If You See the Trek Wey I Trek This Morning!

If You See the Trek Wey I Trek This Morning eh! Una go pity me! 

I woke up early enough considering it was the first workday after a 4-day weekend, thanks to our Muslim brothers. I had shared a bottle of  wine at a friend’s last night so falling asleep was meant to be easy but no thanks to a noisy neighbour who hasn’t realised that he is no longer at the university, it took longer than planned.

So I woke up early and got to the major road a good fifteen minutes before the staff bus’ scheduled arrival at Ajah. But lo and behold there were no okadas in sight! Ten minutes later, na so I begin dey panic. Missing the staff bus would not be funny at all! Instead of me to enter keke jeje I was still forming. You see I don’t like kekes, to me they are like tortoises who think they are rabbits. In my mind, they appear a lot more fragile than the okadas. Irony eh? Besides the kekes take longer to get to the Ajah junction/roundabout than the okadas that can squeeze through two Toyota Sequoias on a good day. Please note that it takes the average car 40 minutes to get from Badore to Ajah junction/roundabout, no thanks to traffic caused by the abysmal slow pace of work on the Lekki-Epe express road by our beloved Hi-Tech Construction Coy. So I held out for an okada. I buzzed my guys on the bus; they were about to pull out of Ajah. Chei! And I was counting on the early Monday morning traffic to slow the bus down. Oh well, shit happens. I told them to go and that I would take public transport aka danfo to work. I waited another ten minutes before I got an okada. The fare of N150 automatically became N200! I tried to bluff the okada man but he called it, so I quickly said no problem and I got on. I got to Ajah in no time and handed the man N1,000. He began to vex asking where he would get change from this early Monday morning. I quietly handed him N150 in change. He looked at me and with a grumble and went to look for change. He came back shortly and handed me my change. 

I walked over to the bus stop. Chei! See crowd! No bus! At this point it was 7am. I called my only friend in Ajah to find out if he and his Kia Rio had passed that point already. He picked and said that he had just gotten to VGC where he was about to pick up some of our friends. I quickly told him I would look for an okada and join him. For where! I no see ONE okada! He had to continue his journey. At this point I decided to walk forward hoping to catch a danfo to Sand fill/Maroko. No such luck. After about 20metres I got a bus to Lekki Phase One for N200....nothing spoil for I could still get an okada from the other side of the road to my office in VI.

The bus picked some secondary school students with the conductor screaming that he would not take less than his advertised fare. The students still got on with full mind and along the way declared that it was N150 that they had. Conductor screamed and threatened. Bus driver joined in. Students screamed back. Bus driver parked his bus and opened the boot for the students (six in number) to get down. Nigerian standoff. Eventually, the students handed over the required fare, but not before cussing out bus driver and conductor. Bus dropped us at Phase One; time check 7:45am. I got to the other side and lo and behold where there were supposed to be okadas at New Market, I saw none! I decided to wait with a bunch of other people. A few okadas came around but none was willing to go my way, except one and he demanded N400! Try as I may, my Warri mind refused to part with that amount of money. It would not, never give in to another man’s greed or exploitation of my misfortune! The government might fuck me in the arse but not an okada man! Never! So after waiting another five minutes in the early morning sun, I decided to trek.

Omo see trekking sha! I walked o, went through Oniru estate. I did not feel too bad as I was quite sure that I would get to the other side way before the traffic-snarled vehicles I walked past. I trekked o, all the while thanking God that I wore my slapping-friendly shoes. My thoughts turned to how I would reward them with a fine coat of polish and myself with a bottle of Lucozade Boost. I got to the other side of Oniru and I spied a solitary okada coming my way. I promptly stopped him. He charged me N150. I did not blink. I got on and arrived at the office at 8:30am, sweaty but in one piece.

As I got into the lift all I could think of was “You better wake up thirty minutes earlier son, ‘cos Fashola no send you!”

N.B.: To the uninitiated "okada" is a commercial motorcycle, and "keke" is an auto rickshaw.