16/10/2025
True Life Reflections:**ON THIS DAY IN 2005 I NEARLY LOST MY LIFE AT ENUGU DUE TO JOB-HUNTING
(Part 4)
Shortly after my NYSC in September 2005, I didn't even spend up to 3 extra days in Gombe before rushing back to Owerri. I was that fed up with Gombe and life in the north. The distance from there down south didn't even help matters so I was eager to leave. I wasn't one of the former corpers who wanted to start a life and career in Gombe...I was so done!
Just a couple of days after I returned to Owerri from Gombe, I started aggressive job-hunting both physically and online. I became a regular buyer of Tuesday and Thursday Guardian newspapers that was known for publishing job vacancies in those days. It was also around that period that many banks used to conduct aptitude tests for employment. I attended bank aptitude tests in almost every town close by that I heard aptitude tests were being conducted...whether I was invited or not. If you were not invited for a bank aptitude test and you present yourself and somehow manage to undertake the test, we called it "gate-crashing" in those days😃. I gate-crashed one of the aptitude tests conducted by UBA and actually passed. All of us that passed the aptitude test exchanged phone numbers among ourselves and for some strange reasons, UBA never called any of us for a follow-up interview till date.
Undeterred, one Saturday morning, I continued my aggressive job-hunt all the way from Owerri to Enugu. It was another bank aptitude test. I can't remember the exact bank but I think it was the then Skye Bank. I had gotten the invitation via SMS earlier in the week. That fateful Saturday morning, I told no one where I was going to because I didn't even want any form of discouragement from anyone that distance is far to just go take an aptitude test that I wasn't even sure I would be shortlisted at the end.
The test was scheduled for 10am and so I left for Enugu via ITC park at Owerri around 7am. It was supposed to be a 2-hour drive so I was hopeful I would get to Enugu before 10am and I did. Ladies and gentlemen, I got to the supposed venue of the aptitude test around 9.30am and met several other job seekers like me littered all over the place.
"At the end of the day, they will just take 7 or 8 people from this whole crowd", I murmured to myself as I arrived and looked around. I noticed the organizers were conducting the aptitude test in batches. They were upstairs and calling people up. The noise, arguments, rowdiness and struggling among the crowd of intending test takers was so much that the organizers discontinued with the name calling at a point. To make matters worse, it started raining 😒.I just looked on, exasperated, helpless, and drenched in the rain that was steadily gathering momentum.
"If you guys like don't behave yourself and let us organize this thing. Shebi it's you people rain is falling on"! One of the organizers, a young lady, shouted down at us from the upstairs. I took a good look at the young lady.She was chewing gum like she hadn't a care in this world. And she addressed us indignantly like someone who was already in heaven and had the entry keys in her hand while we downstairs (the frustrated job seekers) were in hell. Did I blame her? As young as she was, she was already a bank staff!
In all the aptitude tests for bank employment I had attended up to that point, this seemed the worst as only the 1st set of people earlier called turned out to be the only people that took the test that day. As at 4 pm that day, the frustration, anger and rowdiness had become so bad that the bank authorities called in some police support to disperse the frustrated job-seekers and ran away with the papers of those who were lucky to have taken the test before things degenerated. The promised to "conclude the test a later date for those that couldn't take today". Rubbish! I had never felt more frustrated in my job-hunting.
I went over to a mango tree and sat down on a block someone has placed there. Several dejected job seekers like me were already leaving, cursing and swearing. Anger couldn't allow me talk to anyone around me. I just sat there, thinking about my life, my wasted transport, my forfeited morning meal at home, and the risk I took not telling anyone at home that I travelled to Enugu. By then it was already 5.45pm in the evening and just then, my phone started ringing. I looked and it was my dad. I did not answer the call but it jolted me back to reality that I still had a 2 hour journey back to Owerri to undertake. I dragged myself up to start my homeward journey.
Unfortunately, before I could get to ITC park then at Agbani Road it was already 6.30pm and I was told the last bus for Owerri left some moments ago. I can't remember what really happened but I couldn't get any other direct bus back to Owerri and it was getting quite late. My dad kept calling me on the phone that I angrily switched off the phone. I wasn't just in that kind of mood because I knew it had to do with "where are you"? One of my father's House Rules, even when we all became graduates, was that you must be home latest 7pm and funny enough he still tries to keep that rule till date now that I am married...imagine!😃
So back to the story. I was told to find my way to Okigwe first from along the expressway in Enugu and then from Okigwe possibly get a direct bus to Owerri. Where I was directed to at the express, one "molue" Mercedes Benz bus was already positioned and loading Okigwe. "Okigwe last bus!" the conductor was shouting. I made my way into the bus and went straight to one of the very back seats, away from the sweaty bodies of the numerous traders that filled more than half of the bus.The traders were so noisy which which was far from what my jarred and frayed nerves needed.
"Driver, Okigwe egole"? one young girl asked the driver who was already seated on the driving seat, munching at a wrap of ọkpa as if his entire life depended on it.
"Okigwe, ₦800", the driver responded.
"I thought Okigwe is ₦400"? the girl asked, looking shocked.
"By this time and night"? the driver retorted and hissed in disdain, turning back to his ọkpa.
"Please naa, I have only ₦500 left on me", the girl pleaded.
"Look, you are a fine girl. If you can't pay in cash, you pay in kind", the driver shouted at the girl who cringed away at the driver's remark. The driver's remark drew the ire of one old woman in the bus.
"If it's your daughter or sister, is that the response you will give to her"? the old woman shouted at the driver. The driver ignored the woman and munched deeper into his ọkpa.
The old woman continued, " Better have the fear of God and stop this kind of life. My daughter come into the bus, I will help you pay the extra ₦300".
The driver gave a response that was to later keep resonating in my subconscious till date. He said and I will quote him verbatim the way he said it in Igbo language, "Hapụ ihe Chineke ahụ! Ọwụ taa ka anyị nụwara ya?"
Translated to English this meant: "Leave that God of a thing! Is it today we started hearing about it"?
And so the bus was set to move. This was almost 8pm and my phone was still off to prevent my dad's persistent calls. One of the traders offered to pray before the bus moves and I noticed they were making fun of the prayer. At that point I was getting impatient and wanted the driver to get on with the journey already! When they finished their caricature prayer which I did not participate in, the driver started the bus and I heaved a sign of relief that we were finally about to move only for him to stop and switch off the ignition just around Aki na Ukwa junction of Enugu expressway. I bit my lips with suppressed rage to prevent myself from shouting out from the back whether we could just continue with the journey. The delays were much already and it was freaking late! I had promised that I would speak to no one in that bus and I wanted it to remain so. Something just didn't sit down well in my spirit with that bus but I was left with no other choice or option.
At that point the driver announced that he was not going again! That he got a "reliable info" that there was an armed robbery operation going on in front. The passengers were divided into two. Some argued that should a robbery incident be going on infront, there was no way cars would be coming from the other side of the expressway. Another section of the passengers, preferred we remain cautious and wait. I was indifferent, irritated, exasperated, and secretly sided with those who reasoned that an armed robbery couldn't be going on in front and cars would be coming from the other side of the expressway. The driver put it to a vote; those that wanted us to continue with the journey and those that wanted us to wait. I did not vote. Those that wanted us to continue with the journey won. The driver then brought out all the money is his bus compartment and gave it to one woman selling food along the road.
"If they rob us, see I have secured my own money with this woman, my friend and customer. It's up to you people that said we should continue", he said, climbed back into the driving seat and started the engine of the bus.The noisy traders were now sober and quiet, thankfully so. As the bus gathered speed and was descending down the hilly expressway, it didn't reach 5 minutes and the bus started moving swiftly in a strange zig zag fashion.
"Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!" rent the air from those traders that were making fun of prayers some moments ago. There was confusion and pandemonium inside the bus. I leaned forward to try and see what was happening in front that made our bus to be moving swiftly in that alarming zigzag pattern and then a big "booooooooooom" sound and our bus was off the expressway, somersaulting like three times before coming to a rest at bushy ditch downhill off the expressway with all 4 tyres facing upwards to the heavens. As the bus was tumbling down the hill, I felt hands, legs, clothes, slippers,bags, and other things I could not decode hitting on me until the bus came to a rest upsidedown. In that split second, many thoughts raced through my mind. Was I dead? Everywhere was dark with terrified cries from passengers, many of whom were scrambling out of the bus through shattered windows. I felt people matching my hands, my heads and legs to scramble out. I tried to shift my legs and climb out through the windows like most of the other terrified passengers had done, but it felt heavy, numb and painful. I was having this seething sharp pain on my right knee.
"There is one man still inside there"! I heard one man shout peering inside the bus through one of the windows towards the side I sat helplessly. I wanted to be alarmed that the bus could explode anytime soon, but I relaxed when I remembered that such "molue" buses use diesel that wasn't as explosive as fuel.
"Oga hold my hands. I will pull you out", the peering man held out his hands into the accidented bus which I gladly grabbed and was pulled out of the bus outside.
I sat on the ground. That sharp pain on my knee was almost unbearable. I examined myself all over. My white t-shirt was blood-stained but I could feel any pains around my torso area even when I took the tshirt up to check...maybe someone else's blood. The conductor of the bus in the whole chaos was busy trying to fight one passenger on suit.
"You don kill my driver"! the conductor was shouting hysterically, holding on tightly to the bewildered passenger. And so it turned out that the driver was the only casualty of the accident! His words some moments ago: "Leave that God of a thing! Is it today we started hearing about it"? flashed through my dazed mind. People were trying to separate the conductor from the man in suit and sought to find out from him how it was the man that killed his driver. The conductor claimed that the man was most vocal in the vote that the now late driver conducted for people who wanted us to continue with the journey. I suddenly remembered that I had left my NYSC certificate, degree certificate, and WAEC certificate behind in the bus and sprang up with speed to my feet. I forgot the pains seething through my legs and made my way through one of the windows of the bus.
"Oga what are you looking for"? the man that had helped me out asked, dashing after me.
"My certificates", I replied and switched on my phone to use the torch. At that point, I had gone beyond caring if my dad called. It was around 9.30pm in the night.
"Oga forget those certificates. Thank God for your life 1st", the man was saying behind me as I crawled about inside the bus searching for my certificates. I ignored him and continued my search inside. The flashlight of my phone torch caught the lifeless face of the driver still squashed on seat belts in-between his driving seat and the steering wheel. I looked away quickly from the gory sight. I later found my certificates at the adjacent seat to the driver. How they flew to that section of the bus, I didn't know and didn't care. Thankfully they were all laminated and so the thick oil stains on them didn't get to the main paper.
***to be continued
©Chinedum Igwe, 2005
