The First Time

CHAPTER 2

Chapter 2

     Kelvin is amused in observing the faces and reactions of the gullible passengers. Everyone wants a miracle without working it out. 

     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 would-be problems. Patronizing the preacher-man would be responsible for curing all their health issues 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 Marchants of faith.” 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 d**g 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 d**g 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 d**g marketer’s tones of disappointment. He prefers him to that of the preacher-man who focuses more on deaths, gloom, 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 d**g 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-man's approaches. 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!

     In one incident, the preacher man was begging the passengers to sow seed money for his transport back to the park he had boarded the bus from. He had tried earlier without success to solicit money from them using their formal approach. It didn't work. He started condemning them for not sowing seed to a Man-of-God by misapplying portions of the scriptures to buttress his point. And how God will bring judgment on those who don't support men who preach the gospel. He was attacking every woman wearing lipsticks, false eyelashes, and false nails. He attacked and condemned women on wigs and hair extensions. Unfortunately, the majority of the passengers were women. His fiery sermons felled on deaf ears. He was still at it till the driver passed the junction he was meant to alert. When it finally dawned on him that he was going to go home on this particular trip empty, he resorted to shameless begging. His pleads fell on deaf ears. He was forced to alert after some point. He was a pitiable sight. It was obvious he had no money on him to make the return trip back to the bus station. He looked sad and frustrated.

     The d**g merchants on the other hand were different. An incident awe Kelvin. This particular incident took place in yet another bus transport company he had patronized their services. The d**g marketer was so disappointed that after having dissipated his energy there was no satisfactory sale. He has made less or no sales of his wares. These usually include cosmetics, drugs, magazines, journals, dental products, as well as alternate health herbal drugs which are common, 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. He managed to put every passenger in an obvious state of discomfit. He started picketing on any passenger that had an obvious skin issue, belly fat, stomach, or whatever that he can lay his hand on, that would become his interest and his marketing target. 

     "Young lady, yes you..you..sitting close to that Papa on a red T-Shirt," He pointed at one of the female passengers. That acne on your lovely face, I have a solution to it," He lifted the cream for all to see. He will dwell on the acne on the lady's face till the product is sold out. 

     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.

     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. It was always certain that the moment the d**g marketers became silent or alerted from the bus as was always the case Kelvin will lose interest in any activity going on the bus. Their exits make the journey dull and boring. 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 luxury bus came to a stop in the motor park. He stepped out of the bus with the 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 highway 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, Imo State to the South, and Benue to the North.

     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 the River Niger became known after the British explorer, Mongo Park possibly became the first publicized human and a white man to sail from Guinea to the delta of it. The other end of the illustrious bridge to the west ended deep into the territory 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, Onitsha 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 r***d, and under power cuts by nights, she was ravished by the power l**t 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 the glorification of men with ill-gotten wealth 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 greater 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.

     Things have however improved over 50 years then after the war on individual endeavors.                                               Kelvin made his way up the flyover bridge. He descends 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. Close at the foot of the bridge, he could see the motor park. He walked into the park entrance 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 not 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 a***e. 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 at the stations of the local 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 concerned.                                                                                       

     May God has mercy on the passengers of any of such buses should it break down along 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 to 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. t had more buses to ply the road than Uyo. 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.