Warning: Don’t take Bolt rides in Abeokuta. I repeat, don’t take Bolt rides in Abeokuta. Bolt drivers here are not just mean, but median and mode. Got in today by the afternoon train. At the train station’s taxi rank, drivers were all over me like a rash. I suspected they’d skin me, so I walked around with a Medusa stare. I think say I wise.
I decided to book a Bolt ride and the App displayed N1,900 from the train station to Park Inn by Raddison. It also showed that the driver was just a minute away. I thought I was one up on the regular cab drivers at the station. I called the Bolt chap. “The fare isn’t what the App is showing sir,” he said. I asked him what he meant, with barely disguised disgust. He repeated what he’d said. I told him to come over and got in the car.
I demanded an explanation. Plenty of waffle and ramble was what I got. I told him what he and his colleagues are doing (he said all Bolt drivers in Abeokuta are in on the game) is open to abuse. He agreed and then began a story on the pump price of petrol and a meeting he and his colleagues had with Bolt, from which a review of fares in Abeokuta was unsuccessfully requested. I got lost in the maze of stories, including of the grotesque roads from the station and how irritated he is with the state government. He sounded like the aluta-inclined type: plenty grammar and rapid fire delivery. He’s clearly a graduate. I kept quiet.
He did not. At my destination, I asked what the fare was. He said they charge N6,000 to the place. I asked what computational method they use. “How much do you want to pay sir?” he asked. He’d sapped me of energy. I offered N5k. He accepted.
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After a while, I needed to buy a medication. I booked another Bolt cab. The app displayed N2k. I called the driver. He said N4k. Abi ko fe zeh fun awon guys yi ni?
I hadn’t a more appealing option. In the car, I also asked him the reason for the gap in fares between what the app showed and what he said. His thoughts were foggy and his English, unlike that of the radical who brought me from the station, was dire. It didn’t help when I switched to Yoruba because he’s of a scrambled mind. I had to ajuwaya.
At the pharmacy, I called a secondary school mate who asked that I meet him at Madojutimi, a resto I used to know for amala. These days, it is a quasi-eatery. The food is insanely expensive. A piece of beef the size of old Bazooka bubble gum was N500. This ain’t Lagos. I saw a guy there asking that his food be embroidered with all sorts, including chicken and cow leg, and I concluded he must be stealing women’s panties to afford that type of alimentary gratification. Avoid Bolt drivers here.
My return trip to the hotel was better partly because my friend insisted on getting me one of the regular cabs, which was much cheaper. It was pleasurable because the driver, a very chatty guy, has Egba accent that’s as thick as Evo-stik. No joke. He moaned about the cost of living, but his accent made the whingeing bearable, enjoyable even. Less pleasurably, it reminded me of the Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti flick, in which nobody spoke Egba. For a movie set in the colonial era, “it doesn’t worth it”.
