Hello everyone, welcome to my entry for the hive learners weekly featured contents and this edition's topic is titled Traffic troubles.
I have been in a couple of traffic jams in the past but none comes close to the one I experienced when I traveled to Lagos. I live in a city that isn't populated and we hardly experience serious traffic when moving from one location to another within the state. Even when we encounter traffic, it doesn't linger for too long and there are always alternative routes to follow that will be free of traffic.
I and my classmates traveled to Lagos earlier this year for our industrial training which lasted for a month. The company we were attached to prepared accommodation for us in their branch office and we have to report at the headquarters every day (which is in another city!) for the training. The place we stayed is in Ajah, while the headquarters is in Victoria Island.
We paid for a bus that took us to the headquarters every day and brought us back to the hostel. We always left the hostel as early as 5 am just so we could get on the road before there was serious traffic but we always end up in one. We usually arrive at the headquarters at about 9 am, a journey that should have taken an hour is now done in 4 hours coz of traffic. We adapted to the lifestyle after a while, but something worst happened one day.
The worst day
Something happened that day and we ended up leaving the hostel around 6 pm instead of the usual 5 am. We didn't even go very far and we ran into traffic at a place where there usually isn't any traffic. We managed to get past that but we ended up in even bigger traffic, our bus didn't move for over 2 hours! Some of us ate breakfast right in that traffic and we considered going back home but the coordinator of our training refused!
She's a very strict woman and she said we should find any means possible to report to the headquarters even if we end up late. We eventually moved from where we were but it was very slow, some of my classmates even had to get down from the vehicle and started walking along with it. We kept getting in and out of crazy traffics and we eventually arrived at the company at about 12 pm
We got done with the training at about 3 pm (A 6-hour journey for just 3 hours of training, am I still heartbroken till now? Yes) and we ran into another problem: our driver hasn't arrived. We called him and he said he won't be able to make it because he has run out of fuel and apparently there was fuel scarcity all over the country. We had no option but to take a vehicle from one bus stop to another until we got to the hostel.
Because of the crazy traffic on the road and fuel scarcity, bus fares were hiked to a very ridiculous amount and we had no option but to pay. We still faced a lot of traffic on the way and when we got to a particular bus stop, there was no public bus to take us to the next stop, and that was because of a serious traffic jam on that route and also because of fuel scarcity, a lot of bus drivers gave up and parked their bus.
I felt like crying that day because I couldn't think of a way to get back to the hostel, trekking isn't an option because the next bus stop is very far from where we are and there are a lot of people stranded with us as well. Some of my classmates were eventually able to beg a truck driver to allow us to hitch a ride on the back of his truck and he agreed.
But in that situation, there were lots of desperate people around us and they rushed onto the truck as soon as the driver agreed we could hitch a ride. Everyone was rushing to get on the truck before it gets filled and some of us got injured but we didn't pay much attention to it, we were just glad to have finally gotten a vehicle. Some people sat on the floor of the truck (which is very dirty) while the rest of us remained standing while holding on to whatever we can.
We eventually got into the main traffic jam and it was even crazier than we thought. Another 2 hours was spent in that traffic and what kept running through my mind was how I hate Lagos. I have never experienced something like this in the City where I grew up, I have been there for over 25 years and I have never been stuck in a traffic jam for more than 30 minutes but few weeks I stayed in Lagos, I am already hanging on the back of a truck and stuck for 2 hours in traffic.
We eventually got to the hostel at about 8 pm - 5 hours spent on the road. We left the hostel at 6 am and came back around 8 pm, that is 14 hours and out of that, 10 hours were spent on the road. That experience forever changed how I see Lagos, it was my first time in that State but it was a very bad experience. I had other similar traffic jam experiences to this, but this particular one stood out the most.
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Edited with Canva