21 Dec 2006 |
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Just before Christmas THE traffic, the usually crazy Lagos traffic had again, crawled to a stop. There was a rap on the side window. The intruder was a ragged young man, with a crook in his left arm. He beamed his dentition at me, half of his mouth was covered in brownish colour with the underneath of his teeth, a shade of brown and dark green. I turned away almost immediately, fixing my gaze on the traffic light ahead. The rap again, with a slightly harder knuckle. There is only one name for Lagos beggars: pests. By now, there were about four around the car. They leaned on it, rubbing their dirt on the gleaming machine. "Chairman" "Oga" "Oga, God bless you" "Oga, na Christmas we dey so o. God go helep you plenty, plenty, this Xmas" "Chairman, make you give us something for Xmas". The traffic light had changed to green, but the traffic still would not move. Motorists from the other lane, trying to cross into a side street, on the other side, had ignored the traffic light only to run into the middle of the intersection, complete chaos had set in. I cursed under my breath. Before getting to this spot, I had already endured two similar incidents, wasting close to an hour in the process. A few days to Christmas in Lagos, it was as if all the vehicles in the city had to be on the road, causing so much hold up. The mendicants were still milling around the car. They had now been joined by a team of young children, not one of them older than 10, all soliciting for alms. I saw one of the kids using his thumb to trace a line on the body of the car. I felt like telling him to stop. But I could not risk winding down the glass. In the past week, there had been many desperate cases of armed robbery in traffic hold-ups. You could make the instinctive move of warning a stranger to move away from your car, only to be met with a gun pointed at your head, and a sharp razor blade by your throat. The mendicants in traffic hold-ups in Nigeria are not always what they appear to be. There was yet another knock on the car. "Oga "Chairman" "God bless you" "Oga, may you and Madam enjoy Christmas" "Oga, give us something and God will help you." Finally, I parted with something, passing the Naira note through a tiny opening, making sure that all the doors were locked. The mendicants vanished. Some policemen had now showed up; they were trying to sort out the traffic logjam. But it would take them a little while. We had spent 30 minutes already, waiting and moping, with the traffic light engaged in a futile dance: red, yellow, green, interminably. Just then, a policeman showed up at the side of the car. He was busy reprimanding an okada rider who was going across the side-walk, with three passengers on the motorcycle, clinging to one another, clutching whatever part of the motorcycle could provide support. Ordinarily, the okada is the chief means of transportation for many Lagos residents, and in the face of the horrible transportation network in the city, the quickest means of movement. A few days to Christmas, the streets are not only clogged with vehicles, the fuel stations are mostly locked up. This, I understand, is on account of a fuel scarcity crisis induced by widespread speculations that the Federal Government is planning to increase, for the umpteenth time since 1999, the pump price of petroleum products. I could overhear the policeman telling the okada man: "You this stupid man. You are carrying three women on one okada. You wan kill person before Christmas?" "Oga na so we dey carry am" "Shut up. See how you dey take your back rub this fine woman chest. I think you know that tapping current from a woman who is not your wife is a criminal offence in the Nigerian Constitution" "O-f-f-i-cer", the okada fellow yelled. I kept a close eye on the motorcycle. Every okada cyclist on the streets of Lagos is a sadist. Under the pretence of anything whatsoever, they could use the bar of their motorcycle to draw a line on your car, scratching the paint. "Okay, identify yourself", the policeman told the okada rider. "You know no say Xmas don come?", he added. I took a look at the policeman. He looked like a tout. His pair of trousers was held together not by a belt, but a rope. In the place of shoes, he had a pair of dirty slippers on his feet. His beret cap was so dusty, it would qualify as a threat to the city's environmental health and safety; there could be no doubt about it - some bacteria with the capacity of mass destruction had taken residence in that likely abode. Perhaps the policeman had noticed that I occasionally looked in the direction of his encounter with the okada rider, and the three ladies, so he knocked on my car. Candidly, I thought he was crazy. His colleagues were trying to assist motorists; here was he, extorting money from innocent road users. I had to attend to him. "I dey greet sir", he said. "Officer, what is the problem?" "Oga, na fight? No vex o. I jus say make I greet you for Xmas" "Xmas?" "Oga, merry Xmas o. Make all of us enjoy this Xmas, and Sallah, and the New Year wey dey come" "Officer, look at this crazy traffic. You should go and join your colleagues to help resolve the hold-up. Your colleagues are working, you are busy carrying Xmas tidings from okada to cars. This is the problem with this country". "Oga, no worry. Me and dem, we dey together. Na we we. Na we know as we dey take do our job. Abi oga wan teach police how to do police job?" I wasn't in the mood for an argument. I thrust a N100 note into his hands. He grabbed it anxiously, stood at attention and saluted me, most profusely, as if he was reporting for duty in front of his masters. There was now a siren-bearing vehicle at the rear. An important personality, or a bullion van, I thought. About four young soldiers in full uniform sprang from the siren convoy and ran to the spot of the traffic bottle-neck. I saw them remove their belts and within an instant, they had turned the belts into whips. They lifted them in the air, and dropped them on the heads of vehicles and motorists. They moved from one vehicle to the other. One of the soldiers held his gun aloft, as if he wanted to shoot a vehicle or motorists. This cured the latter of the madness that had held us all down for so long. Suddenly, the traffic moved. And I was free. Minutes after I left the scene, I reflected on the policeman's statement: "Me and dem, we dey together. Na we we. Na we police know how we dey take do our job". It occurred to me in a flash, that the traffic hold-up could have been a contrivance after all, organised by the police, the beggars and the area boys to delay traffic to enable them ply their trade. At ordinary seasons, this is standard practice in the city of Lagos. Most traffic hold-ups in Lagos are often contrived or artificial. Area boys could deliberately dig holes overnight on an otherwise well-paved road. The potholes, distributed at various points, delay the flow of traffic, and once that happens, hoodlums, surrounded by street kids hawking wares, and beggars, both real and fake and other strange citizens take over the scene to cheat innocent motorists. It further occurred to me that as we approach the Christmas holiday, the sadism of the average Nigerian has gone up a higher notch. The fact that Christmas will be followed by the Moslem Eid-el-Kabir festival and New Year celebrations, has made the search for lucre even more tenacious. Armed robbers for example have gone crazy; they are on rampage. At seasons like this, many persons need money to meet family obligations. The criminals in our midst do not care. They choose the season as the occasion to wreak havoc on other human beings. In the past one month, robbers have laid siege on banks, and bureaux de change, carting away car-loads of money. They have also laid siege on the highways and the streets, dispossessing the unwary of personal belongings including life. In one bizarre incident which occurred this week, two luxury buses which had travelled overnight from the East to Lagos were waylaid at Ojota, right inside Lagos. Eight persons were killed; the passengers were robbed. Then, the robbers decided to set the two buses ablaze. Government authorities removed the carcasses of the two buses the following day! But it is not only among ordinary Nigerians that this sadism is observable. The two religions, Christianity and Islam teach the virtues of love, honesty, temperance, sacrifice, love, unity and so on. It is the short supply of the same virtues that we confront as we prepare for Christmas, Sallah and the New Year. Where is the spirit of Christ in this season? Politicians are stealing votes and positions. They are abusing each other. Government has abandoned the people. There is danger on the streets. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16). This weekend, the churches will be filled with men and women professing much piety. Many will confess with their mouths the Lord Jesus, but there is no evidence of this in their lives. We are told: "Those things which ye have both learned and received, and heard and seen in me, do; and the God of peace shall be with you" (Philippians 4:9). How many these days follow the example of Christ? Christmas has been reduced to a mere ritual, a bacchanal feast. For the majority, it is the season for winning and dinning, for marriage ceremonies, the time to receive gifts and no more. But: "This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy. Without natural affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good. Traitors, heady, high-handed, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof; from such turn away." (II Timothy 3:1-5). Merry Christmas.
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