Travelers

The Road

The Road

It was 4am when I woke up that day because I was traveling to Benin for my clearance. By 6am I headed to the junction, tricycles were not out yet and the ones that were weren't headed for my destination.

Suddenly a Sienna began coming our way when my mum flagged it down. I got on board, another passenger, a lady got on board as well, I looked to my left, I noticed a lady in see through on one of the passengers w******p status I looked away.

The driver shut the vehicle door, my mum waved me goodbye as the bus zoomed off.

"Am I safe, this one na only man full this motor", the lady asked.

"You are safe", the driver said.

"This one na only men full this motor."

"See another woman dey for there na", another of the passengers said.

"You are very safe", the driver said again.

She noticed a large number of men in the vehicle, mistaking the vehicle for one chance passenger carriers who throw them out after robbing them and share the proceeds between the gang members fronting as passengers.

I did notice a panty less lady with buttocks the size of a highly valued cam girl or escort twerk on the passenger far left's mobile phone as some advert for her services.

I alighted the vehicle at Sokale. I boarded a tricycle to the motor park I frequently used to travel on several occasions. On getting there, I was ambushed by the travel company porters screaming at the top of their voices.

"Lagos'', one of the men at the park screamed.

Onitsha", another of the men at the park screamed

Auchi", a third man at the park screamed

'Asaba", a fourth man at the park screamed.

"Big Joe", I screamed.

"Big Joe", one of the porters screamed.

He hijacked my luggage and took it to the park and I noticed Siennas I confirmed from the cashier if it was Big Joe and he replied in the affirmative, I wouldn't know I was deceived because I had boarded a Sienna to Benin under the canopy of Big Joe.

"How much?", I asked.

"Twenty Two Thousand", the cashier replied.

"Let me withdraw."

"See POS for there", he said pointing at a POS operator outside the park.

"Good morning", I said.

"Good morning", she replied.

"I want to withdraw."

"How much?"

"Five thousand."

"How much is the charges?"

"300."

I handed my ATM Card to the POS operator and she slotted it into her POS machine.

"Should I add the charges?"

"Yes."

She punched five thousand three hundred naira into the POS machine and stretched the machine towards me and I punched in my four digit pin. She punched the enter button at the bottom left and the transaction read successful and the machine generated areceipt.

She removed my ATM Card and handed it over to me, counted five thousand afterwards and handed it over to me, I counted the money to be sure it was complete and I added it seventeen thousand from the money I had on me.

Earlier that week I had stopped at Big Joe Office on Gado Nasco way to verify the transport price from Abuja to Benin and I was told seventeen thousand so I withdrew twenty thousand that morning and hid the three thousand. Rain pattered.

I grew restless and took a stroll around the park and I noticed the Big Joe Park and I went to confirm the price of the transport from Abuja to Benin and he confirmed that it was seventeen thousand and I told him I planned on travelling with Big Joe but I had already paid.

Suddenly, he went into the transport company office and spoke to the manager and he came out and told me to carry my luggage to the spot the Big Joe vehicle was parked and I did oblige.

Next he asked me to settle him and I handed him a five hundred naira note, and he explained that the five thousand I paid couldn't not be refunded because it had been documented I'm the manifest.

Soon the driver set out on the journey. The vehicle had a flash tyre at the entrance of Murtala Muhammad Bridge and we all alighted the vehicle and he zommed off in search of a vulcanizer.

Thirty minutes later, the driver returned and we got on board and the driver zoomed off. He made a stop at Lokoja, we all alighted the vehicle and passengers searched the nook and crannies for edibles and souvenirs.

I was headed to the restroom when I was told to pay before use. I headed to the POS stand, withdrew some cash and paid the custodiasn of the restroom and headed into the to men's only section.

During the journey I was pressed but I endured it until we arrived at Ramat Park. When we arrived at Ramat Park, I alighted the vehicle with two other passengers, two men. One of the two men was about to pee on the grass when the security intervened.

We were directed to the restroom and after the two mean had answered nature's caIl and made their way back to the bus. I alighted the vehicle at Akpapava, and I headed for the vehicles parking spot.

I boarded the vehicle, alighted at Main Gate and boarded a vehicle to the Back Gate after which I boarded a tricycle to my hostel, rat feaces and cockroaches shells littered everywhere and my ceiling was filled with cobwebs, my room smelled of dust and dust settled on the windows and corners of my room and my WC was filled with as much sand as the dunes of the deserts in Denis Villeneuve's Dune movies, both adaptations of Frank Herbert's sci-fi novel Dune, Paul Atreides trailing the dunes fulfilling the prophecy of the Bene Gesserit and leaving his abode, and his mother to be following the fall of the House of Atreides brought to a past resultamt of remote and immediate factors like by the death of the patriarch of Atreides, and the war inflicted on the House of Atreides, his mother initiated into the Sisterhood of the Bene Gesserit by the truth sayer himself frolicking with the fremens the makers of the desert spice, and embarking on a path to fufil the prophecy of a messiah believed by the fremens, his mentor, his pathfinder, his eyes and ears,

I put a cross across to mother in Abuja to inform her that I had arrived at my destination and cleaned the.cobwebs off the ceilings and swept the dust off my room, flushed my WC and took a nap a while later.