Stress is something we cannot avoid as humans. Yesterday, I embarked on a journey which on a normal day was supposed to be about 8 hours, but ended up being 13 hours. Reason being that the vehicle broke down twice during the journey. Travelling by road isn't something I look forward to because of the stress accompanied with it and from yesterday's experience, the selfish actions of road safety personnels.
During the course of the journey and among the passengers, there was a young lady who brought along six sacks which I later came to know contained goods for sale. Her goods occupied four seats in the vehicle, and a seat costs about 28 thousand naira (21 dollars). She paid for the four seats and a seat for herself. A total of five seats. Although costly, she probably had planned that ahead.
Along the way, whenever the bus reaches a checkpoint and a road safety personnel peeks into the bus and sees the heap of sacks, their next line of action is to stop the bus and begin searching through the bags to know if they contain drugs or what ever harmful substances. But I realized that their main reason for searching was not to find any substance or drug. It was to make the owner of the goods or luggage offer them bribes or something like that. They do it in a way that your luggage is disorganized when they're done, and you're left with no option than to start repacking your goods before going your way. In other words, they ransack whatever luggage they come in contact with. And the only way to get out of that without leaving the contents of your bag strewn across the floor in an unorderly fashion is to give them some sort of peace offering. Cash precisely. An amount large enough to satisfy them at that moment.
So, this young lady, at every stop, had to give these officers money. I was shocked when at one point, the officers there refused to collect 5000naira (about 3 US dollars). The statement he made was "I no fit collect this kind chicken change. Na from 50 and above". In other words, he said "I cannot collect this measly amount. I can only collect from 50 thousand naira (37.84 US dollars) and above". The lady and the driver had to beg him to collect 15 thousand naira (about 11 US dollars). Imagine the audacity he had to dictate price when his actions were wrong.
This led to the question: Are we really doing things rightly for ourselves? These officials, know that they are not meant to extort money from fellow citizens but yet, they still do it. They do it, forgetting that life is a cycle. Extorting that lady, she would add all those little amounts here and there with the transportation cost to the initial cost price so as not to incur loss. This would make the price of her clothes skyrocket to an alarming amount. Then, there's the woman who sells foodstuffs in the market. Perhaps, she wants to surprise her child for a job well done or maybe for his/her birthday, goes to buy clothes from the seller and sees that the price has skyrocketed, she'll go back and increase the price of her own goods. The wife of the police officer would then go to that same market to buy the foodstuffs and happens to buy from that woman. She then, buys it at an expensive amount. We're usually complaining of the government not doing anything to abate hardship but we're influencing it upon ourselves.
There's a popular meme that says "Na man dey do man". This means that the cause of man's problem is from man. That expensive amount could have been avoided if those officers had done their jobs uprightly. People generally, need to think about the effect of their actions towards others and how it might even come and bite them back in the ass. I have met a lot of people complain about the ordeals these so called officials put them through. It baffles me to think that these people do not believe in karma. Or maybe they do they're too greedy that they overlook it. Yes, it is said that greed is part of human nature, although it differs from one person to another. It can still be tamed. Not everything involves bribery.
Header image was designed by me using canva