Corn Stops, Pottage Betrayals, and the Tailor Who Relocated With Your Fabric

Introduction

Yesterday’s edition was mostly about danfo drivers, the go-slow, and NEPA. Today it moves into other parts of Lagos life: BRT buses, the passport office, the airport arrivals hall, your landlord’s water pump, and the tailor who still has your asoebi fabric. Every story comes from someone who was there, collected from BusinessDay, Zikoko, Nairaland, travel blogs, and YouTube.

On the Road Again

Story Highlight: The Roasted Corn Delay

Alao’s bus stopped. There was no traffic light and no police checkpoint. A woman wanted to buy roasted corn, and the driver patiently waited for her. Once she had her corn, she shared some with the driver and conductor, who accepted it “like it was an award”.

Story Highlight: The Pottage Betrayal

On a BRT bus from Marina, Solape jokingly offered some of her yam pottage to the man sitting next to her. He took the offer seriously and ate the only piece of meat in it.

Story Highlight: The Silent Face-Off at Lekki Toll Gate

In 2015, Nnamdi was stuck in traffic from Ozumba Mbadiwe Avenue all the way to the Lekki Toll Gate. The cause was two women whose cars had bumped. Neither got out. They just sat in their cars staring at each other while one of them calmly tapped on her phone, and hundreds of stuck drivers had plenty of time to shout insults at them.

Story Highlight: “Make Everybody Siddon!”

Aphrodite’s bus was near Victoria Island when the bus in front caught fire, with a fuel tanker right beside them. Passengers got ready to run. The conductor locked the doors and shouted “Make everybody siddon!” (“Everybody sit down!”).

Story Highlight: A Bus That Starts With Two Wires

Blogger The Soda Unt wrote down every step of one danfo ride. The conductor hid in the boot to dodge union fee collectors. The driver started the bus by touching two wires together, which threw sparks. A man in green grabbed the driver by the collar for ₦100, and the conductor threw a woman’s ₦50 change in her face. Then the bus kept going on a flat tire past two vulcanizers (tire-repair stands). When passengers complained, the driver told them to get off if they couldn’t endure it.

Story Highlight: The Brakes Were “On the Way” to Being Fixed

In a Twitter thread collected by The Native, one rider on a bus from Motorways to Yaba noticed the driver switched off the engine every time he stopped. When the passengers asked about it, he explained he was on his way to fix the brakes. The rider’s reaction: “I flew out.” Another commuter in the same thread spent the ride with a fellow passenger’s basin of fish on his lap.

Arrivals and Paperwork

Story Highlight: The “Americana” at the Passport Office

A Nairaland user waited more than three hours at the Ikeja passport office, only to be told she needed a guarantor. When she came back two weeks later, a man in the crowd was complaining in a heavy fake American accent: “Damn man! Shit iz taking too long.” When his name wasn’t called, he switched to pidgin, “Person go come die ontop passport!”, and ended up in the gated holding area. Meanwhile she had borrowed a scarf to cover her sleeveless dress. The woman who lent it took it back holding it by one corner, “as though I had infected the scarf.”

Story Highlight: The $10 Trolley

YouTuber Sarah’s Travel Psalms landed at Murtala Muhammed Airport and found that luggage trolleys cost $10, non-refundable. She had only dollars, and then there were no trolleys available anyway. A kind stranger paid and told her “Keep the change.” She spent more than an hour watching Uber drivers cancel on her. Then a taxi driver insisted, “You must just pay what I tell you,” and told the other drivers in his own language that she was broke, not knowing she understood every word.

Story Highlight: “This African Hair Got You In”

Kenyan blogger Anyiko forgot her yellow fever card when she landed in Lagos and apologized her way through. Later, trying to get into the arrivals area to meet a friend, she pushed through a crowd until two men started shouting “African woman! Move! Let her in!” and hurried her through security. They turned out to be airport officials, and one explained: “This African hair got you in.”

Life Behind the Gate

Story Highlight: The Landlady Who Rationed the Ground

Zikoko’s “So You Think Your Landlord Is Mad?” collected tenants’ stories. Doyin’s landlady controlled the water pump from inside her own flat and sometimes left tenants with no water for two days. Doyin’s comment: “I don’t know if she thought the water could finish from the ground.” Femi’s landlady put an extra padlock on the gate whenever he stayed out past 11 PM. Dimeji’s landlord complained about noise from his generator while every other generator on the street was running: “It was my own that was causing noise.”

Story Highlight: The Tailor Who Relocated With Your Fabric

Zikoko’s “Abolish Nigerian Tailors” thread is a classic. Titi had one tailor leave Lagos and take her fabric along. Her advice: “if you’re planning to relocate, you should try being my tailor.” Jane later spotted her tailor’s girlfriend wearing Jane’s asoebi, sewn in the design Jane had picked, so she went to his shop and took whatever fabric she found. Anita found her tailor asleep next to her uncut fabric on New Year’s Day. She sat in the shop until he sewed the dress, then wore it straight to church.

Survival Lessons

Takeaway

Today’s stories show Lagos chaos in everyday places: a corn stop on a bus route, a scarf at the passport office, a padlock on a gate. In almost every one, a stranger also stepped in, whether it was the man paying for a trolley or the officials who waved a visitor through. Lagos takes your meat and gives you a trolley.

Sources Note

Stories come from BusinessDay’s “5 funny Lagos traffic moments”, The Soda Unt blog, The Native, Nairaland, Sarah’s Travel Psalms on YouTube, Anyiko’s blog, and Zikoko’s collections on landlords and tailors. These are personal accounts and may be exaggerated for comic effect. Some stories have been condensed.