By GBEMIGA OGUNLEYE
If, like me, you are a member of the Table tennis section of the Lagos Country Club, there is a senior citizen you are better advised not to play against.
If you defeat him in the game, you must buy him a bottle of red wine; if he defeats you, the ‘prize’ is the same. You must still buy the old man a bottle of red wine!
In the same vein, if you live in Lagos and drive on Lagos roads, you are advised to avoid a tango with Okada riders, whether the normal riders or the ones who go by the fancy name of delivery men.
If you hit them, you are in trouble; if they hit you, you are in soup.
I had my baptism of fire this week!
It was on the day the old national anthem was exhumed!
I had parked my car to pick a test result across the road.
Having collected the result, I entered my car. No sooner had I sat in my car than I heard a loud sound behind me. It was clear that an object had hit my car from the rear. I got down and behold an Okada delivery man lay on the road behind my car. I looked at the bleeding man and shook my head. His colleagues who were in his entourage took him to a nearby hospital after their appeal that I should do so failed.
As to be expected, their comrades had gathered in large numbers, both the regular ones and the delivery Okadas. Traffic had built up. I took a look at my car, the back windscreen had been broken; the back bumper severed from its natural habitat and the back lights totally broken!
In the same vein, if you live in Lagos and drive on Lagos roads, you are advised to avoid a tango with Okada riders, whether the normal riders or the ones who go by the fancy name of delivery men.
I cursed under my breath.
Then, the tribe of Okada men turned to me, almost in unison: “Oga, try to help the man with some money.”
What a nerve!
I thought to myself: these guys are lucky that we are not licensed like the Americans, to carry guns.
If we were, I would have gladly shot someone and gone for confession!
There was no talk about the expenses I was going to incur in fixing my car.
How do I escape from this mob, I thought to myself.
At that point, I felt like disappearing like a fart in the desert! (Lara Wise has a copyright to that phrase!)
Their ‘Leader’, whose belly is comparable to that of a pregnant woman advised that two of his men should follow me on their motorbike while I should go and make a U-turn to meet them on the other side of the road.
My ancestors weren’t sleeping!
I started the car and my escorts were in tow: one in the front while the other was behind.
Mobolaji Bank Anthony Road was traffic-free at that hour. I did a James Bond driving and shook off my escorts!
We are in trouble!
Okada men, I hail thee!
