Lagos is the real definition of “Ghetto”. Sleeping in your own house is stressful. Going out nko? A constant battle which you have to wear an amour of craziness to win, or emerge alive at least.
One of such battles is driving. We spoke with 4 Nigerians on their wildest driving experiences in Lagos, and this is what they had to say.
Lade, 25
There was the time that the front axle of my car came off (as happens with Hondas). I had just turned off the exit coming from Ilupeju onto Ikorodu road. While I was still trying to figure out what was happening, some idiot drove past and was shouting “but your car would have been giving you sign!” Which yeye sign? That night was all shades of drama. From the agberos that quickly came to cash out, to the LASTMA that kept airing me even after I called and told them I feared my life was in danger. It was a good Samaritan that stopped, stayed with me and helped call an independent tow truck to get me home. And even on the journey home, another set of agberos tried to unhook the car at a filling station, and I literally had to hop into the moving truck.The moral of this plenty story; don’t drive in Lagos, it is the absolute ghetteaux!
Jess, 27
My friend is the real definition of ghetto. Apparently, she thinks the best time to chill with movies is when she’s driving on the express. She puts her phone on the dashboard while the rest of us serve as her emergency alarm brake for when she’s about to hit a car in front. The wildest part is: when we try to caution her she talks about how she likes her life more than us. She uses the fact that she’s a woman to escape all that Lagos police and LASTMA drama, especially when she was pregnant. She would hold her stomach after passing one way. LOL.
J.D, 30
One morning, around Chevron tollgate, I encountered some woman driving a very nice late model Jeep. She seemed to think it was Fast and Furious, because she almost made me have an accident twice, so I moved to the very last lane and left her to her devices. At the next traffic light however, someone hit my car from behind and when I came down to check, it was this Jeep aunty. While we were trying to sort it out, another woman in a Sienna stopped beside us and shouted “You this woman that just bashed my car, you’ve come to do it here again?” At this point, I just told her to make sure she didn’t kill anybody and got into the car, because I’ve never seen anybody jam twice in the same traffic.
Jey, 24
There was the day I was learning how to drive and I just got fed up. I switched off the engine and said I was not doing again. My driving instructor was begging me, but I wasn’t having it. Then a trailer started coming towards us, and I told my driving instructor that I was too scared to drive. He had to take over the wheel and save us. There’s also the time that I was driving and I almost ran over a secondary school student. One minute it was just the road, next there was a green and white uniform. The kind of James Bond driving I did that day, phew! Would you believe that after all of this they said I passed the driving class? How? Anyway, I’ve never stepped my foot in a car to drive since I finished the driving class in 2019. I Uber everywhere or take a bike or Keke if it’s really close.
See? Even the Fast and Furious crew will give Lagos drivers accolades. This weekend, DStv will be opening a new pop-up channel dedicated to the Fast & Furious franchise. Anticipate and avoid Lagos roads till then.
