I read that the Lagos State Government wants to stop danfo from plying its roads! That will be a personal loss to me.
Danfo is a kombi bus, usually a Volkswagen, used in the transportation of people to various destinations in Lagos. It is always interesting to have a ride in danfo. In most cases, one cannot alight without having one memorable experience or the other.
My companionship with danfo began even before my elementary school days. We used to live close to a major road. As children, we normally played hide and seek in a broken down danfo. One of us would even sit at the driver’s seat and another would pretend to be the conductor.
I am talking of those days when we only knew human beings as Tokunbo. Then, used vehicles were strange elements on our roads. We hardly knew that Nigeria would start importing tokunbo underwears some decades later.
Even at that time, what I noticed about the driver/conductor relationship was that it was similar to that of the egungun and atokun, masquerade and attendant. Some were bad and some were good. However, I should think most were bad.
In the first instance, most of them believed they were in Lagos to make money through whatever means. Of course, when people have that kind of mindset, in most cases they go into criminal acts.
Another reason was that it provided jobs for tiny tots who had fled home mostly after having committed offences of dishonesty.
Not a few of the drivers too were people of shady characters. It was a case of a good drummer finding a good dancer. The combination seemed to be heavenly made.
However, the public was at the receiving end. From being roughened up to being swindled, all was fair in a danfo.
The danfo will not be easily forgotten in Lagos. A number of records was even waxed for danfo and its operators. Those ones, they worked hard and enjoyed wildly. They smoked all sorts and drank a variety of intoxicants.
They even went ahead to support the greatest football teams of those days. When their support for those clubs or other matters brought conflicts, especially with their butcher cousins, hell was let loose.
They were ready recruits for politicians to be used as thugs. Whenever they supported a musician they did so financially and morally. And immorally too!
When they loved. Cupid was very fair to them. They had the means of securing a belle’s love. And their sexual appetite was hardly satiated by one woman. So, they indulged in polygamy.
By the way, one dared not be a rival to a danfo driver on matters concerning women. He would use all he had to fight a competitor. There was a case of a danfo driver organising human faeces to be dumped at the window of his rival.
To a great extent, they were of good use to commuters in a country where government only cared for its own interests. Danfo plied the untarred roads. Being small buses, they could enter into the crevices called roads.
Danfo will be sorely missed.
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