25 Years After…and a Famous Car
BY OLUSEGUN ADENIYI
(On 6th January 2000, I wrote, ‘Who Dares Impound AA375 SHA?’. What followed, in the ENDNOTE, is why democracy is still very much preferred to other forms of government, despite its own challenges.)
When on Christmas Day (25 December 1999) I informed my departmental leader in Church, Mr Abiola Olatunji that I would be travelling to the village the next day to see my parents, his first reaction was: “With this car?” What many people do not know is that my rickety Peugeot 504 saloon car herein being referred to as AA 375 SHA is more than a vehicle. And it is inconceivable to go to the village without it. I learnt that the hard way.
Two years ago, I had travelled home with a cousin. Since our compound was the first as you enter the village and his happens to be at the other end, I had to drop him first. I then decided there was no point driving back to ours, so I packed my vehicle in his compound and just walked back home, since I had already offloaded all the things I brought before driving down. By midnight, a family meeting was summoned, at the instance of a visiting auntie, who asked me to explain why I did not deem it fit to park AA 375 SHA in our compound. Not only did I apologise for that lapse in judgement, but I also had to go and bring the car to our compound that night.
That experience taught me that AA 375 SHA is more than a means of transport. It is also a political object that reflects the status of some members of my extended family back in the village. Since AA375 SHA was not acquired straight from the factory (I am not calling it ‘Tokunbo’), it goes without saying that it may actually be older than some members of the Lagos State Executive Council, especially if a panel were to visit France to establish its year of manufacture. That, I understand, may be a problem, going by a new directive from the Lagos State government.
Within the two weeks that I was away from the country last month, there was a grand conspiracy against AA 375 SHA that I did not know of until yesterday. It is called the Ministry of Transport (MOT) Test to be conducted by some civil servants. For any vehicle to pass the MOT test, the following must not only be available but also functional: Lighting Equipment-front, brake, reverse and hazard lamps as well as trafficators. The vehicle is also to have efficient braking system, including parking brakes. Others are good tyres, a spare tyre, jack, and wheel spanner as well as working horn, operational wipers, registration plate, c-caution, fire extinguishers, fire escape (commercial vehicles only), ventilation and reflectors. “The process of obtaining an MOT Test certificate is to pay a N1000 testing fee to any Magnum Trust Bank, proceed to any MOT test centre of your choice for the test. If your vehicle is impounded without MOT test certificate, you would be required to pay N5,000 fine and acquire the certificate before it will be released. In the event of any vehicle not passing the test, a vehicle owner is required to re-appear not later than three days after putting the necessary defects in order…in the event of a lapse of time (more than three days after the first test) another payment would have to be made for conducting another test”, according to a statement signed by Mr Sina Thorpe, Press/Public Relations Officer, Ministry of Transport.
If this is not a conspiracy against AA375 SHA I don’t know what it is. I doubt if any of these things are ever functional in my car for a week. What the governor and his men are really up to with this law I don’t know but one thing I do know is that the conspiracy against AA375 SHA will fail because more than 50 people depend on it for survival and they will not keep quiet. There is Kabiru, my first mechanic in Surulere who still has a retainership on AA375SHA, three years after I relocated to Abesan Estate in Ipaja. He is a specialist in the Propeller Shaft of the car which keeps giving problem every month. Kabiru had to be brought in last December to perform some magic before the millennium visit home. For the two years I lived in Surulere after acquiring the car, Kabiru and I shared the usage. Every week, he had to take delivery of it for at least two days. But Kabiru did not have the exclusive right to AA375 SHA. There was and still is Tubosun, my all-purpose mechanic near Concord Press. The importance of Tubosun to the car cannot be overemphasised. For he knows all the places where you can procure plugs, adaptor, condenser, and coil on credit and that is done ever so often. Another advantage of Tubosun is the ingenuity in asking you to bring N2,000 for spare parts that he claims go for N5,000. If you don’t pretend to be stupid, how would AA375 SHA still be on the road?
Right there in Abesan Estate, Ipaja, there are Tony and Alfa, both competing for the exclusive rights to the maintenance of AA375 SHA. In my first year in the estate, Tony had to perform some abracadabra on the engine every morning before I leave for the office. The plugs had to be cleaned, the contact set sandpapered, and a whole lot of other things just for a hundred Naira. After Tony came Alfa (that’s the name everybody called him) who defrauded me of N6,000. The unfortunate thing about my relationship with Alfa is that he got me cheap and at the end, took away AA 375SHA for a week to do Kabukabu. The damage done to the car in those few days that raised my blood pressure so high is yet to be fully rectified.
Very close to my old office in Ikeja is Muyideen (aka AIT) who is an expert in steering rack, big bushing, spider boris and such other engine parts you may not know about AA375 SHA. Sometimes too, he suggests that he be allowed to wash the car at a special place where they charge N100. The problem is that he would often come back with a bill of N150 because “there was no water and had to pay extra money for water. In the last one week, Akeem, my new mechanic, has shown his expertise in shock absorber, gear selector and tie rod. We have not talked of the battery charger, the vulcanizer, the enigine oil seller and petrol attendant, all of whom benefit from the AA375SHA economy. But how could it have survived without the panel beater? There are three actually. One is an expert in silencer which must be repaired every week to make the sound a bit tolerable. The other works on the body which now has more body filler than panel.
On a more serious note, is the MOT directive the solution to the chaotic transport situation in Lagos? At a period when all eyes are on Governor Bola Tinubu to find a permanent solution to the problem of refuse dump and probably bring in his alternative power plant, what concerns the governor, and his men is the strategy on how to reduce the number of car owners in Lagos. Assuming the law is in good faith, how come it is to be enforced with immediate effect like an Abacha decree? How many vehicles are less than five years old in Lagos? What is the essence of the law in our peculiar situation when only few can afford Tokunbo cars? There are several issues begging for attention in Lagos State and some people would rather chase shadows. How would the MOT decree impact on the life of residents?
Notwithstanding the conspiracy of the Lagos State government against people like me, no car owner in this state will leave the road for another. Nobody, and I repeat nobody, can impound AA375SHA.
ENDNOTE: On the same day the column was published, I got a call from Alausa that then Governor Bola Tinubu wanted to see me. I honoured the invitation the next day. The moment I arrived at his office, Tinubu said rather jocularly that I had dared him with the last line of my article hence I would not leave Alausa with the car. But what surprised me was that before I was ushered into his office, some officials of the Ministry of Transport were already waiting. He asked them to explain the essence of the policy tome. What followed was an interesting conversation. I was told that the MOT was just the beginning of a process which later culminated in the establishment on 15th July that year (2000), of the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA) with the late Chris Olakpe, a retired Assistant Inspector General of Police as the pioneer CEO.
I am not sure the Tinubu of that period is the same man we now have as the president of Nigeria but that is not the point. As I reflect on that encounter, I knew if my piece had been written a year earlier under the military, I probably would have ended up in detention with my car confiscated. So, the message is simple: While Nigeria’s democratic journey has not been perfect, considering our experience under military rule, we should never take the freedom we now enjoy for granted.
OLUSEGUN ADENIYI Journalist, writer, public speaker and former presidential spokesman, Olusegun Adeniyi is a Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Letters (FNAL) and a Fellow of Nigeria Institute of International Affairs (NIIA). Author of several books, including ‘Power, Politics and Death: A front-row account of Nigeria under the late President Yar’Adua’, Adeniyi is a Council Member of the Belt and Road News Network (BRNN) in Beijing, China.
