Like the barbaric hordes attacking the bastions of an ancient civilization so also do we have a lot of resident evil eating up the core of this nation like a malignant cancer despite all the hue and cry of REBRANDING.
I believe the greatest maladies of this potentially great country are greed and the lack of love for one another and these couldn’t have been exemplified more than in the events of the recent trip I took from Lagos to Jos.
I decided to take an all night trip so that I would get to my destination early the next day to be able to attend a wedding program. Alas the luxurious bus I took broke down at Ekiti after a few hours into the journey. We had to sleep overnight at Ekiti in the bus despite the dangers that sleeping on a Nigerian highway portend.
The next morning I had to take another bus which unbelievably also broke down. In my desperation to get to Jos the only thing I didn’t do was swing from tree to tree like Tarzan. Of course it doesn’t take an Einstein to know that I missed the wedding. I didn’t even get to see the bride and groom. Someone’s callousness made my sojourn a wild goose chase.
But the mindboggling things in all these are
The bus folks didn’t refund our money holding on like limpets to a rock the clause in the receipts craftily stating that says that fares are nonrefundable.
They didn’t provide an alternative stating that they couldn’t get in touch with their management because their phones were switched off (RIDICULOUS).
We got to know the same bus had a similar incident a few weeks back and kept its passengers waiting for a whole day.
There was no show of concern or remorse whatsoever.
The fact that the bus broke down after a few hours from Lagos shows that the bus was not serviced despite the fact that it was not road worthy and this has become another racket by the greedy and heartless to rip off the hapless and unsuspecting.
WHAT KIND OF HUMAN BEING LEAVES AN ESTIMATE OF SIXTY PEOPLE WITH GOODS WORTH HUNDRED OF THOUSANDS AND A LOT OF TIMES MORE ON A DANGEROUS HIGHWAY IN THE STYGIAN DARKNESS OF NIGHT AFTER COLLECTING THEIR FARES (SOMETIMES THE BETTER PART OF N10, 000) WITHOUT BATTING AN EYE.
All this goes to show that filthy lucre is a god for many Nigerians and they have sacrificed their conscience and love for humanity on its bloody altars.
This is pretty pathetic because anybody who has followed the trends of history would know that civilizations (Africa, South America) where lives were cheap and human sacrifices were rife are still the under developed parts of the world.
It’s so disheartening that we live in a country motivated by the love of money, whereas in countries where things move seamlessly, LOVE is the driving force of customer service and industry.
We cannot allow this to continue because this country is populated by human beings and not goats or chickens that can be destroyed and treated horribly at a whim. Every single person deserves to be treated well and not left at the mercy of predatory elements because of people whose souls have been sold to greed.
I think it’s high time we all rose up to decimate this evil and bring this Goliath of greed and inhumanity to its knees because even it doesn’t affect one directly, it could happen to a friend or a family member.
Like John Donne said no man is an island unto himself…..therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Published
July 29th, 2009