My Close Shave With Death In The Hands Of IPOB/ESN Gunmen (Part One)

By Rasaq Olasunkanmi

I do not know of any gunmen in the South-East of Nigeria, therefore, I wouldn’t know about the existence of unknown gunmen. But I sure know that gunmen attacked me in the East around Orlu in Imo State, on Tuesday 24th January 2023 around 4 pm. I was shot severally while running for my dear life in a thick forest, barefooted, with clothes torn by sharp fangs of thick shrubs and protruding branches of trees I collided with while running for my dear life. I merely escaped being killed by the Grace of God. It is an experience I will not wish for the worst of humanity. The event continues to play back in my subconscious and I shudder when I think of what could have happened to me.

I have heard people talk about their last thoughts and actions when confronted with imminent death. Some people opted for their last prayers, others thought about their loved ones, some have even claimed to have imagined themselves in the glorious presence of The Almighty. But to me, on this unforgettable afternoon, my mind went blank, I became a zombie of a sort, pandering to the order and command of my assailants.

Countless times, I have seen videos on social media of innocent people accosted by daredevils, gun-wielding dregs of humanity in the Eastern axis, sprayed with bullets or mindlessly butchered. Though these visuals disturb me like they would every other sentient person, most times, we are quick to discard such incidents as unfortunate occurrences happening far off from us. This is reminiscent of a famous African tale titled DANGER GOETH; DANGER COMETH. The legend goes that in a rustic African community, some folks in the town reported to their king that a certain leopard had been killing their children. Each time they report to the king, he would just say ‘DANGER GOETH’ without doing anything. However, one day, the animal killed the son of the king. When he was informed, he shouted, ‘DANGER COMETH’, and promptly, he directed all the hunters in the community to go after the leopard and kill it. I will assume the import of the story is clear to all.

The Beginning

I wanted to travel from Lagos to Calabar by road. The cost of flight was prohibitive and unaffordable, at least for me due to the shortage of aviation fuel. I deliberately fixed the journey for Tuesday 24th of January and not Monday 23rd because of the sit-at-home order on Mondays that is widely obeyed in most parts of the South-East of Nigeria.

As early as 5.30 am on that fateful Tuesday morning, I was at Jibowu Park, Lagos. I had called earlier on Monday for bookings and I was confirmed for the first bus scheduled to depart by 6 am. Though many transport companies ply the Lagos-Calabar route, I always prefer CAX TRANSPORT (pun intended but not real name) because they are faster not because of speeding by their drivers but because of taking a faster and safer route. The route, usually called the Ugep route runs from Lagos-Ogun-Ondo-Edo-Delta-Anambra-Enugu-Ebonyi-Cross River states (bursting out at UGEP in Cross River State). Other transport companies prefer the longer (called Uyo Route) and not very safe route of Lagos-Ogun-Ondo-Edo-Delta-Anambra-Imo-Abia-Uyo-Calabar. The reason why most transport companies take this Uyo route is that it is more profitable as it enables them to carry passengers going to Umuahia, Owerri, Uyo, etc. It should be noted that the faster Ugep route takes between 15 to 18 hours depending on uncontrollable variables like traffic gridlock, bad roads and the number of checkpoints encountered and time spent there.

For the Uyo route, it is between 24 to 27 hours! That is a complete day’s journey or more. This is because there are sectors of the route that are deadly and dreaded that cannot be passed at certain times, mostly when it is getting dark. In such situations, the journey is suspended till dawn the following morning for safety and security reasons. One such road is the Itu-Calabar Road. I am able to know this because on about three or four occasions I have been taken through the Uyo route, I spent more than 24 hours reaching Calabar, my destination. Nigeria is truly a big country, which may be made bigger by its many bad roads and craters.

So, on this fateful Tuesday, the first bus, which was to move by 6 am, was unable to do so, instead, it moved around 7.30. We were still told that the vehicle would stop at Shagamu to pick up one passenger and his load. Part of the reason the vehicle did not commence the journey on time was due to the enormous load that had to be properly and carefully arranged. Notably among these loads are two car engines which took considerable effort before they were successfully loaded because of their weight. The vehicle was a Toyota Sienna model, the first set of Sienna. It was supposed to carry seven passengers for the journey, that is, one person in front with the driver, three persons in the middle compartment or roll and another three in the back.

However, the vehicle was only able to carry five persons including the Shagamu passenger. The remaining two seats and the entire boot were filled up with loads usually called ‘way bill’ in the language of the transporters. A mild drama ensued when we were boarding the vehicle. I had been allocated the front seat, unknown to me and another passenger, a lady erupted in anger that they had promised her the front seat when she booked and now they had given it to another person. It was while she was protesting that the booking manager came around to where we were standing and said the seat was for me. I thanked the booking manager and informed the lady that she can have the front beside the driver as I normally don’t like it because of the possibility of my falling asleep during the journey, thereby denying the driver the needed talking companionship while driving which can prevent him from dozing off while driving.

With the seating issue resolved amicably, we commenced our journey in earnest. I sat at the second roll with a woman who was going to Calabar to visit her husband working in Calabar. She sat at the extreme left, directly behind the driver while I sat at the extreme right, directly behind the person I abdicated the front seat for. We left the middle seat for the Shagamu passenger. The fifth passenger, a young guy who would later tell me he was a medical doctor, sat in the third row directly behind me. He was on his way to Benue State for the national service but wanted to reach Calabar first before transiting from there to the orientation camp in Benue State the next day. The other two seats were completely taken over by loads

We got to Shagamu uneventfully, and the last passenger boarded. We spent over 40 minutes at Shagamu because the passenger also came with many loads and our driver had to bring down some loads already in the vehicle for him to properly and neatly arrange the loads. The passenger would later inform us that the loads belong to his company. If I am not mistaken, I think he was going to either Bakassi or Ogoja or somewhere after Calabar.

Every transport company, and at times, drivers that ply long-distance routes, usually have eating spots or eateries where they usually stop during the journey for the passengers to stretch their legs, relieve themselves, relax a bit and eat before continuing on the journey. There is an urban legend among regular long-distance travellers that the drivers usually stop at eateries where they or their management had made prior arrangements with the owners of these spots. This prior arrangement implies that the passengers would be able to make their purchases at these eateries (usually very expensive) while the driver is given free food. Personally, I can’t say for a fact whether there are prior arrangements between the drivers and the eatery owners which they ‘force’ their passengers to patronize, however, one fact that may probably lay credence to this is that immediately the drivers of the vehicles and passengers alight at a particular eatery, the drivers just disappeared, only for them to re-appear much later, with a ubiquitous toothpick, dangling from one corner of their mouth to the other, belching loudly and looking very well-fed.

Because I have been travelling with this particular transport company for some time, I knew where their drivers usually make their stops. On the journey from Lagos to Calabar, they usually stop at a particular eatery in Ore, Odigbo Local Government Area of Ondo State, but if the journey is from Calabar to Lagos, the CAX transport company usually stops at an eatery in Asaba, just a stone throw after crossing the great River Niger. I should also add that stopping at a particular place is entirely at the discretion of the driver.

However, on this particular journey, our driver just sped past the eatery at Ore where they normally stop. Some of us (passengers) exchanged glances among ourselves. We, or should I say I, did not see this as a big deal. Sometimes, the dynamics of the journey could warrant not stopping for food at times. Most drivers plying the Eastern routes are always conscious of the need to beat the traffic on the River Niger Bridge, which is fast gaining notoriety for its total gridlock that could sometimes extend far and beyond the bridge on both sides for tens of kilometres. The gridlock usually starts building up during the late afternoon around 3 p.m. when schools and offices are closing; reaching the peak as traders from Onitsha Market conclude the day’s business. So, at times, the driver may be in a rush to cross the Niger Bridge and to achieve this, sometimes, eating has to be forgotten.

However, to our surprise, the driver suddenly pulled over at an eatery in Edo State thus neutralizing the thoughts that he was trying to beat the Onitsha traffic and replacing it with the conviction that he had made prior arrangements with the owner of the eatery. As he locked the vehicle, he told us we had thirty minutes and he disappeared.

Only the two female passengers among us ate at the restaurant. The lady in the front seat, who later told us she was an undergraduate going to school, also bought an extra portion of food that I guess was ‘for the road’ as they used to say in street parlance. The guy sitting at the back bought water, the passenger that joined us from Shagamu did not buy anything. He had a small cooler of food, which he brought along for the journey. I seldom eat during such a long journey in order not to upset my stomach. For want of something to buy, I bought a small plastic piece of burnt popcorn. All of us passengers were already set and waiting for our driver to come and unlock the vehicle. He later emerged out of nowhere with, you guess correctly, the ubiquitous toothpick in his hand, obviously waiting to transfer it to its final destination at the corner of his mouth. He stifled a belch before unlocking the vehicle for us to enter.

Our journey continued and to our surprise, the whole of the Niger Bridge and Onitsha was without traffic even though the time we got there was about 3.30 pm or thereabouts which is usually the peak time for the traffic build-up. We discussed this scenario amongst ourselves and somebody mentioned he heard there was a sit-at-home declared for that Tuesday which may have been the reason for the reduced vehicle traffic along that axis. Some us of were surprised and mentally disturbed about the possibility and veracity of a sit-at-home on Tuesday raised by one of us but the driver allayed our fears that it is true but it is not as effective as the regular Monday sit-at-home and that at any rate, it would end by 4 pm which is why we were still able to see some vehicles moving and some shops opened. With the finality with which the driver said this, our fears became allayed because most passengers tend to see most of these drivers as authority figures on issues pertaining to the road and journey since they ply it day-in-day-out.

As he was saying this, he suddenly took a turn to the right. I was dumbfounded because I have journeyed across that route many times to know that it was not the right place for the Ugep route.

To be Continued…