We had begun the journey about six hours earlier and the bus broke down somewhere at Nsukka, Enugu. It was almost 10 pm and everywhere was quiet. Just a few shops were open in what looked like a minipark and we hurried to go see what we could buy to snack on for the long night ahead. About 30 minutes later, we were on the move again and I went back to sleep. At about 1: 00 am, Stephen tapped me to consciousness. The bus had broken down again. This time we were heading towards Kogi. Everywhere still smelt the same, of sweat and so many other things I couldn’t even comprehend. It was suffocating.
I had earlier engaged in an argument with one of the 'attachees' (people who paid to stand on the aisle because they couldn’t afford a sit) who insisted on sitting on the arm of my chair and leaning unto me. "Oga, you dey rest on my body nah" He responded in his native tongue and I immediately knew arguing with him was pointless as he could not even understand what I was saying. So every now and then, I would nudge him with my arm and he would shift, only to return to the same position after some minutes again. It was a very uncomfortable experience. By the next hour, the bus had been fixed and we were on our way again.
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| Zuma Rock |
It was a very long ride that saw us pass through Kogi and Abuja as people began to alight. In my shallow mind at the time, we were closer to our destination now that we had passed through Abuja but boy was I whining myself! We would continue to Kaduna which took forever to pass through, and then Zaria which is supposed to be another state on its own. Might I add that the north is blessed with such a huge landmass and well-constructed roads at this point? We would drive for thirty minutes without any house or structure in sight. We would see a signboard saying welcome to...and we were just entering the capital three hours later.
This was the longest journey of my life and I wondered if I would ever come back to the south or see my family again because this journey looked like one that would never end. We continued through Katsina as some corpers began to alight. We had picked up some people from Zaria and I made a new friend, Kemi. Every time I identified someone else going to Kebbi, my anxiety reduced. At all, at all, if kasala burst, we'd all run together.
We got to Sokoto, the bus's final destination by 9 pm, about 32 hours after we left Onitsha. My feet were swollen and I couldn't feel my waist, but at least the journey was over, or so I thought. Corpers posted to Sokoto quickly organized themselves, found a taxi, and left. I and my fellow Kebbi comrades, 10 of us, still could not find a taxi to continue our journey, panic was gradually setting in. My parents kept calling, though my phone and power bank were almost dead. It was the same situation for the others.
We opted to sleep in the park till the following day, the men in the park with a mixture of Hausa and pidgin advised us against that course of action as it was unsafe. Finally, I heard a man speak Ibo, oh the sheer joy! I hurried to him and explained our dilemma, Long story short we needed a vehicle to Kebbi that night. He promised to help us and disappeared. About 20 minutes later, he appeared with another man whom he said owned a Sienna and would take us to camp. We hurriedly agreed with the price and started loading our bags into the put. All ten of us agreed to squeeze ourselves in, we would not leave anybody behind.
We thanked the man who helped us get the vehicle as we drove out of the Sokoto park. This was almost 10 pm. We had only been on the move for about twenty minutes when our driver parked, he spoke Hausa to us and entered into what looked like a restaurant. He came out some minutes later and we asked him where we were, that was when we realized that our driver could only understand and speak Hausa. While we were still trying to figure out our following line of action, he drove off again. By this time, most phones had gone off except Stephen's. We tried using Google Maps but the network was really bad, soon after we were out of the city and started passing through thick forests and lonely roads. The chatter in the car subsided as everywhere grew quiet. I believe we were all thinking the same thing that night, "Had we been kidnapped?" And when the driver abruptly stopped, in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by thick bushes and humongous trees, a few minutes past midnight, I wondered if the answer to that question was "Yes" and if this would be my last night.
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