My car landed in the pothole with a great thud and I could feel my head hitting the roof when it did. "Ouch!" I screamed. No one was beside me to say sorry, so I rubbed my head with one hand while I controlled the steering with the other.
But just before I could travel a few more metres, the car encountered another pothole. I thought I could dodge it, but while trying to achieve that, yet another reared its ugly head. The road I was journeying on was not on the Mainland which is notorious for pothole-riddled roads. It was at Ikoyi, our very own highbrow Ikoyi.
When I was a little girl, living at Ikoyi was like some sort of Eldorado. I can recall living with my family in Gbagada at the time, when going to the Ikoyi Club every weekend was the norm. And so, on one of such visits to the club, I made a new friend while practising how to swim with my instructor in the pool.
"I can swim faster than you now," Nkechi told me.
"I can see that," I said, laughing at her poor attempt at swimming.
"Will you be here next weekend?" she asked me in a bid to change the conversation.
"Yes," I replied.
"Where do you live?" she asked.
"Gbagada."
"Oh, I thought you live at Dolphin Estate like me."
"No, I don't." She went on to explain how Ikoyi especially Dolphin Estate, were hubs for the rich due to its well-tarred roads, flowers on the sidewalk, among others. Today, however, the story is not the same. Ikoyi has become a shadow of its old self.
A friend who loves the good life got herself a nice 2006 Passat car. It is a beautiful car by all standards, sweet to drive and sweet to be seen in. It is a powerful vehicle but deceptively slow. Because it is a big car and well balanced, when you drive it, you often don't realise you are flying instead of driving. That's to tell you how sleek the car is. However, one day, my friend found herself caught in one of the mega potholes on Ikoyi Road. She had firsthand experience of the disadvantages that come with driving on Nigerian roads which she never had while residing in the US. Driving on Nigerian roads, she learnt, is the art of dodging pot holes and you have to be very good at it.
In most cases, as a driver, you have no choice in the matter; you just have to deep your car into the pot holes, especially when you are driving on the inner roads. Interestingly, some interior parts of the Mainland are not spared from the jump-driving experience.
Perhaps the mistake my friend made was buying a car as low as a Passat which is not made for pothole-riddled roads. Often, she complains about how she had to crawl from one hole to another while her speedometer which loves to see red becomes a useless tool that stands at the bottom of the meter. Her shock absorber is another part of the car she fears will go bad soon.
She once drew my attention to how deceptive Nigerian roads could be since she often got carried away after driving on a smooth road for about six minutes, without knowing a pothole could be up ahead. Hence, by the time she applied her break, she would have fallen into the hole. I have had a similar experience too many times so I have learnt to be more cautious when driving since potholes have become speed breakers of sorts.
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