A WALL VERSUS A LINE

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[Theme Music: The Real Slim Shady]

May I have your attention please? May I have your attention please?!

Will the real Slim Shady please stand up?

I repeat, will Lagos Bus Drivers please line up?!

So I was in a bus the other day and mid-way through the random journey, the driver cleared his vehicle to the side of the express and got down. We, the passengers, were wondering what was going on but before we could say ‘area boy’, Mr Danfo Driver faced the vehicle, whipped out his....yes you guessed right.... John Thomas and started spraying (not us o, just the tires).

[Do not be alarmed, proceed]

The phenomenon that I have just described is very normal and even the ladies among us knew this, so they were free to examine the driver's equipment which, if I might add, he brandished with flair. That singular act, not the displaying of equipment, no, the other one, peeing in the middle of the express, is a sign of one of the major flaws in our society’s virgins, sorry virtues today; indiscipline.

Again I was in a Keke/Keke Napep or Okada with three legs (anyone you prefer) the other day and the driver was doing at least 80 (trust me, that's fast for a keke) and as he was taking the sharp bend into the street on the left, he did it! He coughed up a hair ball (figuratively of course) and just spat on the road, con-crete road! 

[Pause, Please be alarmed, Proceed] 

Honestly, I could make an excuse for the Bus driver's behaviour if my life depended on it, like, “Owh, he has a medical condition and a small bladder and if he doesn’t pee, his bladder might burst and then he’ll die and then the police will come and catch me and then, and then…”, you get the gist but the Keke guy, the Kee-kee guyy…that was just disgusting, no excuse! Indiscipline has become our new national anthem; it has tied gélé and joined wrapper. The level of lawlessness in Nigeria is high and still on the rise; to put it succinctly, a lot of people need strong cane (not the pleasurable kind). Top on my ‘Need To Be Flogged’ list, in fact, taking the top ten spots on my list is Bus Drivers. These guys, thee-se guyys are the worst!

Lagos bus drivers are the reason I am bitter! How can people block an entire four-lane express!? I mean, they will leave the two-lanes created specifically for commercial vehicles, come to the middle of the main road and just park, why? Don’t even get me started on lining up: from Agege to CMS to Costaine to Ikeja to Ketu to Maryland to Mile2 to Ojuelegba to Ojota to Onikan to Oshodi, I could keep going for the next ten minutes; the story is the same. These danfo guys need some serious reorientation and some strong cane. What stops the black and yellow bees buzzing all around Lagos from organising like real insects? Or has it now become a sin to be organised? Why can’t there be lines at bus stops and why can’t one bus load at a time? Why must twenty buses heading in the same direction struggle for one passenger and why must twenty conductors be shouting “Airport Road!” like some bull-frog choir? Why can’t we just be civilised?

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The worst part about this new banthem (bad anthem) is that it affects 'other' people more than it does the mumu people perpetuating the folly. The traffic caused by blocking the express for instance turns what should ordinarily be an hour’s trip into at least a three hours journey. This same type of madness, but in different flavours, ripples throughout our day, every day and in some cases, is far more boggling than can be easily comprehended by the rational mind. Another example, common sense dictates that there should never be vehicles parked on both sides of a narrow street, however, it seems common sense has long since stopped being a dictator.

Critics may want to argue that living outside the circle of propriety and existentially within the amorphous figure of impunity is the only way citizens have learnt to survive the nonchalance and ineptitude of the government but the critical question then becomes, “Who is the government?” and the honest response is that the government is the people, for the government rises from within the ranks of the people. So in essence, the people are ‘surviving themselves'.

[Pause, let us digress briefly, proceed]

You see, there is something most people take for granted. There is a part of our surroundings that we believe has no effect on us, that part of our surroundings that we believe society has shaped, that part that we can now neglect and take for granted. I refer to that part of our environment in which 'other' people, usually the less privileged than ourselves, exist. What we and our myriad of little communities fail to see, however, is that after 'products of our society' are given birth to, these products have lives of their own and have the potential to shape affect and manipulate us.

[Let us return, continue]

Bus drivers conduct themselves without discipline and we believe they are just products of our society. I believe they have become more, I believe they are an example of who we are. These undisciplined products are currently exercising their potential to affect their creators (almost everybody in Lagos drives like they are on cheap drugs) but I strongly believe that if we can teach the bus drivers to be organised and disciplined then, the lessons will come round full circle and be delivered to the rest of our society. How can we leave the foundations in shambles and expect order at the top? Fogerrit, izzalie it dont work lai that.

“Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable, procures success to the weak and esteem to all”

George Washington

“Man must be disciplined, for he is by nature raw and wild”

 Immanuel Kant

“Discipline is just doing the same thing the right way whether anyone’s watching or not”

Michael J Fox

We need to learn to think as a single army with one soul, shunning our crude and unrefined nature to do what is right regardless of an audience or the absence of one. We need to learn to obey the lines of chalk and not wait until a wall is built around us before we are forced to live within the circle of propriety.

If only Lagos bus drivers would just line up.

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[Theme Music Continues: The Real Slim Shady]

Ha ha

Guess there’s a Slim Shady in all of us

Fxuk it let’s all stand up.

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