Floods, Family-First Kekes, and the Mother Who Bargained a Fish Down 75 Percent

Introduction

Edition one covered the danfo and NEPA. Edition two was the BRT, the passport office, landlords, and tailors. Edition three is about the weather and the cost of living. This week’s floods turned Lagos streets into rivers, keke drivers made their own rules, generator repairmen got creative with their bills, and Nigerian mothers showed how serious market bargaining is done. Several stories here were published in the last few weeks.

When the Rain Comes

Story Highlight: The Open Drain Under the Floodwater

During this week’s heavy rains, Eniola Olatunji didn’t want to call in sick, so she waded into knee-deep floodwater. She fell straight into an open drainage channel she couldn’t see. She broke her nails, her laptop stopped working, and her phone’s Face ID gave up. In her words: “I had to be pulled out.” She also told BusinessDay that okada fares jumped from about ₦300 to as much as ₦2,000 while the rain lasted.

In the same report, a caterer named Ayo Adetunji said the water reached her waist, and that her husband had been stuck at his office overnight: “My husband has not come home since yesterday.”

Story Highlight: Family First, Passengers Last

A woman paid ₦1,500 for a keke ride from Iyana Ipaja toward Ayobo in heavy rain. At Water Bus Stop, the driver saw his father and sisters stranded in the rain. He told every passenger to get off, refunded their fares, and drove off with his family. His explanation: “If anything happens to me, na my family go take care of me.” Her verdict: “Omo, family first but this one pain us sha.”

Keke Chronicles

Story Highlight: Allies Today, Strangers Tomorrow

Pulse columnist Joey was riding a keke when a truck nearly crushed it. When the truck driver called them “Idiots,” Joey and the keke driver insulted him together in English and Yoruba. The truck driver shrugged: “If I crush you, na sara.” (“If I crush you, it’s an offering.”) Two weeks later, Joey got into the same driver’s keke and ended up arguing with him. The driver snapped, “Omo Oyibo, no dey insult me.” Joey’s conclusion: “I think all Keke men have Alzheimers.”

Story Highlight: A Kenyan Tries Driving a Keke

YouTuber Go, Ebaide! came to Lagos for the holidays and wanted to rent a motorcycle. She was quoted $150 for three hours and rented a keke instead. She kept reaching for a front brake that a keke doesn’t have, got stuck stalling in the same spot for about 30 minutes, and had no side mirror, so her brother had to watch traffic for her. Sweating, she warned the drivers honking at her: “don’t think because you have a big car you can come and oppress me.”

Power, Meters, and Generator Men

Story Highlight: The Prepaid Meter Ping-Pong

Columnist Azu Ishiekwene works in Abuja. His office got so tired of estimated electricity bills that it asked the distribution company, AEDC, to disconnect them, and they’ve been off the grid since February. He applied for a prepaid meter and was told AEDC didn’t have any, then sent to a private vendor, which he called “the second half of a meter ping-pong game.” He even handed a senior AEDC executive a note at an awards event. “Nothing happened.” By mid-July, the office was told it needed a bigger meter that would cost ₦2,890,000.

Story Highlight: The Generator Repairman’s Side Hustle

Zikoko collected readers’ stories about Nigerian artisans. One reader secretly watched a generator repairman put a part in his own bag and pour petrol from the customer’s keg into his own container. The customer’s rule since then: “I stayed with him the entire time he was fixing the gen.” Another reader was told only a ₦75k engine would fix their generator, and a second repairman fixed it for ₦25k. A third paid ₦35k for a repair, then found the actual faulty part at the market for ₦1k. The repairman’s response was that something worth ₦22k still needed replacing.

Market Masterclass

Story Highlight: From ₦4,000 to ₦1,000

A young woman went to the market with her mother and watched the fishmonger price a fish at ₦4,000. Her mother offered ₦2,000. When the seller agreed and said to bring the money, her mother refused to pay even that and offered ₦1,000 for “this small fish.” After some back-and-forth, she got it for ₦1,000. The daughter was “flabbergasted”, and asked: “how do women do this bargaining of price?”

Story Highlight: Bring Your Papa to Price It

When @Big_Ricch25 wanted a freezer listed at ₦200,000, he brought in the expert, his father, who opened by offering ₦120,000. His caption: “I carry my papa join body so he go help me price.”

Story Highlight: The Sardine Shock

Yemi Kolapo went shopping at a Lagos supermarket before Eid. She thought the shelf prices had been mixed up and called an attendant over. He told her they were correct. Her domestic staff had been laughing the whole time. A 125g tin of sardines cost ₦1,830, compared with the ₦200 to ₦250 she remembered. A crate of eggs cost ₦7,000. “Nothing prepared me for the 632 per cent increase shocker,” she wrote. She also admitted her staff had been right about rising prices all along.

Camp Life

Story Highlight: Soldiers at 4:30 AM

Adebayo Ademide Esther had seen TikToks about soldiers chasing NYSC corps members out of bed and thought they were exaggerating. At camp, soldiers were clearing the hostels by about 4:30 AM, so she started getting up at 3:30 to bathe. In the Miss NYSC pageant, she was asked the name of the camp commandant, and nerves made her mix it up. Her father knew the commandant and was in the audience.

Survival Lessons

Takeaway

Every story in this edition involves someone working around a system that doesn’t work: drains you can’t see, meters that don’t exist, repairmen who charge whatever they like. Nigerians fight back with bargaining, keep a close eye on whoever is fixing their things, and, like the keke driver in the rain, look after family first.

Sources Note

This week’s stories come from BusinessDay’s October flood report, Gistreel’s keke story and fish-bargaining story, Pulse Nigeria, Go, Ebaide! on YouTube, Premium Times, Zikoko, Legit.ng, TheCitizen, and Arise News. These are personal accounts and may be exaggerated for comic effect. Some stories have been condensed.