YINKA FOLAWIYO Plaza is the second tallest building I have ever seen. The first being the Cocoa house in Ibadan. Flanked by Providus bank, Domino’s Pizza, and Afrikraft, the majestically simple but attractive building festooned in a general blue theme has been the headquarters of the business conglomerate owned by the Folawiyo Family for more than sixty years.
Aside bordering the Nigeria Custom service office, the behemoth building offers a clear, and appealing view of Apapa, its wharf and the restive water that scamper the landscape. Being primus inter pares in the exquisite area, the giant chateau stands out as elegantly beautiful. But the skyscraper, and its architectural masterpiece, offers a sharply contradiction with its dusty, dirty and deplorable road network that sweeps it entrance and her neighbors.
Just some minute past two on one scorching Tuesday afternoon early November, I and one my colleague alighted from a bike, we’d left Pepsi roundabout, where we reside, to complete a task at Folawiyo plaza. As we dropped from the bike, a middle age man, tall, bald with an appetite appearance, a little over forty approached us. He was the driver of the trailer I am to clear into the factory. While my colleague took time to explain the tips and tricks to move the six t trailer into Tin-Can. What he did seconds to his disappearance shocked me. He handed over eight thousand naira to me. At first, I wanted to conceal my surprise but had to break the silence for further clarification.
“Use that money to settle the road” was his last heartbreaking words as he climbed another bike that ferry him back home. I kept the money and took a tour of the whole place. Starting from Mandarin super market, an outlet predominantly stocked with Chinese stuff; which is man by foreigners. I also trudged the office of Nigeria custom service. That place, with it’s stinking gutters is a reminder of how bad a country can be with autopilots as leaders.
A little over eight in the night, we had the green light to move. There had been heart numbing traffic gridlock since I arrived the place and during one of my tour of the area, I discovered, to my consternation, the root cause of the logjam. On one part of the spectrum is the poor road network, an already established nightmare that spread beyond the streets and creeks of Lagos, while on the other is an artificial pain caused by men of Nigeria Army, Police force, Port authority and their kinsfolk: the area boys.
Hiding under the guise of traffic control, the officers inflict subtle pain both on road users, commuters and transporters with impunity, extortion and high handedness. As we move inch closer to the double lane road that connect us to our destination, we met the first set of officer, ‘customers’ as the driver whispered into my subconsciousness.
The officers were happy as we throw a five hundred naira note at them. Amidst sweat and chaos, the operatives passed us as one of them squeezed the note in his pocket. For the next several minutes after our second encounter with the officers who also grabbed another five hundred naira note from us, our trailer came to a grinding halt. We are stuck again in another endless cycle of man made traffic impasse. For the next twenty minutes or so, we had to wait until we moved again.
By ten in the night, we’d moved to the Nigeria Army school of signal where soldiers signaled we pay homage and dues to gallant men who are at the battle ground. From that point onward, we started to settle the road with one thousand naira note. At first, and for accountability, I jot down amount alongside the time we doled it out. But knowing this is a futile effort as the only thing that matters is to lead the trailer into the factory successfully, I became depressed and dropped my pen. The driver and his motor boy were now exhausted and famished. I couldn’t help either as I shared in their pain wearing imaginative shoes as them while striving to survive a deeply chaotic environment desperate to rip apart whatever modicum of common Sense in us.
Around four in the morning, our trailer tramps towards Tin-Can. At this time, being the first I will be facing such audacious and galling corruption, I’d became exasperated, my heart already sunk and pocket, where I’d stuffed wads of naira already ebb, with sleep renting my eyes. By the time we climbed the Liverpool bridge and knocked the second gate, men of Nigeria Port authority and police force, our last customers, were already waiting to receive us. As usual, we settled them.
By the time I fished out the last note from my front pocket, I’d resigned to fate and lost any tinge of hope in the Nigeria project. We were passed but the trailer wasn’t ready to pass. We ran out of fuel and that brought us face to face with area boys, the type that loot and destroy property after #Endless fallout. We eventually found our way into the factory but that nightmare was to signal the next wave of administrative malfeasance, raw corruption, brigandage, impunity, immunity, exploitation and extortion that are to follow.
Muftau Adewale GBADEGESIN
muftaugbadegesin@gmail.com
09065176850
