The Criteria For Death

My eyes hurt.

Driving in Nigeria, especially in Lagos, can be such a kill joy. It's a mixture of questionably sane drivers, bad roads and hellish traffic.

But if there is one thing Nigerian drivers fear on the road, it is driving besides or at the back of a trailer/tanker. I have a friend who literally freaks out if she's in a car that's too close to a trailer. Same with my mom, she stays as far away as possible from those things when she is driving. Safety reasons primarily.

So you can imagine my distress this morning when I read in the papers that a trailer fell off Ojuelegba bridge yesterday, crushing two cars and killing three people(an entire family)

First thing that came to my mind was "What the heck is a trailer doing driving on top of a bridge?" Never mind the fact that those innocent souls were nowhere near the trailer but somehow disaster managed to meet them still. Damn.

Which brings me to the peak of my frustration. Nigerians are too quick to say "Buhari this, Buhari that" yet we fail to realize that the problem of Nigeria is Nigerians. Obviously somebody should have been responsible for making sure that the container was latched properly to the trailer before putting it on the road. The driver shouldn't have been on that bridge in a very busy area for that matter. It took about 4hrs for the bodies to be recovered from under the trailer, speaks volumes of our piss poor emergency response system.

Please tell me is it Buhari that will come and supply us with common sense and a sense of responsibility? Aargh!

I don't know what the criteria for death is. But my prayer is that in these remaining few months of the year, we and our loved ones will never meet that criteria.

                 <<end of rant>>