It is another Friday. Reflection kicks in after an active and busy week. The mind harks back to the fact that last Friday, I was in Ibadan for one of those social outings. I had to consider how to get there. This is because in contemporary times, the train becomes readily available. This was very much unlike in the past when going by road was the only option. Very briefly, I toyed with the idea of going by road. But I had to jettison this option in the light of the ongoing and perennial construction as well as the attendant gridlock that was likely to ensue. Moreover, having travelled by train on a recent trip, I was tempted to try this mode of transport again. A confession is appropriate here.
These days, I continue to be attracted to Ibadan as a destination. The reason for this is obvious. My enthusiasm for a Lagos-Ibadan journey has understandably been fired by the old-new mode of transport – The train. Here, the reader may want to look at my choice of words more closely.
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Unlike most young Nigerians, particularly those who are rooted in this country, a train journey has been a never-never phenomenon. But for me, especially in my younger days, a train journey was a familiar experience. As I have pointed in an earlier version of this column, I even lived in the railway town of Ebute-Metta, a subsector of Lagos.
Thus, this is even my second or third time of travelling by train to Ibadan from Lagos. So, I am an old hand, so to say on the Lagos-Ibadan train journey. On this basis, it can therefore be said that I have the benefit of experience.
Earlier on, and to my untrained eye as regards structure, I was of the view that, the stations at both the Lagos and Ibadan ends were yet to be completed. In the process, I deposed that getting into the train itself was a rough experience. Little did I know that the massive structure at the Lagos side was being readied for commissioning, which has since taken place.
So, by the time I got to the Mobolaji Johnson Station in Lagos, the edifice which housed the station was in use. It was a marvellous sight. But going through the protocols of boarding was something else however. You pay for the ticket at a designated point and some form of documentation had to take place. Everything was in an analogous fashion, even in this digital age. Some contradictions there. I also could not understand why, it was said that first class tickets were not available on this Lagos to Ibadan trip. So, one had to settle for a lower order.
In terms of timing, however, the watch-word, or what best sums up the situation was – perfection. On the dot by 8am, the train took off; I can almost call it bliss. I sat beside a young man, and we soon got talking. Shortly after, he said my face was familiar. I assured him that I was not a politician and as such, I do not have a newspaper face. My reference here is to those faces that you see in the newspapers, such that once you see the face in reality – recognition comes.
Eventually, it turned out that my companion was a former student of mine in the International Relations Department of Obafemi Awolowo University. So, what are you doing now, I enquired. He told me that he was in the travel industry and that he had moved around on that platform since his graduation, before starting his own company.
I promised him and myself that, should the need arise, I will in the course of time, steer some relevant business ventures in his direction. As if he was reading my thoughts, he insisted that for old times’ sake, as I was his former teacher, he would pay for my train fare, which had already been paid for anyway.
However, in order not to seem churlish, I yielded, and before I knew it, thanks to the current transfer dynamics, I received an alert for N10,000 from him. Such indeed are the invisible benefits of being a teacher, being recognised and appreciated. So, those who truthfully or cynically observe that teachers’ rewards are in heaven, had better think again. Our universe is so ordered that, now and then, the divine has a way of conveying to us that, our previous experiences in this life have not been wasted.
Whatever stations that one finds himself in this life, one should play his/her part with the right kind of attitude. In turn, I connected the young man to the Alumni WhatsApp platform of his mates in Ife.
Meanwhile, the train chugged on, from one station to the other – Agege, Papalanto, later on Abeokuta, Omi Adio, and finally Moniya in Ibadan. Needless to say, it was a smooth ride.
I found something strange about the naming of the various stations however. I had learnt somewhere that when a monument or place is named after someone, you drop the title of that person. In other words, it is not appropriate to say: Professor Wole Soyinka Station. Rather, it should be Wole Soyinka Station. I am not too sure however that many of us are aware of this. Rather we keep tagging on the titles to persons who have been honoured with monuments.
In any case, since we are obsessed with titles in these climes, one can easily understand why a Professor Wole Soyinka Station will continue to subsist.
At the Ibadan end, and as arranged, the Driver was waiting. As we drove away from the Moniya Terminus in Ibadan, the mind telescoped into the future. A Moniya that was now largely deserted will in the nearest future be brimming with socio-economic activities, courtesy of this train facility on the Lagos-Ibadan route.
As we disembarked, with the large crowd, I wondered aloud to the driver who had just traversed the Lagos-Ibadan route by road whether that road was empty. His answer was in the negative. Then, such indeed, is the Nigerian demographic profile that, we can safely say here that the road was full of travellers, while very much the same thing can be said for the huge crowd which travelled by train.
Properly harnessed, this demographic status should be a source of strength. And we are still waiting to see whether Nigeria’s manifest destiny will be ultimately consummated in the light of the huge population.
To be continued on Monday.
