The Prophet and the Traffic Extortionists

It was difficult not to laugh after Biola finished narrating his experience. At the same time, a shiver of fear ran through me when I saw the way some people almost ruined their lives when they tried to extort money from others by all means. My friend, Biola, is gifted with the power to see what had happened or will happen to others. He is a strong Christian and a lot of people call him prophet.

On this particular Wednesday afternoon, he pulled his car to a stop and parked well off the road around Ijaye in Lagos in other to buy a recharge card for his phone. By the time he returned to his car, some uniformed men, which he later identified as KAI (Kick Against Indiscipline) officials, were waiting by his car. They told him he committed an offence by parking beside the road and that his fine is twenty thousand naira. Biola told them they must be joking as he was not obstructing any traffic. At the long run, they towed his car to their yard in the local government office.

When they got to their office, they met their leader who ordered that one should deflate all the four tyres of Biola's car since he was not ready to co-operate with them. By now Biola had reached the end of his patience and he became angry. Biola is short-tempered and when he is angry, he can do or say anything. Most times when I'm with him, I always move quickly to checkmate his anger.

"You Mr. Man, you are ordering them to deflate my tyres?" Biola pointed at their leader angrily. "That is the next thing to do when people refuse to co-operate", the leader replied. "Listen to me", Biola stared him in the face. "If you deflate a single one of my tyres, you had deflated your wife's five months pregnancy. You can guess what will happen to her if you deflate the four tyres." The man stared back at Biola with horror and commanded the tyres to be left alone. He was visibly shaken by what he has just heard as Biola was right about his wife being five months pregnant.

But one of the officials said that Biola was merely guessing and they should not allow themselves to be deceived by him. He insisted he is going outside to deflate the tyres. Biola said to him calmly, "You can go and deflate my tyres at your own risk. Did you remember having a stomach pain before leaving home this morning? That was just a warning to you to be careful, and now you want to put your head in the hornet’s net. Go ahead if you want." The man knees buckled with fear as he quickly held on to a chair for support. "How... did you... know... know that?" he stammered back at Biola.

At the long run, Biola's car was released to him without him making any payment. They prostrated and apologised to him for their mistake and they asked him to pray for them, which he did. They collected his telephone number and whenever they or their friends need prayers and spiritual counseling, they called him and he is always happy to pray for them.

A Checking Too Many

It was a Saturday morning, and Tunde was driving to his office in Yaba, coming from Agege. When he reached Oba Akran at Ikeja, beside Guinness, he met a detachment of Policemen doing some checking. They flagged him and he stopped a few metres away from them. One of them, a Police Constable came over to him. He demanded for his driver's license which Tunde extracted from his purse and silently gave him, while Tunde remained sitting inside the car. Satisfied with that, he returned his driver's license and demanded for the vehicle's particulars. Tunde extracted this from the glove compartment of the car and handed them over without a word. Tunde, driving a brand new company's car, believes he doesn't have anything to fear when it comes to Police Checking.

"Where is your custom paper?" bellowed the Police Constable. "What? Do you expect me to have the custom papers?" Tunde was pissed off. "Look, I'm not the importer or owner. This is a company's car, so I don’t have it" he explained like one talking to a child. "Ok, where is your CMR?" demanded the police man. "What is CMR?" queriedTunde. "Since you don't have CMR, you better come and see my boss" declared the policeman, ignoring Tunde’s question, while pointing to a Police Sergeant chatting with another officer beside a patrol vehicle parked a few metres away. Tunde learnt later that CMR means Police Central Motor Registry.

Tunde did a quick thinking. These policemen will ruin his day if care is not taken. He has to do something fast. He got out and locked the car. He took a few steps to follow the policeman. He stopped and said, "Look, let me park my car well off the road. I don't want any trailer or tanker to run into it. The policeman agreed and waited for him. Tunde entered his car, and turned on the ignition. He engaged the central lock of the car, thereby locking all the doors of the car. He pulled out of the road and zoomed off. He stopped the car some safe metres away from the policeman, rolled down his side glass halfway, looked back at the astonished policeman, made faces at him, and zoomed off laughing like someone demented.

When Changing Lane is Illegal

Adams was driving to his office at Ikeja that Wednesday morning. As usual, he decided to pass through Pen Cinema in Agege. After driving past the railway crossing, he decided to change to the right lane just before he reached the Oba Ogunji statue. This will enable him to turn right and drive straight to Oba Akran Avenue. He changed his lane effortless, without disturbing the free flow of traffics.

Hardly had he changed his lane than a LASTMA traffic official blocked his car, ordering him to pull over to the left for committing traffic offence. At this point, Adams was already making the right turn to take him to Ikeja. "What offense had I committed? I only changed lane and it did not disturb the flow of traffic" he shouted out at the adamant LASTMA traffic official who refuse to budge. By now, a long queue of traffic was already forming behind Adams. Two other LASTMA officials came support the first one, to apprehend Adams. They were trying to force open the doors of his car, which mercifully, were all locked. "Oga, wind up your glass", Adams can hear some passers-by advising him. This he quickly did.

When the LASTMA traffic officials saw that Adams resisted them they started removing the wheel covers of his car. He wanted to turn left to escape via Oba Ogunji Road to Ogba, but the LASTMA officials commanded one other private car to block his exit, which the man obeyed. Seeing this, Adams lowered his window glass slightly and shouted at the driver of the car blocking his escape route, "Mr. Man, what is your business with them? Did I offend you?" On hearing this, the other guy zoomed off with his car, leaving the escape route free for Adams.

As a LASTMA official was coming to block the escape route, Adams pressed down his accelerator, turned sharply right, and his car making a screeching sound, shot forward like a rocket. The LASTMA traffic official that was coming to block his exit jumped out of his path like an Olympic gold medalist. Adams sped away like a maniac, making clean his escape. He lost three wheel covers to the LASTMA traffic officials.

Over-Zealous Traffic Controller

It was one of those traffic-congested days; around lunch break time. Fred was driving from the Computer Village to his office located at Anthony. He needed to get to his office within the next 20 minutes for the presentation in the boardroom. To avoid the usual long lane of traffic congestion that always builds up at Bank-Anthony Way, he decided to drive through the GRA. As he entered Oduduwa Crescent to re-connect to Maryland, he met the traffic go-slow, very thick and slow.

There were 4 lanes in the narrow street road, all going and none coming. Instinctively, he veered to the right-most lane, which was closer to the culvert. The lane was moving faster than others. The left-most lane was facing the oncoming vehicles, which was not supposed to be, and so there was a traffic jam. Only the right-most lane was moving. He counted himself lucky to be in the moving lane. He looked up and observed two LASTMA officials blocking the lane he was taking and another one blocking the left-most lane. They were arresting  those driving through the two outermost lanes. Fred decided to cut to the lane by his left to avoid the LASTMA officials. He managed to force himself to the left lane.

A LASTMA traffic official came and stood in-front of his car, ordering him to turn to the right and pull up. He didn't budge. Another came around to open the passenger door of his car. Fortunately for him, all his doors were locked. "What offense did I commit? Am I facing the on-coming traffic?" he shouted at the one trying to force open his door after sliding his window down just an inch. The LASTMA official pretended not to hear him and another one was coming to join him to apprehend Fred.

Within 2 seconds, Fred decided what to do. There is no way they are going to arrest him, he told himself. He checked his rear-view mirror and discovered that behind him was free as the other cars behind him were turning to other lanes to keep going. He shifted his gear to reverse, press down his accelerator and shot back like a rocket. As he reversed back with speed, all other cars behind him made ways for him to avoid collision. Some of the other drivers and pedestrians were hailing and waving at him, encouraging him to continue with his James Bond performance. The LASTMA officials pursued him with legs, but Fred was too fast for them. He continued his reverse motion for almost 400 metres like a crazy driver, then cut to the left and sped away, totally escaping before they can mobilise themselves.