On a faithful Tuesday morning, my alarm chose to be unfaithful towards me, it rang 7:00am and as at that time I was already late for work. I took a rush bath, dressed up, left my half buckled shoe and rushed out of my apartment in a hurry, hoping that my staff bus would not leave me behind. I did not know that God has planned the day for me so that He can use me to avert a tragedy.
Unfortunately, I missed the staff bus and the traffic was already developing at Oshodi. Hawkers were cutting through cars as though it was a game. I had no choice but to squeeze myself into a danfo trying not to step on anyone then, but of course one woman hissed.
“These young people, una no dey look face?” she grumbled. I ignored her because I didn’t have the strength for wahala that morning.
Halfway through the journey, the driver suddenly drove off the express.
“Driver, wetin happen?” someone shouted.
“Oga, hold your peace,” the driver replied, waving his hand “Wetin dey front no good”.
We all stretched our necks to see. Ahead was smoke, thick black smoke.
Dangerous reversals were being made by cars in front of us, people leaped out running. The heat already smacked our faces through the open window even before we got anywhere near. One of the tankers had run over on its side and was spilling fuel on the road.
My heart sank. The conductor began to shout, “Everybody come down, make we pass inside street”
We all scrambled out. People were screaming into their phones, others were running away. I hugged my bag and followed the crowd into a narrow side street, my only focus was to get away from the tanker.
But as we hurried past a row of abandoned shops, I heard a faint sound, a soft frightened voice crying. I paused and looked around.
The crying voice came from a locked kiosk with rusty shutters. “Hello!!!” I shouted, pressing my ear to the metal, “Is somebody inside?”
Then I heard a tiny knock, someone was inside. I tapped harder. “Who is there? Talk to me!”
“It’s me…” a small voice whispered like the voice of a child saying “I can’t open the door.”
I looked around, everyone was already far ahead. Nobody had noticed, nobody cared. The smell of petrol was drifting toward us and the tanker could explode.
Fear tightened my throat but leaving a child there wasn’t an option, I grabbed the padlock and shouted “Hold on! I’m coming!” .
There was a brick on the floor, I used it to smash the padlock repeatedly. My hands hurt, sweat soaked through my shirt. The crying inside grew louder.
“Tola!” someone suddenly shouted.
It was Wale, a colleague from work who had also boarded the danfo.
“What are you doing? Run! That tanker fit blow any minute!”
“There is a child inside!” I yelled.
He froze, then without hesitation he joined me. Together, we hammered at the padlock with everything we had.
One hit, two, three..... Finally the padlock finally gave way. We flung the door open, then we saw a little girl not more than five years old standing there trembling, holding a small lunch box, tears was all over her dusty face.
“My mommy went to the market…” she cried. “She locked me inside so I won’t follow her” she said, trying to explain but we had no time to waste.
Wale carried her, I grabbed her lunch box and we ran. Behind us, someone screamed, “Fire! Fire!” but we didn’t look back.
People were running like their lives depended on it because they did. My lungs burned of thirst, my legs were shaking but Wale and I kept running until we reached the main road far away from the tanker.
Then the explosion happened, the ground shook beneath us. People dropped to their knees in shock while others cried, some simply stared in disbelief as flames shot into the sky.
I held my head with both hands, crisis averted but only by seconds.
The little girl clung to Wale’s neck, sobbing uncontrollably. Her mother arrived later, breathless, screaming her daughter’s name. When she finally saw us, she collapsed in tears of relief.
“You saved my child, God will bless you… God will bless you…” she kept shouting and crying.
For a long time, I couldn’t speak. My hands were still shaking. Wale looked just as shaken, though he tried to pretend otherwise. But that evening, as I sat on my balcony, watching the sky, everything hit me at once.
"What if my alarm had worked that morning, what if I didn't hear the child’s cry, what if Wale hadn’t come back to help…?"
Any small change, and we would have walked past the kiosk. The child would have been trapped and everything could have ended differently but it didn’t.
All thanks to God for the delay and the rescue of the child
Note: All pictures were generated on Meta AI
