#StorySeries: One Night in Ikorodu (Episode One)

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

Hi, my name is Dave, this is a story about a one night stand or should I say about one night that I spent in Ikorodu, it won’t be fair to call it a one night stand because I have known the girl for a while but then again, we only spent that one night together.  Anyway, whether it is a one-night stand or one night sleeping together what’s more important is what led to it.

Before I go into the entire gist, I need to explain a few things to you; these things will give the story and what went down more sense.

So yes, everything happened in Ikorodu, and just so that we are clear, Ikorodu is a place I don’t like even to date, it's one part of Lagos I hate going to. Aside from how far it is, there is just something about the North-East part of Lagos that I don’t like.  I mean Ajah is far, and it’s certain that I would get to Ikorodu first before I get to Ajah but I would rather go to Ajah than go to Ikorodu, that’s just how much I don’t like Ikorodu. 

And this is no disrespect to those living there, I’m sure they find the place fun and all that, but for me, it would always be a no-no though I have some family there, everything I hate about Ikorodu is because of the experience I had on my first, second and third visit. To date, every time I go to Ikorodu I always get to complain about something, one bad or unfortunate thing will defiantly occur.

For those of you that know Lagos well you know what I’m talking about, I mean we have this joke that Ikorodu should be a state of its own because Ikorodu is in the backyard of Lagos and the common assumption is that those that stay in Ikorodu are local. Local in the sense that, people from Ikorodu are not as social as the rest of us in other parts of Lagos. In as much this statement isn’t entirely true, there is more truth to it than lies, the indigenous settlers of Ikorodu immigrated from Sagamu in Ogun state, so that explains a lot.

Anyway let me tell you about my first trip to Ikorodu and what made me hate Ikorodu, I can’t really remember the year but if memory serves me right, it was 2008, that was when I first went to Ikorodu, I needed to meet someone in Agric. Argic is one of the popular places in Ikorodu, and what makes it popular is because it’s a major bus stop. To be honest it took me a while to know that Ikorodu is actually bigger than Agric. For me back then the whole of Ikorodu starts and end in Argic but I soon learned that was far from the truth.

So on this particular day, I left Ago Iwoye, a town in Ogun State, around 9 in the morning and I got to Oshodi park in Lagos around 2 pm. Yeah, there was traffic on Lagos-Ibadan express road but that isn’t the kicker of the story.

The bus I boarded to Ikorodu left the park at exactly 2:15, I actually checked the time because I was already running behind my schedule, I had the plan to still make a quick detour before heading back to Ago Iwoye that same day but little did I know.  

The bus was moving fast and smooth from Oshodi till we got to Ketu where we started experiencing small traffic, still, we were still moving slowly, we got to Mile12 and there was this 1-hour standstill. But my day was just getting started, we slowly moved and got to Owode Onirin, and that was where it all went wrong, we stood in the same spot for 4hours, not a single movement, as a matter of fact, the driver had to put off the engine.

It got so bad that people started to come down to walk, now let me say this, I have been in traffic before but this was different, I was in Owode Onirin from 3:30 till 7:30 before the bus started moving even by then, the driver and I had insulted each other’s parent and grandparents. Like I said most people had dropped from the bus to start walking but I couldn’t do that, that was my first time going there, I don’t know if my journey was still far or not, and from what I have heard that area isn’t safe at night, so I wasn’t even ready to take that risk and the driver was already boiling saying once he gets to the next U-turn he would turn back.

He said he would put us inside another bus but as for him, he was turning back, at this point we were just like 4 left in the bus, for those of you that don’t know Lagos bus drivers, once they say they are turning back, even God can’t stop them.

To cut the long story short, I was lucky to get a bike that took me to Ikorodu, finally got there few minutes to 9pm,  I dropped what I needed to drop, then I had to sleep over at my cousin's place at Shomolu, I couldn’t make my journey back to Ago Iwoye that night.