Lenses360 Reality series: My Lagos Diary

EPISODE 2: Agege Without Bread

By Koko Wanjiru Ekpo-Davids

This is a rather hilarious story of an experience my husband and I had back in May.This story is so ridiculous, it had to end up in the pages of “My Lagos Diary.” I'd been indecisive about posting it but oh well...here it goes!

Hubs and I were looking to buy a car which would primarily be used for his business runs…so we didn’t mind a Nigerian-used "Tokunmbo" vehicle, far as the engine was sound and the interior/exterior as clean as possible. My thinking was that we could put word out there to “people who knew people” that sold cars or had a car for sale. 

But hubby had a different plan in mind; he opted to search online. I wasn’t very cozy with this idea from the get-go. The concept of car-shopping on the internet on this side of the Atlantic just didn’t sit right with me. But since I’m naturally optimistic about life, I decided to go with the flow. So the search began. He checked out as many sites as possible for a used car within our budget. We saw so many wonderful pictures with very catchy descriptions of vehicles for sale. 

After a grueling few days of surfing the web and placing calls for inquiries, we saw something that caught our attention and fit our budget….some type of Volkswagen car. I chose the words “some type” cos when you get to the end of this episode, you’ll understand why the car model is so unimportant now. Hubby called the seller informing him that he was interested in buying his ride. We became so optimistic about it when Mr. Seller informed us that he wanted to part ways with this car because he recently got an official car and as such didn’t need two vehicles. An appointment was set-up for an inspection a few days after. We would have to make a long drive to the mainland, somewhere around Agege where the vehicle was. 

We set out early in the morning on the said day so as to beat any Lagos traffic that could arise, though it was Democracy Day holiday. By 9:30am or thereabout, we were at the designated meeting point accompanied by our mechanic who was to ascertain the car’s “road worthiness.” Hubby calls Mr. Seller to inform him of our presence and he instructed we go into a building that was his office and wait a little while…that he was on his way to meet up with us. We weren’t enthused about this development since we had agreed beforehand on meeting at that time. We however reckoned it would probably be no longer than a 15-minute wait. Fifteen minutes became one hour plus and frustration began to creep in. For heaven’s sake this wasn’t how we planned to spend the day. 

When over two hours had elapsed since we’d been waiting for Mr. Seller, hubby puts another call through asking him to tell us his exact location and how long he would take to arrive. By now, we were all out of patience and even long suffering! He pleaded that we give him a few more minutes, claiming that the delay was caused by his having to go and bring the car from where he had parked it. 

We really wanted to leave after another 20 minutes went by…but our mechanic pointed that since we had come this far, it wouldn’t make sense to go back without seeing the vehicle. The man’s wife then shows up and apologizes to us for the delay. Her story was that her husband had to pick her up from where she had been all morning. By now, we were beginning to smell a rat. Something didn’t seem right about the whole setup. Their stories didn’t tally.

After listening to her pleas and apologies, she suggested that we could simply drive to where the car was being parked and her husband would meet us there. We took her suggestion and followed the directions she gave us. My husband and I as well as our mechanic were convinced that there was something fishy going on…we never felt like we were in a dangerous situation or anything, but we were suspicious of these two. Our mechanic was certain that this man had taken the car to either a mechanic to do some last minute rush work, or to a car wash hence the delay. The latter proved to be the case when we drove into the Oando station his wife had directed us to and lo and behold there was the “mystery car” being washed! 

O the madness! The seller was there looking 50 shades of shady! 

There was no point even going off on him about keeping us waiting for almost three hours. We just wanted out of there. But our mechanic and driver decided to check the car out...perhaps just to prove a point. Disaster, is the word I’d use to describe it. First of all, the bonnet had to be forced open and it made this cranky metallic noise that was so irritating. One peek into the interior and we were done! The inside was a far cry from what we had seen in the pictures he sent. That car was “tore up from the floor up!” It looked like it had been parked under heat for so long...there were peel marks on parts of the dashboard and inside the door. The booth opened but wouldn’t close. It was a ridiculously hilarious sight to behold! The engine started…but please don’t ask me about how it sounded. 

I was just flabbergasted that Mr. Seller still had the guts to ask us how much we were offering for this piece of scrap! We emphatically told the man we weren’t interested, entered our car and drove off…annoyed that we had basically wasted our entire day! 

We essentially just took a joyride to Agege and we didn’t even buy bread! Pity!

On the way home, our mechanic informed us that the engine was so bad, and a lot of wires had been tampered with. He also believed that the seller had taken the car to the mechanic to have a quick-fix done before the car wash. Hubby and I later realized that this wasn’t even the same car we saw in the online advert. This car was jacked up! I swear even if I had been given it for free, I’d push it over the third mainland bridge! For real I would. That vehicle is only fit to be used as “kabu kabu” on the streets of Lagos! The man even had the nerve…putting it up for sale. I think this is part of the corruption President Buhari has been fighting.

We laughed over that experience for days after…particularly baffled at our “foolishness"...we couldn’t believe we waited for the man for that long. 

The whole ordeal rekindled my skepticism about shopping for a car online in Naija. I mean I love my country but I know what some of us are capable of.
NOTE: I said “some of us”...abeg o!

I was eventually proven wrong about this assertion. We ultimately got a car and from the internet. I guess after that Agege experience, we were better knowledgeable and approached this transaction with more tact. Also, I feel God knew that all that hustle couldn’t be in vain! Hehehehehehe!!

I won’t forget this experience in a heartbeat. It’s one of those things that will always make me go “hmmm” about Lagos. 

There’s really no place like Lagos!