IFEATU'S BUS CHRONICLES: THE YELLOW BUS IS A BATTLEFIELD PREPARATORY ARENA

One of the things you won't be told about sleeping on a Sunday night while listening to Bradley Cooper and Gaga's Shallow is that you will be waking to a blaring alarm and the busy Lagos roads on a Monday.

It had rained the previous night. The weather is obviously cold. Take a bike and you will alight with your teeth clattering while your body shivers. So, you take a bus with a mind ready to tackle whatever lurks on the road.

The road is abnormally free. I am still wondering If I slept past Monday into a Tuesday.

The passengers are all calm till a lanky guy dressed in brown chinos, a cream coloured shirt to match and black heavy boots makes his way into the bus to sit by me.

He has his earphones tucked in his ears.

"Yes?" The conductor says in his hoarse voice after a couple of minutes. The young man casts a rather blank gaze at him and continues to listen to whatever was tingling his ears from the speaker of his phone.

"Yes?" uttered by a bus conductor in a Lagos bus is certainly not an affirmation. It's an urging for you to dip your hands in your pocket and pay your fare. Call it an undocumented culture and you won't be far from the truth.

Clearly, the young man was new in town. "You have to tell me to pay and not say yes," he tries to correct the conductor in his Hausa mingled accent. His English is clean and sleek with a lace of that recognizable Hausa smear. It's the way educated northerners speak, I have heard it countless times from the fine broadcasters on NTA, from my friends Muaz and Abdul. Everytime, I hear it, I recognize it.

My gaze stray to his fingers. They are well groomed just about the way our northern brothers would. I have a hidden ability of stating where people originate from by looking at their fingers.
Weird thing, I know but it's true.

"E funmi owo joor," the conductor yells from the corner of the bus where he hangs his plump tall frame like the flag poles you would effortlessly spot at embassies and consulates.

"Excuse me, I will give you. Your bus is tight," Mr Northern brother replies with slight irritation.

Brother Conductor was slightly not going to keep calm without a fight. He cursed and swore in Yoruba and 'Mr Polished Northern Brother' cursed right back in English and Hausa.

The driver, an elderly man had been quiet all the while.

"Him go give you, leave am," he urged his conductor. We ride amidst the passengers murmuring about who was at fault and who wasn't while I was scoring the two 'bus titans.'

"Eko Hotel o wa o," Mr Northern Brother informs the driver. The bus gets to the gate of the popular Eko Hotel, makes an abrupt halt and he alights handing his fare to the conductor.

The conductor has an angry look on his face but I have my scores. There was no point of putting up a fight. If they made an attempt to fight, Mr Nothern brother would grind those tiny toes of the conductor with the sole of this 'caterpillar boots'.

Nothern Brother 1 Vs Conductor 0 .

NEXT BIG THING: CREATING A NEW WORLD THROUGH MY LENS - KINGSLEY AGORUA

Jim Rohn had his opinion that "If you don't like where you, change it. You are not a tree." Kingsley Agorua had looked around where he found himself and decided to change it to suit his taste through his lens. My earliest contact with Kingsley should have been in 2012 when I was a student at the Federal University of Technology, Owerri. I spotted him at an event on campus where he was taking photographs. Little did I know that I would bump into him again at my faculty - The School of Health as a student. I was curious as to what a photographer was doing in my faculty during lecture period. Time will reveal that he was a student too who was madly in love with his camera. This was all before the advent of traditional or nearly compulsory bridal showers, baby showers and pre-wedding shoots in the Nigerian Creative Industry. Kingsley Agorua is a cinematographer with years of experience from Oguta in Imo state. He studied Dental Technology at the Federal University ...

IFEATU'S BUS CHRONICLE: THE MILITARY, MARRIAGE AND BIBLE GETS A SEAT ON THE YELLOW BUS

One of the places that you should never judge people by the way they look is in Lagos and Onitsha. In the former, a stray looking guy might be a military officer and in the latter, a guy looking like a pauper might just be your unknown landlord. Fridays are my happiest. I just let myself get lost in my daydreaming and indulge myself in the luxury of waiting for the long-expected weekend. Today, the road is free. We ride in calmness except for the sound from the engine that depicts acceleration in our pace. A man dressed in Ankara is seated by my right and a lady holding her umbrella and looking lost is seated by my left. We approach Costain and just as the bus tends to swerve a careless bike rider attempts a rough overtaking. Our infuriated driver is yelling at him as well as the passengers. In Nigeria, some questions don't pose as questions. "Are you mad? Are you crazy?" Our driver is hurling at the indeed crazy biker. The bike rider is obviously the obstin...

Helping hands or holding hands?

It was just last week. I set up a quiz for the pupils I teach. Teaching had never been something I looked forward to but it found me. I can tell you that despite I find myself standing in front of a board each morning, I feel more like I am learning. So, the doubts of if I relished teaching fizzled away. The experience has been fresh and worthy. I had two groups namely A and B consisting of three pupils each for the quiz. The pupils in group A were more of the intelligent stock and group B, I called them the average stock. Once we kicked off, group A had earned eight points leaving group B at two points. "We will finish you, people today", Vincent snarled. He is one of the smartest kids you 'd ever meet, a fast rising Chike Obi breed and the sole provider of the answers coming from his camp. I was tempted to caution him not to talk that way to them but I restrained myself and kept watching the unfolding drama. Group B seemed to have lost hope, they all had a shado...

JENNIE IFEATU

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