Most people who use the danfo or any other yellow bus to
commute through the mad dash that is the average Lagos route are not unaware of
the fact that the cars served as a goods conveyance van in Europe, this hardly
registers.
However, even if they don’t know what for sure, they know the
tokunbo cars must have served another purpose in their previous incarnation,
especially when they contemplate the dress-ripping makeshift seats and rough-hewn windows that just about serve the purpose they were meant for. They know
that the iron-rimmed seats are not standard issue, at least from whence the
car came, and that the chance of bodily injury if an accident occurs was
amplified by their addition. They know the drivers are largely reckless—early
morning shot of paraga and Igbo reckless—and the buses disasters waiting to
happen. They know this, but throw their lives into the arms of in-time-of-trouble-and-need-gods
as they clamper aboard the buses every morning, afternoon and night. The need
to transit overshadowing fear, caution, and whatever sense of impropriety they
might feel.
