The Love Story of a Unilag Babe and Bus Conductor
Something interesting happened on my way to Oshodi this
morning. At the park this rough mean-looking conductor
also known as “agbero” in Yoruba was screaming for
passengers, his vernacular oscillating between Yoruba and
pidgin English.
“Oshod! Oshod!” He shouted angrily as I along with some
other passengers scuttled for seats. There was this
beautiful young lady who couldn’t throw caution and
decorum to the wind but waited patiently until the bus was
almost filled. Then she pleaded to sit by the agbero until
somebody came down then she would pay for a proper
seat.
The agbero didn’t even look at her pretty face, he hissed
and shouted to the driver to move that why didn’t she rush
when others were rushing. The girl started pleading in
Yoruba and clean ‘oyinbo’ english; “please, ejó, help me out
sir, I know you are a good man, never mind all this shout
you have been shouting (people burst into laughter). Let me
sit by your side please”.
Finally with much squeezing of face the agbero relented
and she sat beside him. It was a tight squeeze but she
didn’t complain but rather started praising the agbero. He
in turn started teasing her, speaking (and sometimes
spitting by mistake) into her face but the girl never looked
away, she never let the smile leave her face. He asked her
where she worked and she replied that she was a student
in the University of Lagos (UNILAG) studying accounting.
He teased her in Yoruba about her boyfriend and car
(maybe asking why her boyfriend didn’t drop her at her
destination…she laughed it off and continued to gist with
the guy in Yoruba.
When she reached her junction the agbero alighted the bus
for her to come down. She did and paid her transport fare,
then the agbero told her to give him a peck on the cheek
for being so ‘gentlemanly’. At this point some of us
became indignant, haba! He had been teasing her since, he
should let her go. Another argument almost ensued
between the agbero and the passengers although it was
not as if the agbero was really serious, he told her to go.
Then it happened! She jumped forward and gave him a peck
on the cheek! We all shouted, the agbero was quiet out of
surprise. She then waved bye and ran down to her street.
The driver and other people started to hail the agbero, see
hailing! The guy was just forming boss, saying he knew he
was irresistible etc and others were yabbing (taunting) him,
some were yabbing the girl and we moved on and suddenly
the bus was quiet, show over. Then the agbero put his
head down and became uncharacteristically quiet. The
driver soon asked the guy why he wasn’t calling out bus-
stop abi the girl don do am jazz (cast a spell on him). The
agbero said something in Yoruba I didn’t get and then his
voice became emotional and believe it or not HE STARTED
CRYING. Others were now consoling him in Yoruba. When I
asked what the problem was, the lady beside me explained
that the agbero said he just realised he would never be able
to get a girl like that in his life because he’s an uneducated
bus conductor and she was going to be a graduate. He was
weeping because he knew no girl of her class might ever
do to him what that girl just did, to touch a dirty person
like himself; that the girl is nice and well brought-up and if
he had money he would have chased after her. So the
passengers were consoling him in Yoruba that he would go
higher in life and be able to marry a girl like that. He should
not cry because itwas not the end of the road for him.
That really touched me.
For a moment in that agbero’s life, his facade of a street
thug fell away and he was a vulnerable emotional aspiring
young man, just like everybody else.
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