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UBER LADY DRIVERS TO THE RESCUE

Pamela Akpeki with Kofo Olaosebikan of KOFSOL GROUPS who has the knack for fishing out Gold from the mud.

Most of us have heard gory, horrible stories of drivers or have had personal misadventures that scared the daylight out of us. I was once a victim of misadventure. We just returned from a foreign trip on my way to Ibadan. The driver drove away with our suitcases. it was a nightmarish.

Our vehicle broke down just after Redemption Camp so we switched cars. Unbeknownst to us, the driver of the switched vehicle was a felon or prowler.  My God out of his many munificence to me, made me come out the nightmare with my handbag while others lost everything. I paid their fares to wherever they needed to go to get help. We were told that we got off better, quite a number of people became missing persons after boarding some cabs.

Afterwards, I have been a lot wary of taking cabs. Taking cabs always trigger apprehension and fright in me. The apprehension nags me like a raging toothache.

My last trip to Lagos threw me in great state of anxiety. Usually, my brother Gbenga’s driver picks me up at the airport. However, on this particular trip, one driver went on an errand to deliver hampers; the other driver was far away in Victoria Island.

I have two taxi drivers and one keke Marwa driver I patronized each time I had to move around in Lagos if I did not drive down to Lagos in my car. Even when I drove in on those occassions, I parked the car most of the time except when I needed to drive around choice areas. The keke and the drivers took me wherever i wanted to go. I loathe, dislike, hate and cannot stand Lagos traffics, the snarls-up, jams or the gridlocks!

I checked my phone to call the first cabby; he was far away in Festac town. I could not wait hours for him to navigate the unpredictable Lagos traffic. The second cabby was stuck in the fuel station. It was the height of fuel crisis. I had to find another cab to take me out of there. I did not want to patronize the shylock airport cabs. I looked at my luggage; we were spending Christmas in Lagos, our annual routine. Typical of women I had boxes and hand luggage too.

These hand luggage were another two bags and carrier bags. You really do not notice extra luggage when you are taken from the car to the airport, you checked in, when you arrive your destination, someone is waiting to take you home until you found yourself in a fix like i did.

I looked at my luggage again and a sense of dread descended on me. The dread burned me like the intensity of a flash light in a thick darkness. I sweated out the dread with thick water drooping all over me, wondering how to get out of my predicament. I was in Lagos where one has to be smart, sharp and extra alert.  I had already shunned the airport cabs who descended upon passengers like flies on a festering wound. I needed to think of how to get the hell out of there in one piece without losing my entourage or my luggage.

Fleetingly I thought of accepting their outrageous fees blamed on fuel scarcity but I shrugged the idea off, told myself, haba, I have lived in Lagos before ke, I can find my way joor. I heaved my luggage and began the laborious walk towards the main gate to taxis outside. It was backbreaking, by the time I got us to the gate, I was panting like a long distance runner.

Anyway, I got to the gate and had to fend off the drivers who also descended on me like moths. I had to apply mental naphthalene to repel those who looked like rouges while praying silently to be right about my choice of driver to avoid another nightmarish misadventure.

Finally, we got home and i heaved a sigh of relief that I did not fall victim of one chance, kidnappers or rituals as warned by the shylocks at the airport in order to scare me to take their shylock offer.

That is why I am excited to know that today there are lady Uber drivers. I would panic less if I knew that my cab driver was a lady.

For people who panic like me, Uber lady drivers have come to the rescue!

Kudos to the Lady drivers!

Well done Lady Uber, i celebrate you all especially Pamela Akpeki. I am so proud of you. You and others are Amazons.

You are an Icon.

Pamela Akpeki read Micro Biology from the University of Lagos, she is from Sapele in Delta state, Nigeria.

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