Dr Freaks Journal - Dangerous Journey.

 Oh Dear.....

2004:


It happened around February 2004. The school (Uniben) had just resumed after one of those long breaks and students had enough time to faff around. I and Rotimi needed to rush to and fro Ibadan on the same day. It was a Sunday and since I enjoyed driving for long hours, automatically, I became the official driver of the trip.


We left Benin as early as 7.00am and travelled en route Benin-Ore-Ondo-Ile-Oluji-Ifewara-Ile-Ife-Ibadan. We got to Ibadan as early as 12.00noon. Moved around Ibadan and by 4.00pm, we were done. Our host advised us to pass the night at his or at the very worst, in a hotel but we had our "hidden agenda". 

We needed to get back to school that same night to commit some atrocities.

We left Ibadan at about 6.00pm and eventually made it to Akure at about 7.45pm.  We had options. We had a full house to ourselves in the village, we elected not avail ourselves of that privilege.
We had places we could stay in Akure, yet we forged ahead.

We got to Owo at about 8.15pm. I was doing like 150-180km/h. We had the option of passing the night at Owo but like the Yorubas would say, "when a child is destined to go to bed on an empty stomach, if you like go and hide his food in the ceiling, a cat would still trip over same and it would come crashing down like a pack of humpty dumpty".


When we got to Owo, we alighted from the vehicle, stretched our cramped bodies for some moments and refueled. We got some biscuits and drinks for the rest of the journey to Benin estimated to take us another one and half hours, or less. 

We set out at about 8.30pm and headed in the direction of "BSide" (Benin City). The trip was smooth as we continued at a speed of 150-180km/h. We arrived at Ifon, headed in the direction of Sobe and Owan (Agbanikaka) and we were just "cabling" until we arrived at a dungeon known as "Aso-Rock" that was known for two (2) purposes, depending of which side of the coin you found yourself. 

To the lucky road user, it was a Police Check Point, meanwhile, to the unfortunate ones, it was an armed robbers' den. I think we found ourselves in the latter phyllum.


We noticed that there were about 20 cars parked in the two (2) opposite directions. None moved for over 3 minutes, then we started running out of patience and boom, some fierce looking cutlass wielding scoundrels surfaced from the middle of nowhere and in split seconds, it had dawned on me and Rotimi that we had just driven into the midst of our "Senior Bros dem". In some funny accents traceable to/linked with a certain region of the country, our new hosts started cursing and were now dishing out instructions. I can still remember some.

 "God don punish you today! Wey all your money! Bring all your money and phone." They were courteous though, maybe because we dealt with them with utmost cooperation or they saw the mark of Christ in us. I had just been robbed in Port Harcourt like a month earlier though, willingly submitting to these guys with the least resistance was a given.


We handed all the money in our possession to them. I think we had about N5,000 left on us at the time. We gave them one (1) phone. Rotimi took the risk of his life by hiding his phone and guess what, he got away with it. One of the guys observed that we (two of us) handed the team only one (1) phone. He came back and demanded Rotimi's phone. "Na two of una dey here, na only one phone una get". Rotimi insisted that we had just one and that he had handed same over to them. They believed and moved away. Poor dudes.


They threatened us and commanded us to remain inside our vehicles indefinitely. Whilst all of this was going on, a tanker driver drove into the scene. What an unfortunate dude. He had over N35,000 on him. He thought he could "rap (k)para(k)po" (speak same language) with our assailants and probably earn some favours, but he was not that lucky. That further infuriated these bunch of demons who "butchered" his body but he survived.


Fast forward,


We were stuck in our vehicles (about 30 cars, or more) for another one (1) hour plus even after our hosts had left. No one, but Rotimi could summon the courage to alight from the vehicle.


Lest I forget, there was this couple in one of the buses, the man ran into the bush leaving his beloved wife behind. What a shame. After the incident, the wife implored the rest of our own team to help her search for her lily livered husband. The guy surfaced after a while he was just laughing sheepishly. The wife was from my wife's place. He was from a place close to mine. Lol.

, Rotimi asked me to put on the head lamps and he started picking "leaves" from the floor. How wrong I was! Rotimi returned to the car and further instructed me to put on the inner light and he started counting money! 

Part of their loots fell on the ground and Rotimi successfully picked/packed over N14,000! Were we sad? No. Were we happy? Yes. We shared (and shared) the money alike.


Driving out of that place was not funny. They had felled trees and blocked the entire road. We were able to roll the trees away and decided to take another risk by driving to Benin that night. Two (2) poles away from the scene was a police vehicle and policemen, parked. We reported to them, as if they were not aware. They empathised with us and advised us to sleep in the bush with them there as the security report emanating from Benin was not favourable. That was how we all slept on the road without mosquito coils.


Looking back now, what can I say? Thank God for keeping us safe and alive. In one way shall they come, in several ways shall they flee.

Its Kunle