By Adeola Agoro
The official taxi ride in Ibadan is the Nissan Micra. There are things you should know about it.
If you’re standing on the road or bus stop for pick up, be ready to share the back seat with three other passengers and if you’re sitting in the front, you will share a seat with another person, plus the driver, making three of you.
You will sweat, fart, cough and none of you is likely to be wearing a face mask because heat will be a worse option than other things.
The person closer to the door must use one hand to hold the door so that it won’t fall or the person won’t fall off or both.
If you take ‘drop’, be sure that you’re not wearing a light item of clothing. The leather on the seat has most likely worn out and the iron support of the seat would have started sticking out. One or two of them will compete with you to tear your cloth. Khaki/jeans is best for rides here.
If you’re lucky, the door will have a bolt to hold it. Just don’t sit very close to the door.
In the nignt, the inner light (lit by two wires and a tiny bulb) will be permanently on. It will give you a yellow glow and everyone outside will see your face
Make sure you carry a fire extinguisher with you if you must enter an Ibadan Micra. All ‘oyinbo’ electrical fittings have been Nigerianized by the local ‘rewire’. The battery is hand made by a battery charger and the wiring will always melt when the driver blows his horn too often. The kind of smoke that will cover you if anything goes wrong will need more than prayers. You need a practical thing like an extinguisher.
You had better eat well to have plenty of energy when boarding an Ibadan Micra alone. It will break down more than twice before you get to your destination so you will have to help push.
The driver won’t buy enough petrol. He will buy N300 to N500 petrol for a long jouney, so be prepared to help push to the nearest filling station, in case the fuel finished and it stops on the road.
The driver will curse every driver he meets on the way and you must be involved in his story.
If I have lied, Ibadan people please say so. And if I’ve left something uncaptured, please add your own.
How did I get to know? Our car went outside Ibadan for two days and my brother and I had to take ‘drops’ twice. These experiences happened on the two ocasions.
I had the smoky experience and had to run far away because I was scared. I listened to unrestricted curses and I pushed car tire!
In all, I’m thankful for the Micra experience.
-Alhaja Adeola Agoro, Abuja based journalist (who once worked with TheNEWS/PMNEWS), business woman, travelled to Ibadan for the burial of her father, Dr. Olapade Agoro, coming up on Saturday, 14 November