By OSA AMADI, Arts Editor

BORN into a warrior tribe nicknamed Obogu   (the people who prefer war to work) when there are no more inter-tribal wars, we did all kind of things to vent those inherent combatant emotions and to be recognized as warriors. As I had narrated, I lived a hard life. Even till today, I feel more at home in the wilderness.

My most comfortable bed today is the hard floor. I hardly sleep on the mattress and when I sit on the chair I hardly use the back rest. I stand erect at 185cm tall, not slouching, no bending. It is called Spartan training, and it has helped me a lot in surmounting many back-breaking obstacles and conditions such as living with a wage of N200 a week and what I passed through immediately I left that primary school inside Baptist Academy, Obanikoro.

There was a lady called Caro Ohaka in my age grade from my village. We went to primary school together. Around 1966 she got married to a Ghanaian called Maxwell who was a factory technician in a flower mill at Apapa. They lived at Mafoluku, Oshodi. I later learned that Caro was a second wife to Maxwell. Maxwell had an older wife  with very grown up children. He also had two commercial buses – a Nissan Urvan and a Mitsubishi which plied the Seme-Badagry Road. When I was told that Maxwell was looking for a driver for the Mitsubishi, I told Caro to tell her husband to give me the bus to drive. Caro already knew about my driving prowess. In fact she had often rode in our Mazda commercial bus with me at the wheel whenever I stole it on Sundays around 1983/84 to go and hustle along Owerri-Aba Road.

So Caro spoke to Maxwell her husband and he agreed to give me the Mitsubishi to drive, but, on the condition that I would first work as a conductor with another Ghanaian driver for whom he wanted to buy another bus. I agreed.

That was how I became a bus conductor operating from Mile 2 through Badagry Road to Seme borders. But I failed as a conductor in two respects. One, I made the mistake of always speaking good English.

“This big, big grammar you de blow no go help you for this work o, make I tell you now. You no sabi bus stops; you no fit collect money. Na so, so big grammar. Wetin carry you come to this kind work sef?” The driver Maxwell attached me to vented his spleen on me. “See, I am here as an apprentice; to learn on the job. Can’t you understand? You’re a friend. Please teach me,” I pleaded with him.

“Make I tell you, oga: No paddy for jungle o. If na apprentice you wan be, go find iron bender. I be driver. I no be panel beater.”

Another little thing that added to my problems was the pocket-size notebook and pen I carried and occasionally brought out to record a thought whenever an important idea flashed in my mind. The drivers and other conductors at Mile 2 Park who had sighted me taking such notes did not like it. They always queried me about what I was writing. I told them that I was writing a book and showed them some of the notes I had scribbled, just to allay their fears that I wasn’t spying on them and taking notes. But they would laugh raucously and made jest of me.

“Why you no fit go look for better job?” Some of them would ask me, sensing that I did not belong there. A lot of what I wrote in my second novel, Rivers of Tears, were gathered from my experiences as a commercial bus conductor and driver on Lagos roads.

I was not able to pacify the Ghanaian driver. Later, I discovered he had a friend whom he wanted to introduce to Maxwell as a conductor to the Mitsubishi. He never knew I was a first class driver and that my target was not to conduct the Mitsubishi but to drive it. Often, the friend whom he was planning to use to replace me as conductor would come around at Mile 2 bus stop when we went to eat or were waiting for our turn to load. He would ask me how the work was going and I would tell him “fine” without hard feelings. Then he would speak with his friend in Ghanain language until we moved.

Another respect in which I failed as bus conductor, and which mattered most, had already been mentioned by the hostile driver I was attached to: collection of money.

I think people should respect conductors, for the work they do is not an easy work. If we loaded at the Park, there would be no problem collecting the money, even though sometimes you might still miss one or two persons during fare collection and when you return to the row to find out who had not paid an argument will ensue: “If I slap you…,” a passenger whom you might have mistakenly accused of having not paid would hiss at me – a warrior who could easily crush his spinal cord with a single blow in the jungle.

The biggest problems came when we did what was called ‘sole’, that is, when we go picking passengers randomly on the road. I would become confused. A lot of passengers would go down without paying me, and some who did not pay would collect change from me. In the end, after the trip in a bus filled with passengers I would not have up to half the sum of money for a full load to give the driver. It was like a nightmare, and I always looked stupid. The only saving grace was that we seldom did ‘sole’. We often loaded at Mile 2 Park and went straight to Seme, and returned carrying contraband rice and the women who owned them.

At last, Maxwell released the Mitsubishi bus to me to drive. They gave me Freedom Ohaka, Caro’s cousin, to work with me as bus conductor. Freedom helped me a lot in the job. He is a born comedian, good-natured, and wise as King Solomon. We knew ourselves way back in the village when we used to play football, but I am a little older than him. He had lots of experience as bus conductor on Lagos roads. Whenever he announced bus stops (with which I was not quite conversant) and people answered he would use our village dialect to tell me: “it is in front of that green house, or “stop where that girl selling groundnut is standing”. Before long I came to know all the bus stops.