surulere where the famous Ojuelegba is. Search me. Na my first time for Eko... It is just the beginning am told. Otiooooo! This is the real thing as the other one we experienced was due to the bad road; mmph! as if there is any where that the road is good. But in Cala City sha, we are the better compared to some of the big cities we had passed through. Don't get me wrong, am not criticising any body. But truth is bitter. Back to my wahala...

"EM please conductor am going to Victoria Island" i inform with confidence. "See this olodo where you from come? You mean you be Johnny Just Come?" Every body chorus, O ma sheo! My God what have i done? I was told to travel by air and i said i want to view Niaja, i want to experience Eko "hold up", nobody told me that "hold up is a way of life in Eko. So true i don loss for Eko be dat? Hei!!! Meanwhile we are still not close to Ojuele..... what ever. Am not even excited about the hold up or traffic jam; please somebody help me. How do i get to V I, as i was told to call it. Of course my handset is dead and i do not remember any number by heart due to panic. But you know there are still good people in Eko O. Yes , for a gentle man offered to get a cab for me after i was calmed down to give a phone number, a name and an address. Eko, mmph Eko!!! people dey oh!!!! Eko is not so bad after all but pray that you do not enter bad hands, because they are there. I did not even remember hold up again... That is another day. For now Eko Dey!!!!!

"DANFO"

Nightmarish public transportation in a tin box! The buses are reconstucted in such a way that even the original manufacturers would not recorgnise it again. So where are the VIOs, the Road Safety, the Police, all the Brigades? Then they carry people all squizzed up and can hadly breath. The destination uknown because of the hold up. The conductor screaming "owo da" into your face.
Thank God for BRT Buses. The next thing is to rearrange traffic and imbib patience, be accommodating. Danfo buses... good; but let us try to think of others and not the amount of money made in a day which does not come to any thing.

TRANSPORTATION

Bus Wahala!!!!

People this is no joke -o !!! Coming from a serene and calm environment like Calabar(Cala City for short), you cannot imagine how i have felt for the past 6 months!!!!!! First of all my people getting to the bus stop is an ordeal. you know back home the bus waits for you and you enter mmmmm. In Eko you time the bus, then in the process of climbing, hoping that a ladder is going to spring down you jump or may be duck into the bus. This is small. When there is a rush for a bus, that na real wahala because as soon as you hear the imaginary whistle or gun shut, that is after you may have taken position, the whistle or gun shot you take off to fly into the bus and then scream emaloor ,sorry i can't spell it. Then , there is the one they shout ewole. Really i never knew what that meant. For goodness sake don't they speak english????? Not even pidgin. Nawa-o!!!! There are people from other villages-------- The rush , the impatience , my o my! things have changed. we do not have to live a fastforward life. You knowIt baffles me when you go to a strange place and the people there now rattle off in thier language irrespective of the fact that you do not speak the language! ha! I love my language much as i respect other peoples languages they do not have to force it on me. That was in the days of chairman Mao and Hitler and the likes. Madam ewole i am big and '"wole-ing" with a dive or a jump man that is Orthopaedic hospital or native bone healer. At this age wey d bone done strong cacaraca. Una see my wahala????