Senior Mugus

The bus jerked violently, pushing the passengers back and forth with reckless abandon. It halted abruptly by the side walk. After a couple of revs, the bus discovered the verb (to accelerate) to the silent delight of its proud owner; the driver.

Moving at a snail's pace, the bus' engine kept backfiring at regular intervals till it was eventually grounded to a standstill after sounding a loud bang. The passengers were beginning to look worried although nobody voiced his/her displeasure. They merely stared into space with long faces and the boldest amongst them broke a sweat.

Given that it was 7:50am on a monday morning, I had expected more than peace from the bus' passengers whose dressing presented them as junior level staff in profit thirsty companies or upcoming entrepreneurs. I wondered where the good old 'fear of a query' went to.

The driver was a rough looking man in his 30's who was fond of verbally assaulting the passengers, rudely yelling "go buy ya own moto na ogbeni" at any one that uttered or muttered. Maybe that justifies their decision to keep mum.

Depression, frustration, passive aggression, guilt, low self esteem, fear and pessimism were the other elements in the atmosphere asides water, oxygen, carbon-mono-oxide and carbon (IV) oxide. Coupled with the docile personalities in the bus, the recipe for disaster was already concocted.

It even took the intervention of ministering angels who touched their hearts in stealth mode to voice their complaints or find a way out of the potentially messy situation but most were stiff necked, preferring to sit in silence; waiting and hoping for the issues to get resolved.

Thirty minutes later, the greasy looking conductor disdainfully announced that the journey had been terminated; the reasons were best known to him and his uncouth driver. The passengers grudgingly alighted and demanded for a refund to cover the rest of the journey. Commotion ensued!

Everyone spoke at the same time in the highest pitch of their well rested vocal chords, imagine how deafening it was. The conductor was bent on spending the least possible to get the passengers to their destination, the passengers on the other hand wanted more than he was willing to part with, demanding what they considered to be fair.

After a heated argument and several insults/blows, both parties reached a consensus and parted ways around 8:35am. Later that day I saw 8 official queries, 2 yells and 4 lost business opportunities from this incident. The bus driver and his boy were however blameless in my sight.

Each passenger stands equally guilty: ignoring my envoys, failing to understand the times and seasons as they didn't speak when it was required. Their docile nature brought shabby treatment upon them and when met with their default mentality, supplied the music for a macabre dance.

#SpeakUpNigeria