Stranded On Eko Bridge
“That incident can never happen to me”
“If it happens to me, I will do this and that” “I won’t let go without a fight”
This is usually my statement whenever I commute through the Eko Bridge to get to my destination. I see public transport passengers in large numbers on the bridge trying to get a ride because their vehicle either got spoilt or the Lagos State Transport Management Agency aka LASTMA decides to arrest them for taking the lane strictly meant for BRT buses. (Welcome to Lagos)
The exciting part is that this also applies to private vehicles.
*BRT — Bus Rapid Transit System
If your bus is not a BRT bus, and you want to take the BRT lane to avoid the long traffic on the bridge, you are either an armed force personnel or one of the passengers is an armed force personnel, if not, you are on your way to parting with a large sum of your hard earned money as fine.
For public transport, they use this as an opportunity to extort passengers on the basis of taking the BRT lane, we end up paying whatever they charge ranging from a 100% increase on the initial bus fare because we need to get to our destination in time.
On this fateful day, I was almost running late and the BRT bus took longer than necessary to arrive, so I took one of those yellow buses with the driver claiming to be armed force personnel, so we commenced the journey. Our first stop was at a fuel station and the next and last stop was in the middle of the famous Eko Bridge.
What happened?
After we left the filling station, a couple of the passengers mentioned that the bus was moving too slowly for a bus that just got refueled not quite long ago. The driver gave flimsy excuses and dismissed their concern.
Our woes started at the edge of the bridge, where the bus couldn’t climb the bridge on its own, another vehicle pushed it and we successfully climbed the bridge. The bus kept moving at a snail's pace and the next thing we heard was a screeching sound, and the bus could no longer move in the middle of the expressway.
There was no time to start asking for what was wrong or not, thankfully the driver was kind enough to return 40% of the fare to the passengers that requested it.
Now it was time to get a ride to the next bus stop as it wasn't a trackable distance, and considering that I had a long journey to make, I’d rather get there late and be able to get the job done than get there late and be unable to get the job done from exhaustion. Three other women joined me and we tried but we couldn’t. We decide to walk a short distance to get a ride. We finally got a ride in the most miraculous way, and we still saved up our 40% fare.
I’ve learned my lesson never to think it can never be me because it can be me, and I may or may not be able to do anything about it.
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