Naijasinglegirl: This is Onitsha!

The cacophony of jingling yellow buses, weeping cars, whining motorcycles, street hawkers and heavy steps of people welcomed us into Upper Iweka, Onitsha.

The solemnity of the casual ambience we experienced minutes ago at the Niger Bridge was gone.
From the front seat of Good is Good Motors, I noticed a horde on one corner of the street.
According to a roadside vendor, a robbery had just taken place.

Rumours has it that a typical day for Onitsha residents is punctuated and hyphenated by robberies in shuddering succession.
This time around, the robber was not as lucky as his counterparts. He snatched a blackberry phone from a passenger seated at the extreme of one commercial bus, stuck in traffic.

Unfortunately for the robber, the victim was not the sort of person to retreat easily. He dashed from the window of his moving vehicle and a hot chase ensured. When he finally caught up with him, it took the intervention of some policemen to save the robber from being lynched by an angry mob.

Fear gripped me.

Maybe I shouldn’t have left Benin City where I was spending a two-week holiday with my friend. She works with INEC and she had somehow slotted my name as a presiding officer for Anambra State elections which was due to commence in the next twelve hours. This job came with an irresistible pay.

This was the Onitsha I had heard about.
A city in the pressing grip of robbers, a city with an intense increase in street violence and kidnapping.

The next place we came across was Onitsha Main Market. It was a sprawling jumble of businesses. Horns blared! Truck engines roared! The roads were crammed with private cars, buses, keke napeps, motorbikes, truck pushers and beggars.
The vendors hawked everything except furnitures and human beings.
Someone tapped my window with a phone pack. He said it contained an iphone5 and he was offering it to me at a paltry sum of N10000. (say what? I know where to get fufu at a much cheaper price if I needed one)

Chinchins, bread and ‘okpa’ were plastered on window.
“Ignore all of them. They could be criminals waiting to dash off with your wallet.” the driver warned when I made an attempt to slide the window.

Fifty minutes later, I arrived Awka Local Government Headquarters.
I checked my name and polling centre on a large board.
I couldn’t believe the horror!
I had been posted to preside over a small community in Onitsha.
Twelve of us were dispatched into another bus and four hours later, we were en route Onistha again.

The time was 5pm when the bus began moving. I brought out my Andriod phone and took out the memory card in the event our vehicle runs into the real owners of all the luxuries we carried. That way if the worst happens, I’ll be left with the data on my phone which seemed way valuable than the phone.

We arrived our destination safely by 7pm. The community had no pipe borne water and electricity. Someone handed each of us three sachets of water for our bath and the carton of our ballet boxes served as a bed for us.
I spent the whole night awake, with my phone & wallet pressed against my chest.
The thought of some ‘Onitsha boy’ creeping in to rob us made me apprehensive.

INEC officials had promised to lodge us in a ‘safe hotel’ in Onitsha. (Are all hotels in Onitsha not safe?) I couldn’t help but shake my head in disappointment knowing the four walls of the community school classroom I slept in bore no semblance to the cheapest hotel in Onitsha.

The next morning, we were driven to our various polling units. As soon as I arrived, one elderly man puffing a cigarette came up to me and started a conversation.

“So na small girl like you dem send to control this election for this my town! Wetin be your name”

“I am the presiding officer!” I tried to respond confidently but my tiny voice betrayed me.

“At least you get name. Me I no get name o! but I get machete!”

God protect me from the likes of this one I prayed silently.

The election went smoothly. The people in that community were more than accommodating. The women prepared Igbo native meals like abacha ncha for us while the men offered us drinks. I even caught sight of the machete guy smiling at me.
6pm that day, I was back in Benin City, patiently waiting for my credit alert.

Yes! Onitsha is full of the unexpected just like every other city in Nigeria.
Yes! There are hoodlums in Onitsha.
Yes! There are 419ers in Onitsha.
But the heartfelt welcome and my short stay in that city has made me realise its not as bad as its been painted so long as you are streetwise.
This is Onitsha!