The First Time

Kelvin found himself in a commercial transport on his way to a high institution. He was to apply for a place in the institutions’ pre-degree program. This was his first time coming to the institution. He had taken the usual long but treacherous journey due to poor road network from his domiciliary city of Aba to Onitsha. It was mid-year of 2000. It was a four-hour trip that ended without any spectacular event. Though there were exceptions such as the sight of the usual lush and beautiful landscapes of hills that dotted the roadsides. There were other passing commuter vehicles.

Edifying buildings and bridges. The bridges were across well-known rivers that had left their landmarks on the shores of the political history of the country.

The names of some of these rivers had become emboldened and etched in the minds of the people. They had become political identities for some political states in the southeast region. These states are Anambra State, Ebonyi State, and Imo State. These States got their names from their respective and famous rivers after their names. Anambra River, Ebonyi River, and Imo River respectively.

Kelvin noted with keen interest the customary cries of ware hawkers. A good number of them were children, young teenage mothers with clear evidence of motherhood. The other parties are the elderly men and women. These groups lined up the length and side of the luxury bus conveying the passengers to their destination. These have been the usual trends each time the bus enters any major town or city during its many stopovers. This was either for some of the passengers to alert from the bus. To refill its tanks with petrol. To pick up some more passengers, the list goes on. Each of such stopovers had become an atrocious opportunity. Some passengers seized the opportunity to buy items they may need or may not necessarily need. They would stick out their heads through the side windscreen. Soon droves of hawkers will be dangling their wares at them to buy.

He struggled with the urge to join the foray and the usual mad rush to buy one or two things during such brief stopovers. There was no doubt that most passengers who bought things that way did so out of enticement than from necessity. He was yet on his thoughts when someone sitting beside him perceived the inviting aroma of a freshly peeled banana. The aroma must have come from another passenger sitting in the front seat. His co-passenger inquired of the cost of that particular size of the banana bunch. Moments later, he excused Kelvin to get access to the side windscreen with his head sticking out of the bus window. He was calling out to the banana hawker to himself for his own bunch of bananas of the same size and price as with the other passenger.

Once or twice during such brief stopovers, the shouts of “Driver please wait. Let me collect my balance,”

“Driver please wait, let me pay for what I'd bought.” This was a constant chaos-rhymed song in the air. Most will be airing their objections and opinions with a mouthful of food. These passengers are either seen in a struggle with mouthful chunks of food and at the same time trying to get the attention of the driver who had already pulled the bus into motion. When such cries were not heard or ignored by the driver. A chain reaction of action follows. Other passengers will lend a helping hand to bring the attention of the driver to the need of the particular passenger. When that fails, they will come loud bangs on the metal or the glass partition panel of the vehicle. This panel separates the passenger's section from that of the driver section of the bus. The later ploy usually gets the immediate response of the driver. The driver is most cases would voice out in anger at the passengers blaming them for causing unnecessary delays. When it comes to this, Kelvin will always take the side of the driver within himself. Sometimes too, there will be no such loud verbal offensives.

He will always recoil into his shell of neutrality when the case was not a friendly one. This can happen when heated debates and harsh exchanges ensue with the driver, his conductor, on one hand, pitched against the passengers. Each side will be trying to out-reason the other party with their various points of argument. Kelvin noted that the female passengers of the mid-forties and above are prone to such unusual behaviors. They are of the behavior of either taking too much time bargaining on the price for an item. They are always at this as if it was their convenient time, they were buying such commodities especially edible fruits. When a price is finally reached, they would take a longer time fumbling with their bags. When that is not enough, they would squeeze out the money which is usually of high denomination. This is a habitual thing with people. Most prefer to present higher denominations at the point of trade. This no doubt will need the ware hawker to run about among his or her colleagues in the trade for a suitable balance for his/her customer. This would in most cases contribute to more hiccups in the proper continuation of the journey. Such action irritates some passengers like him but he dares not protest. You could never know when you would be in the same situation as them, maybe on an unfortunate day too.

It is with a note of interest too, that the crossfire soon ends as it started. A mutual ceasefire declaration ensues with the end of missiles of words. A blanket amnesty soon overrides any ill feelings that might have arisen. Before long everything becomes calm as if nothing had happened. Some passengers soon continue on their conversations before the outburst. Others would strike up new topics of interest. Most times a whole total political debate could arise and factions would take sides. Especially was the case when no preacher-man or drug marketer was present. This set of individuals hide under the cloak of religion or comedian. They are only aimed at exhausting their different wares at the expense of their co-passengers. These are two sets of persons, either selling their goods and services or monetizing their faith.

With drug marketers, the idea is to have the attention of their listeners locked up in their ludicrous jokes. Nonetheless, they all follow one set of approaches. They would start with an emotionally charged prayer section called praise and worship. This is with the sole purpose of gaining the undivided attention of their would-be clients. The procedure follows a more personal undertone. It leverages on the perceived passengers’ bottled-up problems. These sets of people are well crafted at using religion as a tool of attention. The phase of capturing the passenger's attention ends the moment the praise and worship session is in progress. Psychological marketing will start with the proper advertisement of their goods and services.

The mode of adverts makes the products and services offered look more appealing than they were.

The preacher-man is of particular interest. His procedure would start with the usual long spell of emotion

charged praise worship songs. These centers on life and death and the afterlife experience. This is a well-calculated psychological design. It reminds every passenger of the overbearing presence of death. Death is always an unexpected visitor that can come knocking at any given time even on a highway through accident. The preacher- men don’t miss to dwell on that; it’s their main weapon of thrust. Such thoughts are as usual dispelled with the “Blood of Jesus” chants by the passengers. This line of thoughts forces every passenger riddled with the fear of death to fell in line with the preacher man’s message. At this point, the air would be aural of spiritual charge. And on the fringes of fanaticism; the devil must, without doubt, be in trouble in his kingdom. All his works are cast out on the spot. His demons bonded as well as every dark force with him defeated in the battlefield of the luxury bus, all by the blood of Jesus! Every evil is seen and unseen sees itself casted out. The devil receives all the blame even when humans’ errors were responsible for most of the fatal accidents on the highway. The self-denial of responsibility is the easy way out of problems. It is always the devil's cup of tea.

The whole frenzy exercise soon climaxes into the sowing of seeds. Offering-giving comes in different ways. It comes either involuntary form with the sharing of envelopes. The other way comes in the selling of religious wares and articles such as stickers and banners. These items according to the preacher’s claim are divine and could help to deliver every buyer from the works of the flesh and the devil’s attacks.

Kelvin delights in observing the faces and reactions of the gullible passengers.

In his excited mood, the preacher man would urge his listeners to buy his goods and services to ward off spiritual attacks. Buyers of such are assured to receive permanent and miraculous healings and immunity from all their what might have been responsible for it including H.I.V and A.I.D.S. To the preacher man, all it takes to get healed is your faith in what he is selling!

Kelvin spurns on such claims, not only because they are unrealistic but they are all fictitious and spurious. These false claims are common by a greater number of the so-called “men―of―God or drug marketers.” They are only after the linings of their pockets. This is at the expense of the impatient, gullible, and quick-solution-finders among their adherents.

In some cases, the sales would go in favor of the preacher man or the drug marketer. And sometimes too, he would meet a stingier audience even after heated sections of prayerful charges!

On any particular good day, for both the preacher man and drug marketer, there would be all smiles of gratitude. But on a bad day, the reverse is always the case as the annoying tone of disappointment would be visible to everyone who cares to notice. Kelvin never wishes to miss this part. He had observed to his amusement that he gets glued to the drug marketer’s tones of disappointment. He prefers him to that of the preacher man who focuses more on deaths and misfortune to coerce his listeners to dance to his message. This is a rather negative sentimental form of fear-marketing even though it works for them.

In his observations, some of the drug marketers are more professional in their pronounced sighs-of- disappointment. After encountering poor sales from uncooperative passengers, they never give up. They are not sentimental when compared to most of the preacher men's approach. They are flexible to adapt and are more likely to adjust and find a quicker way of breaking the ice with a striking tolerance. These are the techniques he had wanted the preacher men to adopt. The preacher men demand absolute compliance because they carry the messages of life and death!

Such was the case in the bus, the drug marketer was so disappointed that after having dissipated his energy there was no sale. He has made less or no sales of his wares. These usually include cosmetics, drugs, magazines, journals, dental products, etc. All the way from the beginning of the journey and with only less than an hour left of the four hours journey to come to an end. He resorted to making humorous-jeering remarks. Every obvious discomfit of any passenger of his interest becomes his marketing target. That skillful action of finding a solution among his goods to the obvious problem turned his sales around. He would redisplay each of his products that fells in line to solve the problem raised. The loud humorous response from the passengers made many people uncomfortable. A greater number of the passengers began to request samples of his goods. Every item in his bag went out to the passengers, which resulted in a total seller out of his products. Most passengers who requested samples of his goods ended up buying them. Others did so to avoid becoming his object of attacks. They thereby avoided becoming a subject of riling laughter from their co-passengers. That was a more persuasive way of driving traffic to your products.

Sooner, the journey was about to come to an end as the top of the high rising buildings of the city's landscape came into view. Kelvin realized to his chagrin that after the exit of the marketer he had lost interest in other events inside the vehicle. He was all–mind-focused on his final destination. On an ordinary good day, he would have volunteered to be a passive observer but today was not an ordinary day. He had made several unsuccessful attempts to gain admission into institutions of higher learning. The results were all disappointing in the end. Now he could see the light at the end of the tunnel. He had always been an average student. For the first time in his life, he was more serious with this longing than he had ever been. The singsong of triumph had long clouded his immediate environs. His only concern was to get to the institution at a lightning speed.

The luxurious bus came to a stop in the motor park. He alerted other passengers and began making his inquiries. The exact location, how and where he could get a vehicle to begin his next phase of the journey was all he wanted. The positive response he got emboldened him. He headed to yet another motor park at the other side of the four cardinals looking networked flyover bridge. This flyover bridge demarcated the center of the city into four equal diagonal sides. Each side having a dualized highways leading into and out of various parts of the political state of Anambra. It led to other neighboring political states such as Enugu State to the East, Delta State to the West, and Imo State to the South.

They have arrived at the city. It was his first time in the city. The city was Onitsha. Onitsha being a boundary city, a strategic one indeed, situated at the foot of the famous River Niger Bridge. Its boundaries extend to the shores of the famous River Niger. This river crisscrossed the length and breadth of West Africa from Guinea to Nigeria. History has it that River Niger became known after the British explorer, Mongo Park discovered it. The other end of the illustrious bridge to the west ended deep into the territorial integrity of another state. Delta State was the name. Onitsha was and is still one of the notorious commercial nerve centers of the south-eastern part of the country.

During the Biafran/Nigerian Civil war, she was bejeweled. And she became a victim of her beauteous endowment between two vicious lovers on both sides of the bitter encounter. All came with the vicious aim of establishing an exclusive right to her territorial booty. She ended up being pillaged, battered by both sides each time a particular faction gains an upper hand over her bootylicious body. By daylight, she was raped, and under power cuts by nights, she was ravished by the power lust man who only wants all that her bounteous bootylicious body offers. No wonder, by the time the skirmishes were over; she had become barren. A widow and empty without adequate care of what was to become of all her fatherless children and future endeavors. On her streets laid frustrated and hopeless youths who took to crimes and other vices as an alternative relief to their bleak future. Many turned to men of ill-gotten wealth in glorification as mentors. Soon a large drove of youths turned to the streets for counterfeit and hard drugs as trade in their mad rush for the comfort of wealth. High dropouts in every level of education made it a legacy. The political state became one of the educational less privileged in the south-eastern part of the country. This is despite the fact that a great number of their sons and daughters had been at the helms of affair of the leadership, both of their state and the country many years after the war had ended.

Kelvin made his way up the flyover bridge. Soon he was descending to the other side. Turning around to his left at the foot of the other end of it, he could sight with delight his point of destination as he turned. Next to the foot of the bridge, he could see the motor park. He walked into the park where Ekwulobia mass transit was being boarded by the likes of him.

After a long time of endless waiting, the 36-seater bus was finally filled to the brim with commuters. It was so filled beyond its recommended capacity unfit even for the animals, how much more for humans. There was no much difference between a vehicle for goods and one for human cargo. All received the same treatment as far as they were all paid for. And woe betides any particular passenger who dared complain. Its operators are well prepared to give you the worst of verbal abuse. Such grossed and obscene language can give you instant stomach ulcers.

Such scenarios are peculiar and common among such operators otherwise called “Agberos.” These are motor park miscreants hired to operate and load the transit buses. One does not put all he sees and hears into words. Kelvin was later to realize with a total sense of discomfort the poor state of the roads that these less comfortable buses ply. A plausible reason why most bus operators and their hired miscreants would take on any complaining passenger. They are more likely to make life a nightmare throughout the duration of the journey. The poor state of the roads then was one of the worst sights of deplorable road network he had ever seen in his life. It then later dawns on him why the operators would want to make the best of each trip they make as far as maximizing profits were possible.

May God has mercy on the passengers of any of such buses should they break down on the roads. Such an experience on that long and treacherous journey from Onitsha to Ekwulobia then was less desirable. They would have to wait until that particular bus gets repaired. The situation was atrocious under the torrid weather of the rainy seasons. Every other bus plying the road in the same or opposite direction is always filled more than its capacity. There were no accommodating spaces for stranded passengers.

Back then, there were only two main transports companies plying their trade on such roads. Uyo and Ekwulobia mass transport companies were the names of the transport companies. Each is owned by its respective town unions or individuals using the name of their town unions as a company name. The two different transport companies all have their different loading and disembarking terminals. Among the two transport companies, Ekwulobia mass transit happens to be the most vibrant in the business then. As at the time, it seems to be withstanding the overbearing tear and wear accustomed to the poor dilapidated road networks. The owner and manager of the transport company must be a man of deep pockets.

As the over-bloated 36-seater bus pulled out of the park, Kelvin heaved a sigh of relief after what seemed like endless waiting. It takes a good deal of patience to sit in the bus for hours waiting to have the bus loaded to its full capacity. It takes yet another precious time with the usual bureaucratic haggling between the bus operators, the touts, and the park management. This further delay results as the bus operators attempt to settle their financial obligations. The bus owner has both the local loaders and the local union owners of the motor park to settle. The local union owners of the motor park serve as government representatives and manage it. They collect dues for each loading of the buses.

The bus soon hits the highway of Upper Iweka road and later into Limca road which was the only asphalt road in good condition then. It was when it began to swerve from side to side without stopping that he realized that it was going to be a rough ride anyway. And when it began the eternal bumping of its tires against the cancerous crater of potholes that he knew the journey was going to be an unforgettable experience in his life. Without a doubt, it was an uncomfortable one indeed. His only solace was that he was sitting in his favorite position. He took his first lookout through the side windscreen. It was his favorite sitting position; sitting close to the window. He noted a signpost depicting the name of the first town immediately after Onitsha as he had thought. Nkpor Junction was in bold writing on the signpost. That reminded him that they were already in Nkpor Township presumably in Obosi. The real ownership of some of these towns had been in contention. The Obosi people have long contested ownership with their neighboring kinsmen.

The bus ran through various towns and administrative headquarters of some local government authorities such as Idemili south, Idemili north, and the other towns. He was quick to note that most of these towns were famous towns he had read about in some war journal. These were especially during the Biafran/Nigerian Civil war. It fascinated him about what the situation could have been like then. He imagined living in fear of one’s life during wartime. The thoughts were swarming in his mind. Being under constant heavy aerial bombardments, artillery shells, ambushes of enemy military convoys. The heavy battles that took place between the warring sworn foes. Life to an ordinary civilian could have been nothing other than a pitiable one indeed. He recoiled at the thought of how many times he had read about how Nkpor turned into a battlefield by the advancing Nigerian forces. How it was captured and fiercely retaken by the Biafran freedom fighters. He had read about the mercenary activities at Igboukwu. How a huge convoy of a battalion or so of soldiers of the Nigerian forces was torn apart by a locally made landmine called Ogbunigwe. The said event took place in one of the federal forces advance into the hinterlands of the then breakaway Biafran Republic.

Each of these towns as they passed them brought to his memory the vivid battles he had read about, that took place, fought, won, and lost. Accompanying them were the inevitable tragedies that follow such military activities. The countless young men were killed in the flower of their youths on both sides. The mournful tones of the defeated as well as the victorious army. In war, there’s No victor, No Vanquish as the then head of state General Gowon coined it. All are casualties according to the literary icon and poet J.P Clark. The impression left a sour taste in his heart and misty eyes filled his emotion. His emotions swing from the shores of a conquering army to that of the defeated people. People fought literally with bare hands a war that was to change the destiny of the political landscape of its people.

Like the late and former Biafran warlord, Chief Ikemba Odumegwu Ojukwu said years later. It was after the bitter bloodletting, "The Biafran of the mind would never die." Kelvin agreed with him at some point. All those who fought in its heroic battles and survived as well as the generation that experienced it would never forget it. It has become a checkered history of a country. It was not a war that should have taken place in the first place nor should it repeat itself ever in the future. With that final note, he shifted his attention to the beautiful landscape of the towns. How the lush floral had buried underneath it the ugly reminders of the bloody sad history. The slow rising and falling of the surrounding lush hills in the distance caught his sharp mind. Being an ardent student admirer of nature in its puritan ecosystem, he let his eyes have a feel of the picturesque and exhilarating scene that unfolds itself. The bus jolted along

the pothole-filled dusty road.

The creative imaginations of his subconsciousness were briefly forced back to his immediate environments. The sudden chaos inside the bus.

The shouts of protest from the passengers, “Driver, please take it easy. Don’t you realize you are carrying humans and not animals?” and “Driver, take it easy. There’s no duplicate to life.” It happened in a flash. The driver tried to maneuver a bend to avoid a looming pothole as he continued with his unhealthy speed. The terrible impact told the unsuccessful story. Kelvin saw himself in mid-air. He found himself hurled out of his rather tight sitting position into mid-air. Only his hands held on firmly onto the bare metal frame of the front seat. It provided an equal and opposite force. This prevented him from hitting his head against the protruding bare metal on the roof of the bus. His firm grip on the metal bar of the seat in front of him helped lunched him back into his seat forcefully. In that instant bizarre moment of madness, his head was not that fortunate. He collided head-to-head with his co-passenger.

It took a while before the driver slowed down amidst angry protest and curses rained down on him by the passengers. Four of the passengers occupying the attachment seats blocking the gangway had crashed to the bare and dirty floor of the bus. Some passengers were scrambling to keep their respective seats. To keep their balance, their seats had dislocated and slipped out from the two side positions on which they were hinged.

The attachment seats were extra seats made of wooden planks. They were placed in the gangway between each of the two original seats. This action blocked the gangway that was meant for passengers to make their exits.

“You wicked driver. God would punish you,” shouted a female passenger.

“What type of a driver are you?” yelled a middle-aged man.

“Do you think we are animals to be driven the way you’re driving us?” cried a woman now on the bare floor of the bus.

Not few were the curses and angry reactions of the passengers as the driver slowed down to a halt. Not even the driver nor his assistant had a soft word for anyone who dared challenge them. They replied back hotly “word-for-word” and “curses-for-curses” to anyone.

“You’re an idiot and a hopeless man,” came their taunts to their injured clients. The usual case of most Nigerian drivers’ relationship with their passengers. The road-rage is a common scene as no one seems to be at fault but always on their rights. In some cases, one would observe drivers engaging their passengers in a brawl over money. Incidents of reckless driving and poor human relationship are common. It all goes to show that the people were under pressure to survive. This is in the face of plentiful resources that had been hijacked by the few among the ruling political class.

The passengers regained their composures and the wounded were licking their wounds. The driver once again hammered on the throttle of the bus. The driver was not in any mood to soft-peddle in his usual kamikaze style of driving against the complaints and pleas of his passengers.

Kelvin’s head was still hurting where it had collided with his co-passenger. He was still rubbing on the spot as was his fellow passenger. They caught each other in the eye as he glanced up to look at him for the first time during the journey. They said apologies simultaneously to each other with a rather sense of humor. This was amidst the missiles of words between the driver and his irate passengers, especially from the women.

It was not too long when the driver soft peddled. The driver became humane with his driving. Everyone saw that as a welcomed development even though the occasional bumps continued. The agonies of their past experience were still fresh in their memory. It soon became quite obvious to everyone why he had started driving less recklessly. The driver had entered a narrow strip of road in a new town called Nimo. The accompanying towns such as Nnobi were all connected with each other by a narrow road. The two towns are always a beehive of traffic due to their proximity with their local market at its main junctions.

Kelvin went back to his watching hobby of the sturdy landscapes and the hillsides. Apart from the beautiful nature of the landscapes and its hillsides, he observed the handiwork of gully erosions. The visible effects of which are clearly seen. The defacement of the landscape was quite obvious. It was nothing but an eye-sore. He had to acknowledge the glaring truth on the menace of these ecological disasters. And as well man’s engineered economic activities geared by sheer greed. This is especially the case with the unregulated and illegal mining and excavations of the earth for major construction matters. To counteract the effects of gully erosions, he noted there was never-ending forestry of eco-friendly plants and trees such as the Cashew nuts trees. It was aimed at curtailing and to help check the ugly trend. The erosion was not only threatening the ethereal beauty of the landscape. It was as well endangering the people’s livelihood. It was the more affecting the continued existence of the people of the political state at large.

The looming sight of a town at a distance and the shuffling of feet by the passengers was enough to tell Kelvin that the journey was at its end. It came as a huge relief to everyone. He could see the town’s roundabout which seems to serve as its central point. It was the pivotal point of the town with a tall upright signpost. An inscription “Jehova Rules,” was inscribed on the uppermost section of the signpost. This is followed by the name of the town “Ekwulobia” below the inscription. They were in bold letters and in clear view. The roundabout was the point at which the major roads leading into and out of it transverses. The major roads forming a four diagonal line emerging from the roundabout. One of such roads was the one they were approaching from, which heads from Onitsha to Ekwulobia; vis-a vis. The other end of it passes through Ekwulobia to Umunze through Ufuma. The second one, transverses through the town center to the capital city Awka through Nanka and other towns and cities.

When the bus finally got to a stop inside the motor park, he took his time to survey the surroundings. It was a beehive of commercial activity. Soon he was on the queue of passengers alerting from the bus. Once with his feet on the wet brown earth, he felt his head hurt a little from the hard-knock he received on collision with his co-passenger. It was only a few seconds’ final reactions of his body to the torturous journey.

He took another bus, this time a minibus heading towards Oko, the town where the main campus of the institution holds swell. A few minutes' drives brought him face-to-face with the main gate of the school building. Federal Polytechnic Oko was the name of the institution. A few inquiries lead him to the little-known community bank, Oko Community bank but now Microfinance bank. He was to buy the foundation pre-degree forms there.

Before long it was night. He closed his eyes on that fateful day to sleep in the house of fellow Christian Brother. He told himself “My life has just begun for the better,”