Africa Risen, page 39
“I present to you, my newest groundbreaking undertaking,” Oga Dayo was saying, “my novel offering to the state of commercial transportation in Lagos, and soon to be the whole of Nigeria. The. Hanfo.” His flourish was wide and big as he gestured at the floating vehicle. Fidelis almost expected the chorus of a choir to follow, with the word HANFO hanging above Oga Dayo’s head in bright neon letters.
“You get it, abi?” Oga Dayo barrelled on. “Hovertrain, hovercar, hoverdanfo.” He paused. “But hoverdanfo was a mouthful so I thought it was best to shorten it. Make it easier to say while paying homage to its predecessors. Hanfo has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?” He grinned, eyes twinkling, and Fidelis’s stomach dropped and roiled like a clogged sink.
In all the years he had known and worked as a driver for Oga Dayo, Fidelis had never seen Oga Dayo’s big ideas go well. And when they went bad, he somehow always ended up caught in the aftermath.
Fidelis gave Oga Dayo a constipated smile and turned away to regard the hanfo. He reckoned he was gawking at the contraption like the crowd he had met when he arrived at the car park a few minutes ago. The drivers in the crowd and other people who had things to do had gone back to their businesses, but a few stragglers remained, staring and discussing the specifics of the car. Once or twice, someone outside the compound passing by would see the hunk of metal painted in the yellow-and-black stripes of commercial buses in Lagos, do a double take, and then stop and stare when they noticed the thing had no tires and was floating a few feet above the ground.
Fidelis sighed. Perhaps if you squinted, forgot its lack of tires and the fact that it hovered, the polygon-shaped thing could pass for a regular danfo bus. It was smaller than the quintessential danfo, but the aesthetic was definitely there—from the beat-up, secondhand air around it that several coatings of paint, art, and servicing would never be able to hide, to the recalcitrant, unimpressed expression the headlights in these vehicles seemed to give them. But Fidelis had his misgivings.
“Oga Dayo,” he called.
“Yes?”
“Let me just get one thing clear.”
“Eh hehn, go on.” Oga Dayo nodded enthusiastically, practically bouncing from the barely contained energy of a creative with a shiny new project.
“Do you seriously expect me, Fidelis Nwosu, to drive this thing—”
Oga Dayo nodded again. “Yes.”
“—In Lagos traffic?”
“Yes…?”
At the uncertainty in Oga Dayo’s voice, Fidelis thought, perhaps, his scepticism had finally gotten through to the man. But then, Oga Dayo asked, “Is there a problem?” and made it worse by adding, “I don’t see anything wrong with it.”
Whatever hope Fidelis harboured withered and then turned to dust. The only thing that would get through to Oga Dayo whenever he got any of his exasperating ideas was a sonic blaster. This was what Fidelis had used the last of the NaiCreds on his Trekphobic card to board a bus for.
“I assure you, Fi, there is nothing to be worried about. It is perfectly safe. As you’re looking at it now, this vehicle will revolutionise public transportation in Nigeria.”
At the word revolutionise, Fidelis’s clogged sink of a stomach threatened to erupt. Something bubbled to his throat. He swallowed it back down. Oga Dayo had used the R-word. This wahala was now bigger than a sonic blaster.
When Oga Dayo convinced Fidelis to be his delivery driver for his No Place Like a Hobox project—an initiative aimed at “giving the homeless, low-income communities, and rural areas compact smart houses with built-in AIs”—Fidelis was sure Oga Dayo had thrown around the words revolutionise and housing policies in his pitch. Fidelis had witnessed the fallout of the project, with the houses resold by the recipients, high cost of maintenance which equalled increased standard of living for said recipients, two lawsuits, and robberies—of the recipients, the houses, and him, the unfortunate driver-guy.
Oga Dayo was still dealing with the rehousing and settlement payments from that project. And that was two years ago. When Oga Dayo’s pet projects fell through, they fell through hard. Between his philanthropy and charity initiatives, he was always looking for the next big thing to put all that generational oil money into.
Fidelis had grown up listening to his father talk about his escapades—ill-advised, ill-conceived, and irresponsible—with his best friend, Dayo. Fidelis recognised that twinkle in Oga Dayo’s eyes. He had lived with the man for five years after the death of his parents, and had known him longer. Fidelis did not like that twinkle one bit.
“It really is fine, Fi, trust me. The hanfo is made by the same people as my hovercar. You should be able to drive it since you used to drive me around in that one. You brought along your license like I told you to, abi? Then there shouldn’t be any problems. Private commuters are already using hovercars on Lagos roads, how is this any different?”
Fidelis let out a long-suffering sigh. “Private o. Private, Oga Dayo. But you also forgot another word.”
“What?”
“You forgot rich. Rich private commuters. What middle-class Nigerian has the money to be buying these floating cars that are all the rage abroad? This one runs on electricity, too, abi? In any given locale, I can count the charging stations available with one hand. Twenty-four-hour power supply na for people wey get money. This moto, too, no difference. Explain to me, exactly, how this is going to work.”
Oga Dayo let out a belly laugh. Fidelis’s expression curdled. If he was laughing like this, it meant Oga Dayo thought he already had Fidelis. “Fide, Fide. Fide, my man, do you know people said the same thing about the smartphone? Now look what happened? In 1999 when the then president, Olusegun Obasanjo, was revamping the NCC and GSM services—”
Fidelis immediately tuned him out; a reflex action. His gaze strayed to the people milling about the park, the drivers ready to get back on the road with their regular buses and make some money. Money. He turned back to Oga Dayo.
One of the good things about Oga Dayo was that he paid well. Fidelis’s work as a freelance developer was going okay, but with new programming languages popping up here and there, old ones being upgraded, keeping abreast of all of this, especially as someone who was self-taught, required money. Money for classes, money for tools and apps.
Then there was Helena’s gender-affirming surgery to think about, money for hormones, for the mandatory therapy and appointments they used to make life hard for trans people, and even harder for poor trans people. It wasn’t today he found out queerness in Nigeria was not for the poor. Arrests by law enforcement agencies, three years after the repealing of the SSMPA, said enough; he’d been caught in that crossfire before.
He hadn’t even factored in expenses for other things; pending, recurrent, and on hold. All their basic needs, rent, fees, and maybe a bit of a splurge for Helena because his sister would sooner die than open her mouth to ask for shit.
Not that Oga Dayo’s payment for this job would cover all of this, but it was a start. Since Oga Dayo had been the one to reach out first, Fidelis could kill two birds with one stone by offering to go back to driving for him—hopefully not the polygon-shaped contraption, but driving was driving as long as he got paid and didn’t get in trouble with the police and road safety people.
There wasn’t much his International and Public Relations degree could do him. It wasn’t even what he had chosen when he applied at the University of Benin, but here he was. Fidelis exhaled. Oga Dayo had stopped talking and was watching him closely. His expression must have given away the moment he reached a decision because Oga Dayo’s face immediately split into a grin.
Fidelis raised a warning hand. “Two questions: Do you have a permit for the contraption? Second: Have you made all the necessary payments, whatever it is that’s needed to make sure I’m not arrested for driving it? Because me as I dey so, you know sey I no like wahala. You sha get money to bail me out, so why am I even talking?”
Oga Dayo guffawed. He rubbed his hands together and Fidelis imagined a mini him up in his head, cackling frenetically. “Yes, yes, I have everything you need. You know, Fi, when I got this idea, my mind immediately went to you. I mean, can you imagine it, being known as the first person to drive a hanfo?”
Fidelis grimaced and sucked in air through his teeth. “Abeg, don’t start with me, Oga Dayo.”
“No, really.”
“Whether I am the first or the second, that one is not my problem. I have another question.”
“Yes?”
“Is the contraption in good working condition?”
Oga Dayo’s grin faltered, his excitement deflating. Even his agbada joined in, one wide sleeve rolling dramatically down his arm. He patted the sloping edge of his fila, adjusting its position on his head. “Erm…”
Fidelis exhaled again. “Does it run as well as any regular danfo?”
Oga Dayo’s smile returned. “Eh hehn, now you’re talking. Yes, it runs very well. But eh … just in case, I will give you the number to one of my cousin son, adumaadan, correct boy. He’s currently on holiday here, but he’s studying one big course like that in America. He was the one that helped me with the repairs for the hanfo. Just call him if you have any issue.”
Fidelis gave the hanfo a sceptical look. Oga Dayo’s spluttering was a warning bell—in fact, this whole thing was a warning bell. “Okay, I will take the number,” he said.
Oga Dayo beamed even harder. He took out a pen and jotter from the breast pocket of his agbada, scribbling on it as he asked, “So, erm … are you dating anyone right now? I know you broke up with that oloshi boy you said you were dating before. How long did that relationship last sef?”
Fidelis’s eyes narrowed. “No, I’m not in a relationship right now,” he answered slowly. “And please, Oga Dayo, don’t get any ideas. Just give me the permit and all the necessary things so I can get this over with.” He gave the hanfo another look. “Why is the contraption on though? Are you not wasting the charge like this?”
“We will go and charge it before you leave,” Oga Dayo replied. “I just wanted to show off the first floating danfo. You know when you’re doing something, there must be flair in it. In 2039, when the minister of industry, trade, and investment was—”
That was Fidelis’s cue to conk out. He sent a prayer upwards and braced himself for whatever was coming his and the contraption’s way.
* * *
Compared to danfo buses that carried fifteen to eighteen passengers, the hanfo’s capacity, plus the driver, was eleven. It didn’t have the signature benches danfo buses possessed. The chairs in it looked more like the car seats in regular cars, though they weren’t the chairs the vehicle had come with. This one was three-on-a-row; the original had been two.
As they charged the hanfo, Oga Dayo showed off the vehicle, pointing out the things that had been repaired, modified, or outfitted. They had cut and added windows to the tin can to give it the danfo look. The stereo had been replaced because the one it came with did not work. Like the vehicles it was aptly named after, the air conditioners and heating didn’t work either, but they had windows now, so those would have to do.
The card reader near the passenger door had been modified to accept Nigerian bank cards, Trekphobic cards included. He was going to be handing out free Trekphobic cards to the first passengers as a way to incentivise people into boarding. The infotainment system—touch screen, video player, Wi-Fi, GPS—was kaput, but the motherboard had outlets that phones and any other assistive technology could be plugged into to do the work of the IVI. Fidelis had used his phone’s facial recognition to open and start the hanfo after being authorised and granted access by Oga Dayo.
The fact that all of this was possible was thanks to the elusive cousin son. When Oga Dayo had been telling Fidelis about him, he had the feeling Oga Dayo was also acting as a wingman, but Fidelis chalked it up to his imagination. He’d warned the man not to get any ideas. Fidelis already had enough to worry about. Like surviving this day without becoming a cash cow for Nigerian law enforcement. Though the person in the photo Oga Dayo had shown Fidelis was cute; not his type, but cute all the same.
“So, what do you think?” Oga Dayo asked from outside the driver’s window. “Is everything to your liking?”
“I’m not sure yet,” Fidelis replied. He checked the side mirrors and adjusted the rearview one, all new additions, just like the rear window, thanks to the kaput smart system. The manual brakes and throttle were also things that had been modified as a result of the defect.
He tapped twice on the small round button tacked to the dashboard, beside the stereo. The device made a beeping sound and two thin plastic strips emerged from either side of it. They met a few inches from the button to form a rectangle. As soon as the lines touched, a holographic image appeared, covering the length of the space produced by the lines meeting. A picture of him smiling with Helena filled the expanse of the screen.
“Fide, how far na?” a woman’s voice, his virtual assistant, asked. “You want to switch to hands-free auto-operator, or should I leave it?”
“Make the switch, please. Thank you, Ekene.”
“Okay, sure thing.”
Oga Dayo popped his head into the window. “Ekene, Ekene, did you see the playlist I left for Fide? I left the link on the hanfo’s cloud. You should be able to access it.”
“Found it.”
“What playlist is—” Fidelis didn’t get the chance to finish. Omo wetin dey happun? The yelled question from the speakers cut him short. He gave Oga Dayo an unimpressed look, and Oga Dayo replied with a grin.
Even though the song had come out twenty-three years before he was born, “Danfo Driver (Ragga Version)” by Madmelon and Mountain Black was one of those iconic songs with a cemented place in Nigerian pop culture. Fidelis’s eyes went heavenward when he heard the badly recorded hanfo that had replaced danfo in the chorus. He exhaled for the third time that day, hoping everything would go without a hitch even as his rumbling stomach refused to settle. “Here goes nothing,” he muttered.
Oga Dayo took a step back as Fidelis steered the hanfo towards the exit. “You are now part of a pivotal moment in history,” he shouted after him. “Be glad, Fi, be glad!”
* * *
Well. This pivotal moment in history currently sucked.
Despite the fact that Oga Dayo and his cousin son had removed some of the padding from the walls of the hanfo, without the air conditioner, the midday sun was unkind to the tin can. He had turned off Oga Dayo’s goddamn playlist, but the noise from buses and drivers calling out destinations to passengers was not helping Fidelis’s crabby mood.
For over an hour, he had been waiting in the line close to the CMS Under-bridge, along with other buses traversing the Island, and the hanfo still hadn’t drawn in a single passenger. There were close calls. A child approaching with his mother had started to run up to the floating vehicle when he saw it, but his mother had pulled him back.
“Come back here, you this boy!” she shouted. “Why do you want to enter moto wey only him different inside all the ones wey dey here? Do you know if it’s one chance? You will just enter and disappear. Better shine your eye.”
Two teenagers had excitedly wandered in and then wandered off again when it began to seem like the bus would never get filled up. No one in the crowd that gathered when he first drove into the bus stop had shown any interest of boarding. The free Trekphobic passes had made them even more suspicious. Fidelis wasn’t aiming to fill the bus, that was too lofty a goal. Five passengers were all he needed. He’d give it another thirty minutes. If there were no passengers in the next thirty minutes—
Ekene’s voice interrupted him mid-thought. “Hallo, Fide. You have an incoming call from Oga Dayo. I don’t detect a Bluetooth device, but no shaking. Hands-free mode is on, so I will just put it on speaker for you.”
Before Fidelis could override the action, Oga Dayo’s voice boomed from the speakers that had been playing music a few minutes ago. “Hello, Fi? How is everything going? Have you met the boy yet?”
Fidelis cast a quick embarrassed look around him, lowering the volume to ask in a quiet voice. “What boy?”
“I mean my cousin son na, Oluwatimilehin.”
Fidelis winced. “I thought I was only supposed to contact him if the hanfo developed an issue?”
“Ah, so you’re not interested?”
“Interested in what?”
“In him nau?”
Fidelis took one deep breath, eyes going skyward. “Oga Dayo,” he hissed out.
“Why are you whispering?”
“Because I’m in public!” he snapped.
“Ah … sorry o.” Oga Dayo did not sound apologetic at all. “Are there people there with you? Did I embarrass you?”
“Oga Dayo, please hang up.”
“Oya sorry nau. Just make sure you call Oluwatimilehin. Don’t wait for the hanfo to develop issue before you do. He is a nice boy. You will like him.”
“Bye, Oga Dayo.”
“Call him o.”
“End call,” Fidelis said to the device.
“That sounded like an interesting conversation.” A man in his mid-twenties, closer to Fidelis’s age, was peering into the hanfo from the passenger window beside the driver.
“It was nothing,” Fidelis replied. “Just an annoying uncle.”
The man laughed. “Relatives, am I right?” He paused. “But are you actually taking people to the Island?”
Fidelis sighed, answering with the weariness of a man who had gotten this question several times in one day. “Yes.”
“I’m stopping at Eko Hotel.”
“Sure, I’ll reach there.”
“Regular NaiCred price, no extra charge?”
“No extra charge. We’re even throwing in free five-thousand-naira Trekphobic passes. You can add it to your existing NaiCred balance.”
The man whistled. “For real? No scam?”
“No scam at all.”
“I hope sey no be the one wey I go enter, una go thief my money, thief my destiny. I no get anything o. Na work I dey go find for Eko Hotel.”
