The First Time

Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

     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 to end. 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 hits the highway of Upper Iweka road with cloudy fumes that blinded those behind the bus. 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 knew that it was going to be a rough ride anyways. And when it began the eternal bumping of its tires against the cancerous crater of potholes that he knew too well 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; sitting close to the window. He took his first look out through the side windscreen. Most of the side wind was broken or non-existent. The wind would be forcing you to hide your face from facing it. He noted a signpost depicting the name of the first town immediately after Onitsha as he had thought. Obosi and Nkpor Junction respectively were in bold prints on the few signposts he sighted. 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 were the rumors he heard then. He never did bother to confirm it. Most areas are always been contested in one area or another. Lingering community crises were always the order of the day in most local towns. 

     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. Among such books were, Because I am involved by the then leader of the Biafra freedom fighters and another one, Nigeria and Biafra; My story by his deputy Philip Effiong. 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 and ambush activities at  Abagana, yes the popularly known Abagana Ambush. How the Nigerian 2 Division of 500 - 6000 men was ambushed and wiped out by the Biafran guerrilla troops led by Major Jonathan Uchendu. Some other accounts say colonel Achuzie was in charge. The said tragic event took place on March 31, 1968, in one of the federal forces' advances 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 who were killed in the flower of their youths on both sides. The mournful tones of the defeated as well as that of 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. A war created by injustice. A war that lead most of their brothers to denial their ancestorial heritage as part of the ethnic group that bore the brunt of the war c*****e; the wise of the east, the great Igbo people.

      Like the late and former Biafran leader, Chief Ikemba Odumegwu Ojukwu said years later. It was after the bitter bloodletting, "The Biafran of the mind would never di," 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 b****y 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 some of 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 of position 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 use of during 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 i***t 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 l*****g 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 k******e 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 then. 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.