The Dangerous Sport of Taking the Train In Lagos
Shortly after moving back to Lagos in January 2018, my sister was to get married in April of that year. She was unlike most brides I had ever seen, as she had zero contribution to planning her big day. I had to register her wedding, on behalf of her and her then-fiancé, now husband, at the local marriage registry in Ijaiye. Deciding on a color theme seems to her as such a herculean task that months into the planning, we were yet to conclude on one. It also didn’t help that she lived in Ibadan while the wedding was being planned in Lagos, and she is one of the most indecisive persons to have walked the earth.
Months of rigorous planning later, with a rather indifferent bride, we were finally less than 48 hours to the D-day. If you have ever planned a wedding before, you would know never to rule out the power of last-minute surprises that could ruin all your good work. And that last-minute surprise would come from no other than my dear ever-indecisive sister. She suddenly changed her mind about the style for her church wedding hairdo.
What do you do when your bride asks the impossible of you just when all the vendors are dragging you in multiple directions? You oblige the bride because it is after all her day. So, I, the devout sister turned wedding planner, put on my running shoes early Friday morning (morning of the traditional wedding) and set out to Balogun market to get the new hair and matching accessories for the stylist. Don’t ask why I had to go all the way.
For reasons that, for the life of me, I can’t remember now, my younger brother came with me. As we got to Agbado, we heard the loud hoot signaling that the train heading to the Island was just leaving. With just 3 years between us, we were quite close. We looked at each other, communicated telepathically, and decided to re-enact some Bollywood movie scene we had watched as kids. So, we ran. We caught up with the moving train and jumped in just seconds before it took off at full speed.
Whew, we made it! It didn’t matter that we were in different coaches, we made it, or so we thought. Now I am not going to bore with the gory details of how the train looked or share the terrifying fact that those coaches are from far back as colonial Nigeria, one could easily tell with the caution information on the overhead lockers. Nigeria will be 60 years old in less than 2 weeks, that should put it in perspective for you, how old these trains are. The state of infrastructure in Nigeria is common knowledge, there is no need to ruminate on that now.
Elbow jabs, phone calls, messages, jumping from coach to coach, as they would in a James Bond movie, and an inexcusable amount of excuse me later, my brother and I were finally united in the same coach. There we were, standing in the most unhygienic, unpleasant situation anyone should ever be but happy at making it; perhaps only COVID-19 will delight at such a sight. This newfound happiness was short-lived, when not more than 10mins into the journey, we heard people say “checker dey come” “bring your ticket out”
It dawned on me, I was neither Kajol nor was my brother Sharukh Khan, and we were not in a movie. Unfortunately, the movie didn’t quite explain to us what their lead actors did in this situation. As the checker approached us, I decided to ask what our fate was from people who seem to be regulars of this means of transportation — it was not looking good. I was soon informed that we would be forced to pay a 100% fee fine and asked to alight at the next station.
At that time, we were approaching Ikeja Along, still quite a distance from Lagos Island. But more disturbing, we had yet to withdraw cash from the ATM and we could genuinely not afford to pay the fine. Seconds ticked into minutes and we stood face to face with the man who would decide our fate — whether to banish us from the train or not.
While my brother was fidgeting and I was busy summoning all my diplomacy skills from my 4 years at the University of Benin, the stout man asked, where your ticket? I opened my mouth, explained to him how sorry we were that we didn’t buy our ticket before boarding and the ridiculous day we‘d had up till that moment, but the man was in no mood to listen to my lamentations.
He proceeded to read the punishment for not buying a ticket before boarding. Fortunately, you can trust well-meaning Lagosians to come to your rescue, just when you needed them the most. Soon enough, our coach was filled with the sounds of abeg abeg na”, dem be jjc, na small children dem be, sell the ticket for dem na. I smiled and felt the sense of community in a place I had least expected to. Some other day I will write about what transpired during the rest of the journey.
However, as I got talking to the people who were our recent saviors, telling them exactly where we were going, I discovered that we had rushed into the wrong train. The train, as we were told, was headed to Apapa. Luckily, this discovery came just at the nick of time, so we disembarked at Yaba and took a bus to Lagos Island.
These people, whose path we may never cross again, waved at us, shouting, “be careful o” as we ran out of the Ebute-Metta train station. I took in a deep breath, turned to wave back, and was even faced with a more shocking sight — more people were hanging on top of the train than there were inside.
Yes, it was a faster way to get to the Island, despite our error, but I told myself I wouldn’t do it again — I lied.