By Joyce Remi-Babayeju
I had set out to get back to Abuja , my base, after a trip to Kano on Friday. Firstly, I and a colleague Dorcas had a shopping stint at Kwanti Kwori market to pick a few Atampa materials and one thing that was precious to me- a small local coal pot stove, the Yorubas call it ” adogan” to do my local traditional cooking.
Since I can’t speak Hausa language and Dorcas is very fluent in the language, I had to tag along with her to get the perfect coal pot I needed.
Our new found customer, Salihu directed us to a certain market. We entered the first Keke and got down at one market, but sadly, we didn’t find what we wanted, ‘the much desired coal pot stove’, We were then directed by an old man, who led us to another market and Wala! we got one and I quickly paid for it. excited at getting a good buy, we hopped into the next Keke that stopped before us.
Kwatin Kwori! Dorcas flagged down the Keke and we entered.
Now we were set to journey back to Abuja.
To cut this long story short we landed at Ungwa Uku motor park without our wish. A tout had jumped into the Keke we boarded to take us to where we could get a bus or car coming to Abuja.
My instinct had that the tout would misled us but no, we followed him into a dingy motor park. The road leading to Ungwa Uku was as if we were going into the suburb of Kano city and finally the Keke stopped at this strange motor park and asked us to come down.
The tout jumped down and disappeared into thin air. The drama started, some men approached us and asked, “where are you going and Dorcas in Hausa told them, Abuja , reluctantly we paid one of them holding tickets. First we haggled the price and we paid.
This was our mistake. The ticket man told us that it was remaining just two Passengers to complete and the vehicle would take off.We actually entered Ungwa Uku park at 11.am, expecting to take off when the vehicle is full, the reverse was the case.
The ticket, the supposed driver and touts milling around the bus had all disappeared, we were just two Passengers in the bus. I got frustrated and quietly traced the nearest Police Station, where l reported the matter to a Lpolice officer I met at the counter, fortunately, the DPO, a woman, tapped the young police officer on his shoulder to follow me and make sure to settle the issue, she instructed.
The young police officer did, he helped to get back our money and put us into another vehicle coming to Abuja, by then, the time was already 6.00 pm.
We got to Abuja at about 12 am, while I got home at 1 am. Dorcas also got home about the same time. Thank God for the safe journey.
