Gboyega Alaka, writes on his train ride in Lagos.
NOT willing to proceed with this feature relying mainly on hearsays and other people’s experiences, I decided to take a quick ride on the train. For someone who only ever rode on a train as an eight-year old (to Abeokuta), my initial plan was to actually travel long distance, maybe to Ilorin or even Kano. But time was of the essence and I had to settle for a quick ride on the Lagos-Ijoko route. After all, a train is a train; and from my investigations, the urban mass transit (the one I’ve chosen) is the most patronised and I couldn’t have picked a more typical route to have a taste of Nigeria’s railway experience.
The train took off at exactly 2.00pm. This was quite impressive, considering that responses differed every time I threw up questions on punctuality and timeliness. In just 30 seconds, we were in Oyingbo, even though it was moving really slowly. In a couple of minutes, we were in Ebutte-Metta, where I caught a glimpse of a stretch of fuel tankers parked on rail. It confirmed what the assistant image maker told me hours earlier about the government helping the corporation take delivery of 40 fuel tankers, for transportation of petroleum products by rail.
By this time also, the train, which took off half full, was beginning to fill up steadily, picking up passengers as it coursed through the back streets of Lagos metropolis. It amazed me too that so many people knew its schedule and were waiting to get on board. Right after Yaba, the driver seemed to decide that the long bus had taken enough and increased speed to something in the region of 60km/hr.
Vehicle for the lower class?
I also got an impression that the train is more popular amongst female traders, peasants and rural dwellers, who daily commute to Lagos to ply there trade. For these set of people, you could tell that the incentive is the giveaway fare of N150, as most of them seemed not to give a damn about the deplorable condition, which they mostly contribute to. I also noticed that most of them were uncouth, edgy and very quick to pick quarrels. In all honesty, it reminded me of the molue. Right on the seat opposite mine, a pregnant woman, probably in her late twenties busied herself gulping her plate of oily rice and spaghetti with her bare hands. Aside not caring about the fact that she was in the midst of a crowd, she also seemed to care less about finesse or hygiene or whether bits of the oily meal splashed on anyone. Woe betides anyone who wears white and sits near her, I thought to myself. (I was sporting a white linen shirt). To top it up, it took her over 10 minutes after the meal to get up and make what seemed like an attempt to wash her hand.
At about this same time, an aged woman screamed at a young lady old enough to be her grand daughter for stepping on her. ‘Can’t you see?’ she screamed repeatedly, continuing even after the offender had apologised profusely. This reminded me of the ‘sorry zone,’ as narrated by one of the passengers I’d interviewed. I smiled to myself.
Shortly after, another woman screamed at another for shifting her luggage to create space for hers on the rack, while two others seemingly squared up over contest for a seat. By this time, I had begun to choke from the din. Maybe this was due to the schedule I boarded; of course the white-collar workers would display a bit more decorum. But except they close from work early, they would only be able to catch the 4 o’clock schedule and downwards. Soon, the coach (8) became so jam-packed, with luggage overhead and virtually everywhere. Instinctively, I decided to check out other coaches and discovered that some were relatively less populated. I returned to pick my things and moved over to coach 2.
But this also soon filled up as the train picked its faithful along its route, and it was here that I got puffed with drops of yam flower (elubo). Two ladies had joined the train around Yaba and in the process of dropping their luggage, a bag of yam powder on the overhead rack, sprayed a bit of it on the passenger directly under. Flustering, he complained bitterly, but only got a ‘sorry’ and a damnation. I got fewer drops and chose not to complain.
Like the molue, train coaches also seem more or less like a home to fighting, bickering and all sorts of intolerance.
I also found that the train is home to lots of idle talks on politics, current affairs and public commentary; as people freely engaged in all manners of careless talks, both fabricated and factual.
Between Agege and Iju, the train stopped for about fifteen minutes to allow another train, a cargo career pulling dozens of containers to pass. Again, this confirmed another of David Ndakotsu’s assertion of the corporation’s ability to ferry goods across the nation and its potential to soon begin to ferry goods and products to landlocked countries and generate income.
Somewhere between Agege and Iju, hot dust rushed in as the train increased its speed and settled all over the passengers. As ‘stranger’ to the train, I instantly reached for my handkerchief. But not so for the other passengers, who simply took it in their stride – like it was routine. The fact that there was no longer cross ventilation because the aisle was by now filled with standing passengers meant the dust remained with us for the rest of the ride. For a brief moment, I thought of air-borne diseases. But I shrugged it off almost immediately. ‘What’s wrong with you GB?’ I thought to myself ‘Aren’t these other people fellow Nigerians? Didn’t they say whatever is good for the geese should be good enough for the gander?’
We arrived the sleepy town of Ijoko at 4.15; but the train could really have done the trip in one hour thirty minutes maximum, safe for a couple of delays at train junctions and stations.
Not so bad. But plenty of room for improvement.
