27th April 2009 will forever be fresh in my memory. Not only did I almost lose my life to a very terrible accident, I also lost the opportunity to get enrolled into one of the best universities in Nigeria.
Getting admitted into a university in Nigeria has never been an easy thing for anyone. It was even harder at that time. Passing the West African Secondary School Certificate Education and the entrance exams into any university of one’s choice weren’t enough to get admitted because corruption had eaten really into the bones of the country. You had to know a few people in high places who would use their influence to assist you in getting admitted into your desired school.
I completed my secondary school education in 2006 and since then I had been trying my luck at admission. I eventually gained admission to study chemical engineering in Babcock University, Nigeria - after three failed attempts - which was one of the most prestigious universities in Nigeria at that time. I was invited to come for the oral screening which was to take place in the school premises. Technology in Nigeria then wasn’t as advanced as today where screening process is now done via the internet, you had to travel down to your school for the screening.
I lived in Kaduna State in the northern part of the country and I had to journey down to the South-western part of the country to attend the screening. The journey was about 17 hours by road.
It was my first time going on a journey that long and I was so anxious and nervous that I couldn’t sleep the night before. So the journey commenced at 4:00 am that fateful Monday morning. I sat by the window so that I could get a clear view of the world outside the bus. As the day became clearer and the sun started rising, I started feeling the need to sleep, so I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep after we had traveled about 4 hours.
In my sleep, I was struggling with a bully from my neighborhood who was trying to escape my house with my Play Station 2. He was delivering blows to my head but I didn’t let go of him. Then he grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and was about to hit my forehead on the wall when I woke up. It took me a few seconds to adjust my eyes to the scene that was unfolding in front of me. A black bus was beside the bus I was in and its driver was trying to push our driver off the road. Our bus driver stepped hard on the accelerator in an attempt to get rid of the chasing bus. The black bus raced faster and wouldn't let our bus turn well onto the road. First the driver of the black bus swerved very wildly towards our bus and hit the side of the bus with its own body, the impact caused our driver to lose his grip on the steering wheel and our bus drifted a bit off the road. By this time, every sleeping passenger was awake and everyone was screaming and shouting and praying. Our driver was obviously trying his best to maneuver the vehicle away from the big black bus. From the rear-view mirror, I could see the fear written on his face as he turned the wheel this way and that and pressed hard on the gas. The black bus was gaining on us and my own fear increased tenfold when I saw the faces of the men in the bus. They were about seven in the bus but I could only make out two faces: the driver and a bald fair skinned man seated beside him in the passenger’s him. The driver and the fair man were taking orders from someone at the back. The bald man had a pistol in his hand and his right hand was out the window aiming at something. Then the first shot went off and the bullet went through windshield of the bus and left a whole in it. Our bus driver let out a cry of pain that drowned out all our voices. The bullet had grazed his knuckle on its way to the windshield and he was only steering the vehicle with his one good hand. The one good hand could not do much and the driver of the black bus, on noticing that our driver was losing control, hit the side of our bus again and this time, our vehicle veered off the road and crashed into a nearby tree. I hit my head on a door frame and I kind of lost consciousness for a few seconds, but as I started becoming aware of what was going on around me, I found they had dragged all passengers on board out of the bus and we all laid down in a thick bush. I heard our attackers shouting at our bus driver. One of the bad guys hit the driver with the butt of his gun and knocked him him out. A woman who had been just in front of me in the bus took out her phone and was dialling a number, unfortunately, the woman's phone was a bit high and driver of the black bus saw what she was doing. He didn't think twice before he put a bullet straight through her head. Then one man who was maybe their leader and a muscular guy scanned all our faces. He looked at me a little longer than he looked at others. Then he walked toward me and kicked me in the stomach. I just laid down flat on my chest and started vomiting. I was in too much pain to even hear what the leader was saying to his boys, it looked like he was asking them a question. I just saw that his lips were moving and he came towards me again and turned me around and folded up my shirt to the chest level, then he shook his head and barked at his boys "No marks, no marks guys". "It's the wrong bus"! I couldn't believe my ears. I watched as stunned faces stared down at all of us. The leader then ordered that the team move out of the bush and let us live. They all made their ways to their vehicle and zoomed off. Shouts of praise to God in different languages filled the air. It was when we were about moving to the roadside that I discovered that knees were dead as a result of the collision of the two vehicles and I couldn't bend my legs. One man and a lady helped me and we made our way to the roadside and waited several hours till a police patrol vehicle came to our aid after a passenger had made a call to the police station. Our unconscious driver was revived and we were all taken to the hospital for treatment.
I was told at the hospital that I was bleeding internally and had lost a lot of blood and that I'd be admitted to the hospital for a few days. Though my hopes of becoming a Babcock University were dashed, I was and I'm still grateful that I lived. I'll live to remember the 27th of April, 2009.