The last time I was in Lagos was for a one day conference and I was privileged to be there as Rapporteur.
I reserved my return ticket for that same day since the conference was more like a breakfast session and I had tons of work waiting for me back at the office.
I don't know how you Lagosians manage your happy-go-lucky approach but almost everyone who stays in Abuja positively DREADS Lagos traffic, and I am no exception. So I was understandably on tenterhooks until the end of the event hoping I wouldn't miss my flight despite the fact that I had booked it for about two hours after the event.
I had arrived a day before, paying about N1,700 or so from the airport to the venue which was somewhere in Onikan because I like to scope out a venue before the event.
After the event, I hurriedly called for a cab via one of those apps (not gonna say which) and as soon as he arrived, I clambered in.
"I hope I won't miss my flight," I groaned once we had exchanged pleasantries. "Please hurry."
The cabman nodded.
Whenever I'm in a city I don't know well, I turn on my Google maps so I can track if the cabman is going off route and raise an alarm if need be.
As we drove, the traffic was mild. All of a sudden the guy muttered something under his breath and turned onto another road which was choked with traffic. My map showed he had gone off route. I questioned him immediately and he calmly explained that this was a faster route. I re-routed my map and saw that this new road still led to the airport so I relaxed.
Brethren, the traffic on this new street was off the charts. I was so frustrated I wasn't sure whether to climb out and trek with my luggage on my head.
Luckily my flight time was still about an hour away by the time the airport finally crept into view. I heaved a weary sigh of relief, glad to have made it in time. My relief vanished like smoke when he showed me my bill. A whooping N5,500!!!
His smirk told me what he had done. He'd deliberately buried us in traffic to delay the trip and increase his payment. I said nothing. I calmly handed over N6,000 and asked him for my change.
As I alighted, an elderly gentleman strode over and asked if he could drop him off somewhere. Cab Guy eagerly assented as he thrust my change at me.
As soon as the elderly man planted himself in the cab's backseat, a burly young man sped forward like a cat on steroids and clamped the back tire. Several young men hurriedly appeared to help their colleague.
A panicked look crept into the eyes of Cab Guy as he realised he was caught. His elderly passenger alighted and strode off into the sunset with marked unconcern, leaving him to his fate.
Funny enough though he'd cheated me, I tried to plead for him but the guys were having none of it. He was authorised to drop off a passenger but not to pick one up. He would be fined about N25,000 or so, they announced before whisking him away.
As I walked away, it occured to me that he had deviously inflated my fees through technical fraud and karma caught up with him right away. He would end up paying almost 5 times that sum in penalty and for what? If we had arrived when we should have, he wouldn't have met the old man, wouldn't have been tempted and wouldn't have gotten into trouble. But he tried to cheat me because he saw I was a stranger in his Lagos.
And Karma came down on my side. Don't knock Karma. She's real. And she's a woman. 😉
I didn't gloat. I genuinely felt bad for him. But it also taught me something I think we should all know: sometimes in trying to hurt others, we hurt ourselves. And that right there is the morale of the story.
Learn the lesson and share the story.
Sherina Okoye (Copyright 2020)
