#StorySeries: One Night in Ikorodu (Episode Three)

We continue with our new #StorySereis titled One Night in Ikorodu, in case you miss the first two episodes you can click here; Episode One and  Episode Two

This is a story inspired by a true-life event, names have been changed to protect and respect those involved.

I’m not going to lie and say I haven’t enjoyed some of my visits to Ikorodu like I said I have some family members there and I go to check on them at least once a year or once in two years, mostly during the Christmas period.

But there was this particular year, 2018 to be precise, I went to Ikorodu for a record of 4 times in a year and it was on the 4th visit that this story really happened and that was also the last time I have been to Ikorodu.  

My first visit to Ikorodu in 2018 was when I went to Lagos State Polytechnic or Laspotech for short. I went with Odogwu, sure you remember Odogwu, and the same Odogwu we went for that video shoot together. Oh let me just quickly say this, Odogwu is more than a friend, Odogwu is a brother, it would be hard for me to talk about some major aspect of my life without mentioning Odogwu’s name. The funny thing about it is that, I didn’t even like him when I first met him, we met through a friend and I remember questioning that my friend, what he was doing being friends with Odogwu, little did I know that we were going to become brothers; I guess that’s the irony of life.

Anyway back to our visit to Laspotech, we went to Laspotech because we were planning on organizing an award show in the school; Odogwu had a connection with someone in the Student Union Government or SUG for short. On this visit, the journey was smooth, with no hold-ups, Fashola had blessed Ikorodu with these beautiful roads and then BRT.

BRT stands for Bus Rapid Transport; it is a transport system that the then governor of Lagos State Babatunde Raji Fashola created. These buses are blue in colour, in terms of length they look like all these luxurious buses that are used for interstate travels.

If you watch American movies often, you know all those public transport buses, yes, that’s a more perfect description of what the BRT looks like. Now what made the concept of this BRT beautiful was that it had its own dedicated lane, a small section of the road redesigned and assigned for all BRT buses to pass through, and this wasn’t just in Ikorodu, it was like that in most part of Lagos too.

In a way this helped reduce the number of hours one would spend in traffic, once you board a BRT you know you would get to your destination on time though base on say plenty mad people full Lagos, the regular yellow bus drivers or the Danfo drivers as they are normally called started to make use of the BRT lane though it is illegal but again, this is Lagos, where most people are moving mad, even some private cars would follow through the lane when they are trying to avoid the traffic on their lane.

Anyway, we took BRT to Ikorodu so yes our journey was smooth, now what I’m about to say next is not a shade to students of Laspotech, but more like a shade to the school management. I don’t know if the school is still structured like that because I never went back there but back then when you enter the school passing through the main gate, you would be welcomed with this killer poultry smell. That smell stinks like hell, like how can that be the first thing you passive when you enter into higher institution but then again, it’s Ikorodu so I guess it’s understandable.

Now, this next part is actually shade, forget Laspotech una school no try at all, imagine the social director of the school telling us that the student can’t afford a show on campus that is more than one thousand Naira, even that one thousand Naira, they would have to beg and probably give out more free ticket if we want the students to turn up in large numbers. The funny part is he had the audacity to ask which major artist we would be bringing to the event, I mean, just imagine, a school that the student can’t pay 1k for a show, you want us to call big artist like Davido to come to perform, where we wan see the money?, and oh he did actually mention Davido.

No offence but then again if they want to vex make them vex, but the truth is back then Laspotech had no social life, if them dey talk of schools way get a social life, Laspotech students should just keep mute, to think that the school is located in Lagos; the city that never sleeps, you would think maybe their student would know what’s up, but nope, dem local. But I guess it’s like that quote “when you are in Rome, you behave like a roman” but in this case “when a school is located in Ikorodu, the student becomes local like Ikorodu”.

I really can’t remember the second and third thing that took me to Ikorodu so I won’t even waste time trying to figure it out but if I do remember before the end of this story, I would chip it now, that said, let me tell you what happened on the fourth visit and I would start from the very beginning.