Lagos bus conductors are as terrible as the buses they hang out of shouting bus stops.
You know how they say danfos are death traps, ready to tear your clothing and kill you if possible? The conductors are even much worse. This is why it is always a thing of surprise whenever you meet one that is nice, you are always left in a mouth-opening-awestruck moment.
I have had more than a handful of wahala with bus conductors in this Lagos, I don’t know if it’s because I am small, so they imagine, what can she do? They have driven off with my ‘change’ too many times, andbeen un-necessarily rude.
Now, rudeness is nothing to me, I am a Warri girl, but trust me, Warri bus conductors have nothing on the foul-mouthed boys ferrying buses around this Lagos.
Once during my service year, me and my fellow ‘corpers’ were going home after our weekly CDS meeting when a series of bus conductors started corper-weeing us.
That is the one problem with wearing your NYSC uniform around this Lagos, corper wee, corper shun, corper this, corper that. Of course, we didn’t respond, then one of them said, ‘you! You in the middle where your yansh???’
Guess who was in the middle? Right, me. At that moment I became Enitan in Sefi Atta’s Everything Good Will Come, so I told him, ‘nothing good will come to you,’ people walking with me looked at me like, what kind of insult is that one? It wasn’t enough so they rained insults on him, but he just laughed away with his tongue hanging out.
Another time it was at a bus stop wahala:, after telling him where I was going to alight, like three times, we got there and oga said, ‘here no be bus stop.’ But did I not tell you before I entered this bus??? That was how they dropped me like 2 junctions away and I had to trek back.
My most recent bad experience with a bus conductor went like this – I was walking on my own jeje, I wasn’t even inside his bus, just walking on my own, minding my business like a child of God and this bus conductor started shouting ‘hey fine geh, fine geh.’
There was traffic so the bus wasn’t even moving at all, I figured he was bored. I ignored him and continued on my way, ‘ah, fine geh, my colour, ebony,’ he went on.
By now I was getting embarrassed because oga’s voice was like from a microphone, people were beginning to turn. I kept ignoring him, when I walked past, he began to laugh and said, ‘e no even get yansh. Fine for nothing.’ And our small audience turned to me, all their eyes searching my backside and they too began to laugh. I almost knelt on the ground to ask God why. Why me Lord?
Just then the traffic eased off and he zoomed away laughing fit to burst.
I hate Lagos bus conductors.