Iniye drove past the red traffic light on the very
busy Ajose Adeogun road in Lagos State. According to a sub section of a section
of a very annoying Nigerian constitution, she had just broken a traffic law,
but she couldn’t be bothered. The CEO of Geoporte Oil and Gas in Lekki, Ajah
had just called for a meeting, and she had to be seated at the CEO’s office by
1 p.m. It was 11. a.m, and looking at the already built gridlock on the major
junction, she concluded that she was unlikely to get her one chance of
reinforcing her company’s value proposition to Mr. CEO.
Amazingly, she was not discouraged by the
pot-bellied policeman, popularly called Baba Faru, who flagged her vehicle
down, and suggested a brain evaluation test at the spot, or by the nausea
caused by the horrible stench from his police uniform, as he made his way into
the passenger seat of her Toyota Corolla. It was the yell of a driver from a
passing commercial bus that got to her, resurrecting her painful memories from
the previous night that resulted into a morning of frustration.
“Madam please reverse, we are going to Alausa to
test your brain, because only a mad human being can try this nonsense. Your own
don end today”, the policeman bellowed, looking like he had just won a million
naira stashed in a treasure box, and Iniye had a key to his prize. As she drove
past the third mainland bridge, she thought about what the nosy driver had said
to her. “Na woman”……”she be woman”, “Idiot, see as you drive like woman”……. Because
she was a woman, she was told to give up civil engineering for business
administration, because women do not gain employment in that field. She was
made to marry Timipreye Pepple at the
age of twenty-two, against her wish, because according to her mother, time was
no longer on her side, and she couldn’t give any achievement a name, until she
was well settled in her martrimonial home. The weekly beatings she received from her
husband every day, was enough reminder of how she should have stuck to her
instincts, and refused vehemently. Most importantly, the fact that she was on a
shitty 9-5 job as a sales representative of Zion Savings and Loans, so that she
could save as much as she could, because her and her two daughters were not
entitled to any of her husband’s properties, as females.
From his side glances at perhaps, a very angry woman, Baba
Faru realized that he might not get his meal ticket from her. “Madam, I neva
chop since morning. Find me 1,000 make me and you waka dey go our own”, he
suggested. However, Iniye was not about to budge, as she intentionally drove
past the nearest police station, towards the short cut that led to the front of
the Lagos State Secretariat.
She had barely pulled her key from the ignition,
when a female LASTMA official roughly pulled her out from the car and dragged
her. Apparently news of her bad behavior had angered the senior LASTMA
officials who had summoned her, amidst clamour for her to be sent to jail for insubordination
to a police officer, and her vehicle impounded indefinitely. All was in noise
and sound, but Iniye, who looked as peaceful as she has ever been. Maybe jail
was a relief from her life’s troubles, as she smiled in wry. If she had come
out strong in her travails as a woman, how hard would dealing with the law, and
this policeman? Her scowl was only visible when she thought about the horrible
things she would do to the next person that would question her womanhood.
