When Governor Soludo delivered the 3th convocation lecture of Veritas University, Abuja, on 8/11/24, he argued that Nigeria was undergoing fundamental and disruptive resetting, subsequent to the subsidy ‘removal’. I wish to note that long after that removal, NNPC was still battling with ‘cost under-recovery’, which is one of the reasons for its financial quashiokor . However, as Nigeria is undergoing this macro reset, and I wish Nigeria well in the process, individuals are undergoing the real and tortuous reset at the micro level. About a week after Soludo’s Hypothesis, Dr Toriola of Hallmark University had calibrated peoples’ response to the strangulating fuel price into 7: cutting down unnecessary trips, eschewing all non-work related trips, car-pooling, opting for public transportation, abandoning the family and relocating near the work environment( for those who can afford to relocate) and to quit work. Between 5th and 12th November, I fuelled my car with N107000, just to go to school and back. And I bought from an NNPC station, where it is supposed to be relatively cheaper. After sharing this gruelling fuelling experience with one of my colleagues, he asked me: Oga-Muo, ‘can we continue like this; What can we do?’ I meditated on that question and concluded that something must give. Last week, after a thorough strategic retreat and review, involving a personal SWOT analysis, I intentionally decided to indulge in Toriola’s 4th level of Socio Economic resetting: going to work with public transport. It is not that I can no longer afford to fuel my car to work for now. But I know that its foolhardy to continue doing so because it is NOT sustainable.
I am used to public transport . From Ijebuode to Lagos, from
Lagos to Igbo-Ukwu and back and from Igbo-Ukwu to Aba, it has always been
public transport at least to the tune 90% . However, things are no longer normal. I
had gone to school with public transport occasionally, especially whenever my car went on strike without notice. But now,
it has to be a regular feature because I CANNOT afford to drive to school even
for the three days a week, which the school has magnanimously allowed,
especially as I don’t receive any
constituency project budget. I undertook
some research and learnt that there were
vehicles that ply directly from Ijebu-Ode to OOU but they usually left around
7am. I reasoned that since I was not the cleaner, leaving my house around 6am so as to get to the bus
station before 7 and arrive the school before 8 would not do. So, on Wednesday,
27/11/24 I decided to go through the multiple-drop public transport model, which allowed me to leave whenever I wanted .
That
day, I had a 10 am class and so, I left around 8am rather than my usual 9+. When I got to the park, the car that was loading had space for only one passenger but it required pairing with somebody in the front-seat(the
presence of FRSC officials on the route notwithstanding). So I went to the next car on the queue and sat at
the back, which seated the normal 3
passengers. Of course, I lost some time
but that option was more convenient and
comfortable . When we got to the Ago-Iwoye park, I took a two-legged vehicle
to the designated park for OOU-bound vehicles.
A bus was loading and I chose a seat that
was a little bit on the outer fringes of the bus where I would be the last
person to board. The vehicle required 3
more passengers to fill-up but a group of four students arrived simultaneously. The driver decided to
take all of them, thereby displacing me and told me offhandedly to join the empty bus behind . I refused,
telling him that it didn’t concern me
that they were 4 since I was there
before them. He then asked me why he
should leave 4 passengers just because of one passenger( myself). This is motor-park logic, which they
learnt from the practice of agberoism! I took a mental note to ask my colleagues in the Department of
Transport the model from which this kind of logic was derived. Anyway, I
insisted on having my seat. Nobody spoke in my favour and the students did not
even bother that they were about displacing a grey-haired elder, who was
obviously their lecturer! ‘Na the kind thing wey Musa de see for gate’,
The driver then mellowed down, pleaded, prostrated and I left for the next bus,
which filled up within few minutes. This
driver had converted the passengers into his conductors and after we had handed over the fares, which we had
collected row-by-row, the driver felt that he had been shortchanged. So, he stopped along the way , without any
explanation or apology to count and
confirm the completeness of the money. We wasted more than 5 minutes as he counted the passengers and counted and
recounted the money. Finally, we got to the school gate and everybody
disembarked for the mandatory security check. As an elder-staff, I stayed back
and after some minutes, the students reboarded and we got to the school park. I trekked the 1km distance to my office, rested a few minutes
and off to class. A trip that usually took
me about 30 minutes, lasted almost two hours. But I got to school and attended
to my students, most of whom did not
come, blaming it on transport difficulties. However I reminded those who came
late that others, including the son of man, also came via public transport!
That day,
I left school earlier than usual because I had observed that there were always vehicle shortages later
in the evenings( 5pm+). So, I left around 3, met a bus loading and boarded.
However, on the return journey(OOU to
Ijebuode), the bus seated 4 people at the row behind the driver(we seated 3 in the
morning). Two of the passengers were a little bit ‘bodacious’ and so,
it was really jampacked and squeezy especially for those of us with little frames.
The space was so tight that I had to drop my laptop in the booth. A colleague
of mine was so inconvenienced that he was grumbling throughout the trip: first
when the driver did not leave immediately and when the driver dropped a
passenger and decided to check the radiator water-level. I didn’t blame the
driver. It was circumstances that forced the crayfish to bend to this level. I
dropped at the Molipa roundabout, bent
down a little bit to collect my laptop but when I wanted to raise up my head, I
received a heavy ‘knock’ from the sharp edge of the booth cover, which gave me
a ‘bump’ that still exists. I waited for a few minutes there to recover from
the shock. It was as if the car knew
that I was a fresher in the public transport mode and decided to cut my tail just as practiced in
secondary schools where the seniors deploy various mischievous methods to cut the tail of fresh students( to initiate
and welcome them!)
I later
noticed that our car-parks were becoming increasingly empty. The pictures (
28/11/24)showed the situation of our parks; the one which had the capacity for
more than 50cars, harboured just one.
The other one, a premium and much sought
after park( because it provided a good shed), which usually filled up around 8
had only one car at11am when I looked around.
The forest-chicken, okwa,
had advised her kids to eat the roots as they were eating the yam so that whenever
the farmer harvested the yam, they could survive on its roots. It appears that this ‘farmer’ has uprooted the yam and the son of man has to
survive on the roots! And as I am learning to waka-about with my
‘legedizbenz’ and patronising public transport with the masses
as a way of life, my car is also learning how to ‘stay at home’. Two weeks ago, the car visited the school
twice and in the first week of December 2024, it visited only once. Luckily, it
may vis once this week. That is the reality.
An unknown Nigeria had said that Nigerians were
good adjusters and could readjust to any( downwards and degrading
) situation, taking any bread of adversity and water of affliction served by the government. Well, I am
undergoing my own readjustment and that is why a man who graduated in 1980,
started working in 1982 and is now in
the twilight of his career and three steps away from the 7th
floor has been forced to learn
a strange new skill; the skill of
struggling for busses with his students!
Anyway, the public transport model saved me
about 80% of my usual
transportation expenses but how do I
quantify and monetise the inconveniences, loss of time, loss of independence and obloquy in the eyes of the society, especially
students? As I continue with this mode, driving to school only once a week I
will continue to improve the process, like paying for two seats rather than
seating two in front
·
I later asked Dr Raji HOD Transport Management ,the model applied by the driver
who displaced me so as to carry four students, he said it was
substitution by elimination!
Ononenyi @ 70
Join us in this double celebration: 70th Birthday anniversary and peaceful retirement of my elder brother, Prof MC Muo, Umeononenyi.
Truth dies in darkness. Darkness is when you see the
truth and do not speak it or you ate intimidated into silence; Dele Farotimi.
2/12/24
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