Travelling can be fun sometimes but
travelling to a new and entirely different region without knowing anyone could
be an adventurous experiences. Such was
my case when i took the bull by the horn without considering the dangers of
involved in attacking the bulls by horn.
On the 11th of August
2015, at about my closing hour at work i was called upon as usual by my
operational coordinator that there was a an invitation mail from my boss that I have been assigned to represent my organisation in a stakeholder meeting in
Makurdi, Benue state, the North central region of Nigeria and i was so shocked
and surprised because it wasn’t a familiar routes to me as this region was new
to me.
I immediately launched into action
as i started making enquiries from my colleagues around and calls to friends
for direction and guide with prayers in my heart for divine favour and guidance
from God to be safe on this adventurous trip. On my way home I called some
friend and in the bus, I met a good Samaritan lady who gave me a guide on how
to get a direct transport means to Makurdi, but still I was not convinced as is
my eyes was glued to mobile phone sorting out flight bookings to Benue state but
to my amusement non could be found.
As I enquired my colleague in Abuja
informed me that getting to Abuja will be cool but from Abuja to Makurdi will
take me another six hours summing up my journey
I will be on the road for another twelve hours making it look like an
herculean task ahead of me.
That faithful night I couldn’t
sleep as it is usually said when a man wants to embark on a long journey he
plans all though the night and journey plans drives sleeps away.
I woke up at about 5am in the
morning after my devotion I left the house at about few minutes to 6am with my
heart filled with thoughts and expectation on how best I can get to my
destination of official assignment with mixed feelings in my heart.
I arrived at my bosses house at
about few minutes passed 7am where I was given the necessary resources needed
to aid me in embarking on my journey, on my way I was lead to call on a
relative who gave me an advice to locate faith motors a transport company which
plies directly to Benue State my destination of assignment. I was glad as I received
the information with a heart filled with gladness, thinking the journey was
within 4-5hours drive.
The Journey
On getting to the car park, I paid
the fairs and at about 9:30am we left for Benue, on our way we escaped hitting
a lousy driver who stopped almost at the middle of the express road unexpectedly,
as God would have it our driver was an experienced guy who followed at a safe
distance and was able to sway off from hitting the reckless guy.
We started the journey through the ikpoba hill
–Agbor express way, through into the eastern region of the country, we went
through Asaba into Onitsha the business hub of the nation. On our way I could
vividly notice that the nation is under decay as no region crossed had a 100km
stretch of a well tarred express road. All the regions had very bad roads with
port holes of 1-2 feet deep, with series of hold ups here and there. It beats
my heart to see that Nigerians are going through hell and yet we are smiling ,
saw little kids that are supposed to be in school hawking their wares along the
road undermining the risk of been hit by cars passing by.
These children sell various
products ranging from native pears, roosted corn, groundnuts among other
things. Various travellers stop by to buy things just to keep memories of the
trip. I never got to buy or eat anything as I was careful not to be a victim of
driver stop I want to ease myself or use the toilet (bush), as the case maybe
because I felt we still had a long journey ahead.
Four hours counting we were still
on the highway I became little worried as I started making enquiries in the bus
on how many hours we still had to travel but because of the state of the road
no one seems to be able to give an estimate of the hours left to travel even
the driver could not give me that information. On getting to Enugu State, we
made a stopover at Ninth Mile in other to refresh ourselves and ease our selves.
After the stopover we continued on our journey, moving from one interior
community to the other, seeing new structures, hills and valleys it was an
interesting sites to behold but the adjoining roads seems not to be friendly as
it posed serious difficulties to access one community to another.
About six and half hours counting
we got to the boundary between Enugu and Benue state, after which we drove into
Otukpa community in Benue, a community rich in fruits and vegetables, though we
didn’t have a stopover but we could testify that from the various food wares
displayed by the road side. From that community we had another 3 -4 hours drive
according to what was told me by co- passengers, it was a fun trip all the same
but I wasn’t still settle as I was still feeling kind of awkward in the bus so I
had to ask a, nice lady in the vehicle who gave me the assurance that she will
help me get to my destination as soon as we arrived Makurdi, I was glad as my prayers
of favour was been answered speedily, I smiled with a sigh of relieve in my
heart. She was kind and blessed on getting to another community she bought me
corn and I in-turn bought native pear to gnash the corn, the remaining trip was
fun as I could now perceive the rich cultural heritage of the Benue people, the
sight of their wonderful architectural designs fascinated me as till date they
still build their walls with solid bricks, the region posses a large land mass
as the people were predominantly peasant farmers, having large land mass for
farming with their little thatch hut located at the middle of the farm
land.
At about 6:30pm we arrived at
Otukpo another community where we had a brief stopover and some passengers
highlighted from the bus after which we continued on another two hours drive to
Makurdi and at about 7:30pm we arrived at Makurdi on arrival, the nice lady’s
husband was already there waiting for her arrival and she quickly introduced me
to him and notify him of my destination and I was assured by the man, that he
was going to take me there. I joined them in parking her luggages into the car
and they helped me in locating my way to the hotel where I was going it was
indeed a great journey but funny enough I did not collect their contact as this
was so wrong. I realised this immediately they left and dropped me off close to
my location and directed me on how to get to my destination. It pained me so
much realising that I could not get a chance to tell them thank you for all
their assistance so far.
The
people
On getting to the hotel the
receptionist was so kind to me and I quickly made enquiries about the meeting I
was to attend and luckily for me one of the organisers of that meeting was just
waiting by the receptionist desk to welcome guest for the meeting. I approached
him and he asked me to relax as another vehicle will be coming to take us to
another venue which within few seconds, the driver arrived and took me and
others waiting at the lobby to our hotel.
I Arrived at my hotel at about 8pm
rushed into the shower took a hot bath, went for dinner and prepared myself for
the meeting for the next day.
Waking up in a strange land and
after a long distance away from home wasn’t a funny experience at all as I almost
could not sleep even with the comfort of the big double sized bed visibly
picturing the journey ahead of me when returning back home.
Into the day at the meeting I meet
some new faces and people from other CSOs and NGOs who made their contributions
to the meeting and I too did made my own input to the issues of discuss.
After the meeting I interacted with
some of the people around and got to understand that the people of Benue are so
hospitable, kind hearted, caring and understanding, though the economy standard
of the people can be rated as poor because despite the abundance of
agricultural produce the people lacks preservative industries for their
products.
I was privileged to visit their
market to see how it was and I was shocked to see that things were extremely
cheap as compared to ours here in the south but one thing they do lack is the
presence of industries in state, and this I think the state and federal
government should look into with keen interest because agricultural produce and
food stuff are been wasted on a daily basis in this area and yet others
complain and die of hunger and starvation daily.
Nigeria as a nation is blessed with
diversities of resources but until will learn to harness these resources and
turn away from our total dependency on crude oil our economy will continue to
experience a collapsed structure. In the cause of these interactions I meet
Fabian an Idoma guy and a youth Corper from Ogun State who serves in Benue, I made
friends with them, they are really interesting guys to be with.
After the two days meeting it was
time to return, back to my base. The thought of the long trip back home got me
really anxious as it was a very long one. I checked out of the hotel at about
6am to the car park and at about 7:30am we left Makurdi Benue State, while
leaving I could feel the pains in my heart that am leaving a very hospitable
and caring people behind but even at that I have to return home as home is home
no matter how far and wide you travel.
It was quite a fast journey as the
driver this time was more experienced and took some shorter routes which I suspected
the first driver is not aware of, after about 6hours of driving we got to Ninth
mile and had a brief stopover then we continued our journey on getting to
Onitisha at about 4pm we had a brief stopover where a passenger stopped and we
continued, while our way on the Onitisha bridge at the Asaba axis in Delta
state we came across a tight hold as a result of a fatal accident were all the
victims were lying in the pool of their blood lifeless, it was really a sad
sight and everyone of us reflected on that sad moments for a while but we had
no choice but we just got to change the subject matter as we were still on that
same route back home, and at about 6:30pm I got home and thanked God for
journey mercies , it was not an easy trip but the experiences was worth sharing
hence this memoires – My Adventurous trip to Makurdi.
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