Ojota: The Power of Humour

There are times where we just sit at home and hear about a crisis going on somewhere. These crises usually lead to the death of people unconcerned and the cause is usually something that would have been solved with something as little as the right attitude. Imagine you are hungry and you use your last cash to buy a meal to eat later. Only for you to find an empty plate when you were ready to eat, you walk out hungry and angry and you see someone eating what you guessed was yours. You attack him without warning and he retaliates out of defence. His friends come and you also call for back-up. Any animosity that was buried is now resurrected and unfortunately someone dies or seriously injured. Now blood is a catalyst for crisis, someone has to pay the blood spilled. That is a crisis for you and the media would give them that attention. As a social psychologist or a citizen of this world, how can one stop crisis? I was surprised when I found out an answer.

It was at Ojota, midday Sunday. A man was driving and was about to make a turn when an Okada man, in an attempt to make the turn before the car, sped in front of the moving vehicle from the side. The man must have been unaware of the okada and there was a collision. The impact of it all left the okada man on the ground with broken bones. It was evident this man was likely not going to use his legs anymore ‘cause his right leg for one looked like just skin. The bones looked like stones from the outside, totally crushed with blood everywhere. Everyone rushed to the scene even the driver. You should trust Nigerians, everyone was screaming for the injured man without any initiative to help him to a hospital. Instead one of the supposedly angry men decided to express himself on the car by hitting it. He even suggested the car be burnt. Others soon joined them only to be approached by an ‘intellectual man’. He suggested that wasn’t the option instead he could use the car to drive the bleeding man to the hospital. To me that made sense but to others No, angry Nigerians think differently. One of the men suggested he was the driver and was the person that caused the accident. Before you could say Jack Spa…*SLAP*. Others joined in beating the man who was screaming he was innocent. Somehow the man was able to spot a police patrol van and ran towards it, after all police is your friend. The mob was on his tail and warned the police to release him to execute jungle justice. Those people were no doubt furious. The man managed to explain that he wasn’t the owner of the car but by then they felt he was lying to escape being lynched. The driver on the other hand was witnessing all these and must have been glad he wasn’t spotted. However he blew his cover when he made a phone call and made a statement in Yoruba meaning, “The car was not burnt.” Someone heard that statement and alerted others that he was the driver. While taking steps backwards he denied being the driver until he sensed his cover was blown and began to run. They chased him into a bus garage. Naturally in Lagos touts pass touts. The touts in the garage saw the mob as attempting to barge into their territory. One of the touts in the garage decided to hold a weapon, anything, to break up the mob. He saw a man holding a long stick vertically on the ground. He shouted at the man to give him the stick but the man moved back. He charged forward and shouted, “Ogbemi fun mi ni igi yen (Give me that stick)”. He stretched his hand to pull the stick away from the man’s grip but the man held on tightly. Everyone was questioning what the tout had in mind. When he got possession of the stick the other man fell and he realised he was a cripple and that was his walking stick, so he made a statement, “Oba ti so (You should have talked)”. Everyone began to laugh and it was a genuine laugh caused it cleared all the tension in the air. Everyone was back to their senses and finally had time for the okada man which I must add was being given pieces of his bones which he was putting in his pocket. Everyone surprisingly found humour in everything.