Many people of my generation will remember the phrase above, not as a prayer offering but for being the title of a very popular weekly programme on the radio in the late fifties and early sixties. It was a chronicle of Alao, driver of what used to be the ubiquitous bolekaja; the wooden contraption in which goods and people were moved around the vast distances that separated numerous destinations within Nigeria. Alao the driver and his sidekick and conductor, Shakey-Shakey travelled up and down the country having any number of comic adventures which kept their audience in stitches and waiting impatiently for the next episode in the series. The title of the series summed up the spirit of the times as travelling in Nigeria carried special dangers which may not have been apparent to strangers but were all too real to the unfortunate passengers who were at the far from tender mercies of all the Alaos steering those wooden contraptions at break neck speed through the lush Nigerian country side. Accidents were common and when they occurred were just as frequently fatal, with loss of life and limbs featuring distressingly prominently. Even now there is hardly an accident being described without the use of ghastly as a prominent adjective. A lady of my acquaintance who had lived in Britain for many years, being short of words with which to describe an accident that happened on the British motorway reached back home to describe it as a Nigerian accident and left it to the imagination of her hearers to conjure up the images of total vehicular damage which had occurred. In her many years in Britain, she had not been witness to such utter carnage and destruction but the distressing images of accidents which had happened in Nigeria many years before were an abiding memory.
The bolekaja was ugly in every sense of the word and it was with great trepidation that anyone climbed over its tailboard to hazard any journey however short. It was just a gaudily painted wooden box on wheels, held together precariously by a few strings and a prayer but quite capable of tearing around the country side at great speed. It was frequently involved in spectacular accidents in which many lives were lost and a multitude of limbs damaged beyond any form of repair. The roads on which these contraptions ran were just as dangerous as the vehicular traffic that they carried so that when accidents occurred, they were frequently described as being ghastly on account of the fatalities which they caused. The roads were narrow and wound their way around sharp corners even as they maneuvered their way around cunning bends and steep gradients all of which demanded very careful navigation. The drivers were afflicted with a virulent kind of fatalism which pushed them into bowling along those roads with joyous abandon, believing contrary to observation that they led charmed lives which could not be lost in an accident. When accidents occurred, the vehicles involved were usually nothing more than mangled heaps of scrap metal, to be thrown into a convenient pit.
Bolekaja accidents were frequent and the toll on human lives was extensive but in spite of this, the drivers existed in a state of confidence, misplaced as it obviously was, of their invincibility. They took to the wheels with a nonchalance which suggested that they were in a state of immunity from any form of mishap and shrugged off any form of criticism from their trapped, if not hapless passengers who still harboured justifiable fear for their mortality. For most Nigerians of the time, setting out on a journey however short was an act of courage and determination to face daunting odds. The arrival at any destination was cause for fervent prayers of praise and thanksgiving to whatever deity one was affiliated. Since that particular journey had ended safely, the prayers were really to be carefully filed away as a starting point for the next journey, rather like a hunter offering up a sacrifice of praise after a successful hunt. In the same way that prayers marked the end of a journey, they were also offered up at the beginning and the prayers of supplication for a safe arrival marked the beginning of any journey, all of which has been shortened to the words ‘safe journey’ which on reflection and away from any background information means nothing that can be found in formal English language. Variants of this prayer have now crept into what even the local custodians of the English language refer to as Nigerian English because speakers of the language from other parts of the world may become progressively lost as they navigate the jungle of Nigerian English. Tell a Nigerian about an intended trip and his most likely response if he does not call out ‘safe journey’ is to ask for journeying mercies, whatever that really means. I doubt if speakers of English from other parts of the world have any appreciation for the heart-felt wish of Nigerians who have a palpable and utterly justifiable fear of travelling anywhere in their country.
The drivers were sure of their immunity from death or serious injury from motor accidents suggesting that there was a spiritual side to this show of bravado as they had been fortified with the blessings of various deities, all of them giving a guarantee of survival in the event of an accident. Or even more potently, prevent an accident from happening even when overtaking around a bend or on the crest of a hill. There was also a pharmaceutical component to the fortification of the driver who would not step into his driver’s cab without taking several slugs of potent liquor guaranteed to ascend to the brain and hold it hostage for the duration of the journey. Some of them for good measure deepened the fog around their brain with fumes from smouldering leaves of Indian hemp, just to keep out the cold as cool breezes brushed against their face as they leaned halfway outside their cab, to exhibit their bravado and the better to appreciate the adrenaline rush which cruised through their veins as their lorry ate up the miles and clouds of dust billowed tenaciously in their wake.
Anyone reading this could be forgiven for assuming that the roads on which these vehicles travelled were tarred or well paved for the comfort of the traveller. Nothing could be further from the truth as only a few roads, the so called Trunk A roads had a coating of tar. Most other roads were finished in dusty laterite so that after the default prayer session after arrival, the next thing was a bath to wash away the dust which clung to every exposed surface and penetrated every item of clothing. For these and other reasons therefore, the decision to take a trip on a bolekaja was not one to be taken lightly at any time but especially towards the end of the year as taking a trip in a bolekaja was positively suicidal with drivers, drunk on the desire to squeeze in as many trips as possible within the holiday season taking the type of risks that were only allowed on the battle field and fired their rickety engines beyond the limit of safety and common sense; and in doing so, frightened their poor passengers beyond the limits of human endurance. Any accidents were put down to the evil machinations of virulent spirits hell bent on quenching their raging thirst with fresh human blood. These blood thirsty demons were supposed to live on the road hence the invocation that one be spared a journey on the day that the road was hungry for human blood and flesh preceded and accompanied every journey. The possibility was that a great deal of the danger that the road was blamed for was indeed the work of human agents who had decided that they could handle any challenge that the road brought up in their path was never seriously considered. A Nigerian accident lurked behind every bend and over every hill but death or injury happened to other people, after all the prayer was that one be spared the dangers which were present on the road but that those dangers be visited on other people, presumably those that were not wise enough to seek and obtain spiritual fortification.
Those bolekaja of my early years have since been consigned to the dusty heap of history but travelling on the roads of Nigeria is still as dangerous as they have ever been. Our public transport system is so fluid as to lack any consistent structure and the vehicles most frequently used in the transportation of human beings were originally manufactured mainly in Japan for conveying goods along the well-built roads of Europe. On retiring from active service on those roads, they are imported into Nigeria, fitted with the most uncomfortable seats imaginable and driven at break neck speeds after having been fitted with what is described as fairly used tyres which had been retired from active service on roads in more advanced countries. Watching people sitting in those contraptions with their knees in such close proximity with their nose that one has to wonder if they were trained contortionists is not a sight for the faint hearted. The drivers, great grandchildren of the Alaos who flogged the noisy engines of the long dead bolekaja without mercy see these tired vehicles as a vast improvement on what existed in those days and outdo their predecessors in the bravado they bring to their work. The result is that Nigerian roads, even the best of them are as dangerous or even more so than the laterite roads of old. The prayers for journey mercies, or is it journeying mercies offered up by the travelling public is now even more fervent than ever before for the simple reason that our roads, characterised over the years by a constant harvest of blood have become even more ravenous than ever before. After all, to the danger of ghastly accidents that existed before, we now have to contend with armed robbers, kidnappers, fraudulent law enforcement agencies and others which defy any coherent descriptions. Added together, it is clear that Nigeria is plagued with the most dangerous roads in the world. Drivers of all shades are agents of darkness hell bent on causing all manner of damage and grief so that the shortest journey is cause for anxiety seeing that there is no guarantee of safety from one kilometre to the next.
The much unjustifiably maligned so called ember months have now arrived and the fear of setting out on the so called hungry roads of Nigeria are now upon us. The all too tangible travel fear factor has made its annual arrival in our midst making us to raise our cracking voices to a multitude of deities in supplication for a safe journey and the gift of travelling mercies to all and sundry, whatever that means.