Danfo Is A Culture

By Onochie Esiobu

Yellow and black, such a unique colour combination. Danfo buses, such a blessing and a curse.
The users use but pray to God for the day they will be liberated, the non-users, on the other hand, pray for the day the buses would leave the roads and give them peace of mind. They occupy our minds so much that some have alluded to the fact that Danfo is a tool in the hands of God to teach his children patience and longsuffering.

The drivers start their day with kparaga or Chelsea dry gin, the conductors with cannabis. The two attract another special set of people who chase them for the council dues at every bus-stop. Step in the area boys, the guys whose voices are trained to sound like a beetle engine and who have tattoos that are not visible because dark ink is placed on dark skin.

So there I was taking a stroll one Saturday evening while observing a Danfo bus and the reality hit me like a Ronaldo shot at goal. The Danfo bus is a typical description of a Nigerian politician. The first thing you notice is that the body is rugged. The bus has no bumper, no locks, no side mirrors and no functioning brake lights. They are built to be bullies on the road. They see nobody but themselves because while you are careful of your body work and lights that cost so much to repair, they have nothing to worry about. They own the roads. It’s all about them. Our politicians get into our faces every day for all sorts of reasons. You neglect them they drop bombshell headlines, you critique them they tell you, your opinion is fit for the garbage bin.

The next thing you realize is that they never have trafficators. Driving behind a Danfo gives you the speed of reaction like that of Lewis Hamilton. They swerve anyhow. The Nigerian politician is in APC today and before you know it he is in PDP. Before you can even adjust to the anomaly he is back with the APC. No sense of ideology or direction. He only follows the direction the milk is flowing from.

Wiper and window for the rainy day, nko? You will think that they have functional windows and wipers but let the rain start. That’s when you will see nylon and oil cans coming out. The conductor will pour oil on the screen to make the water flow down because the wiper does not work and the nylon to act as a make-shift window. The Nigerian politician is not who you see on the screens or pages of newspaper. He might sound intellectually savvy but you know his real self during the rainy day (election time). He will curse, swear, and hire thugs all to secure his milk.

Moving around the city to pick and drop passengers the Danfo bus is meat for the area boys. Once they sight the bus they get hyper and struggle between themselves to collect their milk. On a daily basis, the two have built a symbiotic relationship so much so that failure to meet the demand of the boys would lead to parts of the bus being seized especially the fuel tank cover or the engine cover. At times it’s the entire door of the bus. Oh! How we love our politicians to death in Nigeria. Almost all things begin and end with them. At their sighting, we begin to dream of the largesse that they are supposedly bringing. We sleep at their houses because of amala and gbegiri, we bequeath our powers to them and call them powerful and we take their words to be voices of God. We collect wheelbarrows, Okada, Keke, Sewing machines in the name of empowerment and a drop of milk is all that is needed to die for them.

It’s not all bad though. They have this brotherly love that can’t be jettisoned. Once a Danfo is spoilt or not able to start, you notice that they push themselves with their metal to metal fabricated bumper. The Nigerian politician will do anything for members in his political class. They might insult themselves in the public, but in secret places they are friends. They cry marginalization to the public and release hate speeches for the innocent and unintelligent to fight themselves but when it comes to milking the cow, they milk in peace and unity laughing at the Nigerians fighting on their behalf. They have their language, they have their culture, and they have their methods.

Oh, I forgot to mention the law enforcement agents. The men in black and the men in brown. They love the Danfo buses to death.

So, as the Lagos state government plans to phase out the Danfo buses, who will phase out this set of politicians? Deep question you will say but in all honesty, Danfo is more of a culture than a bus. Phase out the buses/ politicians and the new will continue on the same path. I guess we just continue to hope that a cultural revolution takes place in our minds and that the righteous come into power.

Op–ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Oriental Times