On the Reading Palaver

The driver behind me honked his horn rather impatiently. I was moving at a good speed. Why was he honking? I decided to ignore him. Nigerians are like that. They're obsessed with car horns. They think they were invented specially for them.

My mind rewound to February this year. Within the hour of my wife and me touching down from our last trip abroad, I sent the following message to our hosts: "Have just heard my first multiple car horns in 4 months. We're in Lagos!"

Hey, Nigerian drivers will drive you crazy with their horns if you pay them any attention. I mean...they horn needlessly and meaninglessly.

I slowed down on a free stretch of the road so my impatient follower could overtake. He didn't! Instead, he kept horning with increased urgency. I cursed silently and waved my left hand for him to overtake and bugger off. When I did that, he increased his impatience by a gear. He began to flash his headlamps as well.

Then it dawned on me he needed my attention. Had any of my tyres lost air or picked something dangerous? Was my booth open? I looked in the windshield mirror. It wasn't. Then more horning behind me. Must be someone I know then. I looked in the mirror again. He was alone, a well-dressed fellow, but no one I knew from Adam. The horning continued!

When I reached a safe and busy spot with lots of road stretch in front and behind me, I parked my car. He overtook me and parked a safe distance away. Better! I could zoom forward or backward if this daring stop grew into an emergency. My heart thumped a bit.

He came down from his car and began to walk towards me. Complete stranger; a tall young man. His hands were free, his two pockets very flat--no dangerous-looking bulges, if you get what I mean. He complemented his harmless look with a guilty expression on his face. All that served to calm me down.

He came to my front passenger window. I wound the glass a quarter way down and left my finger on the auto-wind button. If he thrust an unsafe hand through the window, I intended to let the button go and crush a few fingers. I can perform a few daring feats on the road when challenged. Twice I've raced over a piece of wood studded with four-inch nails and thrown in my path by city urchins. I fixed the tyres afterward. Safety first! Once, decades ago, I'd defied his stop order and taken a senior police officer through the car race of his life until a police checkpoint stopped me. Boy, the batons that rained on me that day! The officer was benevolent sha. He promptly ordered his men to 'stop that nonsense.' I wonder whether there're such officers in the force today.

Anyway, I was ready for this guy.

He poked his face through the little opening and smiled apologetically.

"Sir, I'm sorry to have disturbed you," he began. "I like this car and want to ask about it. Is it a good car?"

All the tension left me like a pierced balloon. Was this what this whole drama was about? He let his smile hang in place as assurance he meant well. I finally smiled back at him. Smiles are contagious, you know. I then sighed in wonder.

"That's a tough question for me to answer," I said to him. "Look, this car is 8 years old, but I've only done about 18,000 kilos with it." I pointed at the dashboard. "It's my special car."

Maybe I should tell you something about this car. It glides along like a toy jet. It even mimics the noise. The AC is one of the best that have breathed on me in any car. The tyres are 8 years old. Although I hear tyres expire within 4 to 5 years, these ones look set to go much further. I do not understand the wonderful science behind car tyres and what the experts say, but I'm willing to take my chance with these faithful tyres.

"But is it a good car?" the young man pointedly wanted to know.

"It's a bloody good car," I confessed.

"Thank you, sir. I'm going to buy it."

"Go ahead and do so," I urged him. "God will help you with the money."

With that he bowed, apologised another time, topped it with some thanks, and walked away. As I watched him drive off, I began to wonder why he took all that suspicious trouble to find out about my car. He could simply have Googled and read up reviews on it from the internet. These days you can find out anything from the internet. Anything. The internet as a library is the 8th wonder of the world!

Then the truth about the young man's predicament dawned on me. Of course, he's one of the many educated Nigerians who 'can't read.' I call them illiterate graduates. Reading is one helluva pile of work for them. They want everything at their beck and call, always ready-made--fast foods, fast photos, fast money, fast information, fast everything. They have no patience for that which demands a stretching of the imagination. Watching my car go ahead of him, I could tell this young man had added to his list of fast desires: he also loved fast cars!

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