On November 24, 2018, necessity was laid upon me to visit the great ancient Benin City, the Edo state capital in Nigeria. The many brave stories I have heard about the city coupled with the fact of having a once upon a time close neighbour of mine hails from there. The more they told me about the city the more I secretly admired it and longed to visit there while I grew up in the brown roof city of Ibadan in Oyo state. Fast forward to now, my best friend from my time in Lagos is getting married and my presence has been requested to witness the ceremony. Gladly I looked forward to the journey, after all, a little owambe (celebration) is good for the body. (lols)
I wasn't going to travel alone, the plan was to join the rest of his family on the trip. So we took off in the early hours of Friday morning around 6:00am, we were seven in numbers. We immediately hit the road with so much adrenalin pumping in our system, we looked forward to an exciting journey. The early morning breeze could draw nothing but sleep from me, the previous day had been a long one for me, slept late and had to wake up early to be ready. I sat at the back row of the Sienna space bus that was hired. Sitting next to me was me was my friend's little niece, after her was her mum, in front was his aunt, his mum and a little sister of the family. In front was his big cousin and then the driver of the vehicle. All in all, it was sure going to be a fun trip.
Hours passed by while we made steady progress leaving Abuja, Lokoja and arrived at Okene in Kogi state. We didn't know what awaited us but we began to see a sign the moment the sun came on. The assumed air condition system of the vehicle failed or perhaps was not functioning at all, but like adding salt to injury, the traffic on that route was heavy. We had to navigate through heavy duty trucks on a very near impossible road which as at the time of writing is not a dual lane. At one time, a truck conveying two containers on its back competed for a passage with us, we were in the gully while he was on a bit higher ground of the road, any slight mistake is as good as a death sentence. It would have been a case of an ant challenging an elephant to a battle! We threw in the towel, better live to fight another day than stand no chance at all.
The atmosphere was humid and dusty, wounding down the windows was not an option. We were sweaty, uncomfortable and at the same time frustrated at everything. Calls went left and right to the transport company who provided such an old non-functional air conditioned of a vehicle. This was beginning to look like a trip that was not to be!
Watch out for part 2 next week.