That day, I decided to travel a little later than usual . Boarded a bus at the garage and whoops, we were good to start the journey! I was sitting at the front seat beside the driver with a mopol officer who sat next to me,and some other passengers both young and old.
The trip started and everyone thought to themselves , we would reach Ibadan in an hour. Just a little after Berger,our bus wanted to collide with a truck but we narrowly escaped the hit and we moved. We passed the redemption camp safely too.
Shortly after, we saw a police patrol van entering the bush.Then every vehicle started turning back saying there were heavily armed robber raiding, so we should turn back to avoid being a victim. At this point, everyone in the bus started fidgeting,started shouting on the driver to move,I kept my expensive phone in my pant expecting the worse,the mopol beside me, kept his valuables in a small bag ready to escape into the bush because he might likely be given a scape-goat treatment if we fell into the hands of the gunmen.
Despite the pressures and pandemonium ,our driver said it’s best to stay at the spot we were, that it’s not going to be a long raid. This made us more panic, “oo ni se oribiruku iwo omokunrin yii ( Mr Man, you wont be unfortunate)” a woman yelled at the driver, the man still insisted on staying at a spot insisting that he’s experienced that we will be fine.
After a little while, some cars started moving from the other side telling us to move ahead that the robbers had gone , our driver started the car , then we started moving little by little, we noticed a thick smoke from afar, at this point, there was a long queue of vehicles,some carrying petrol, diesel,n other trucks like that.
When we moved closer,we saw that the fire outbreak was really intense dat we started getting so scared, we learnt that a petrol tanker got shot by the robbers and caught fire,the fire spread to both sides of the road, stopping any movement to or from Lagos, this caused a major traffic jam of so many cars. At this point, there seemed to be no way of escape for anyone. So many things started crossing our minds. “Could it be that the robbers are still around,could it be this is their method of raiding a 2nd time” these were my thoughts!
Suddenly, people started running away the fire, saying that the fire has started spreading from car to car , so the fire started trailing us, then people were leaving their cars and were running helter skelter, some people were running into the bush , I saw a woman fall as she was trying to save her life, a girl was shivering and praying. At this point, this scenario was similar to the bomb blast in Lagos in 2002.
Some small cars started turning back to escape this jam n accident . Our driver joined the cars that were turning, most ladies in the bus had started crying, men were scared, I was scared too , and I was just thinking , why did I decide to travel at this time, I was praying n singing internally. When we were almost crossing to the other side to finally escape, the car in front of us stopped and could not move anymore, the car was a total trap, the obstacle to prevent our escape. Some men quickly joined to pushed the car and we crossed and started going back.
We eventually took another route to Ibadan. Then our driver thought the robbers that raided the express is likely going to come out from this other road that we have decided to take .so many other things happened afterwards .we eventually got to our destination safely.the journey took us about us about 2 hrs.Everyone whispered “thank God”as we alighted finally.
The lesson I learnt from this experience I had is that, the only guarantee we have in life or after life is God. God is the only one that can save when no one is there . Let’s love God and be In constant relationship with Christ. Accept Christ- the only way to be secure in life and after life on earth. shalom!
Story written by Kemi Babalola Daramola
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