KUBWA, A Town Where Every Car Owner Is A Transporter

First darkness and then light. That is the best way to savour the beauty of a town: to arrive in the thick of night and wake up the next morning to capture the scenery; like photography, where negative prints slowly turns to sharp-coloured photos, sights and sounds etch on your senses, filtered through mellowed rays of light from the rising sun. That way, the novelty lingers.

The dynamics applies to Kubwa, a satellite town located 13 kilometres from the Federal Capital City of Abuja when I found my way into the town less than an hour before midnight like a man groping his way in the dark.
I wake up the next morning to behold the town’s rugged beauty; ringed on all sides by rolling hills, dotted by urban salons and shops, churches and chapels, and small, paint-smartened houses in subtly green environment. The roads dip and rise over rocky terrain in a fashion that offers sneaky vistas miles away. Riots of red and rusty roofs, a splash of green and blue rooftops thrusts into your view. And a febrile traffic that weaves with verve and vitality. It is well known that satellite towns around the city of Abuja are rowdy and over-congested; Kubwa, however, is different from the pack.

Kubwa is a town of many parts. And there is a subtext to the names of every location. ‘Kubwa village’ is not the abode of the natives or some primitive group of people; it is the place where the poor live.

Close by is the sprawling market and the adjoining neighbourhood where the ‘not-well-to-do’ lives. There you will find the red-light district whose proper name is Dogon-Daji Street, but people prefer to call it ‘Woman Boku,’ meaning “Women come a dime a dozen.” Kareem considers it a waste of euphemism calling it anything else but “Prostitutes’ Headquarters.” In that neighbourhood, low-price prostitutes offer escapes for dark desires in dingy brothels and dilapidated shacks. As you drift uptown, the face of the town improves. Federal Housing is the town’s Highbrow area where civil servants, and well-to-do, self-employed businessmen live. The aggregate of the town’s populace is neither lower crust in outlook, nor upper class, but a tapestry of dirt poor and mild affluence.

Being close to Abuja is taking its toll on Kubwa by way of traffic congestion. To escape this stranglehold, residents working in Abuja who wants to resume in their office promptly by 8 a.m., or earlier, leaves as early as 5:30 am to avoid being trapped in the traffic jam for which the Kubwa expressway is fast becoming notorious for. Commuters stuck in the traffic deal with this little frustration in silence. The traffic situation in this particular axis stretches up to five kilometers or more, aggravated by on-going expansion works on the expressway. The traffic jam sometimes last till noon. Car owners with ‘money minds’ are quick to spot the ‘goldmine’ in the Kubwa expressway rush hours.

The teeming crowds that parade along the road frantically wave down private cars in effort to thumb down a lift as the crawl-and-cruise traffic creeps past them. “Everyone who owns a car is a transporter,” Kareem jokes on a morning he forgets his wallet at home, all in haste to reach Wuse within the shortest time possible. To refuel his car, the host of commuters on the roadside provides a stopgap. “This is what an average car owner living in Kubwa would do if he finds himself in an awkward position.” Kareem stops a distance away and picks four passengers, workers who are already getting late to their office in the city.”  “Your money na N100,” he informs them.

On other occasion, suchan act of benevolence. He recalls: “many years ago, one man gave meand couple of friends a ride on one raining day. As we attempted to pay him our fare he told all of us, “use your money to pay your tithes this Sunday and if you are not a Christian, give it as alms to almajiris.”

That incident, he says, pricks his conscience each time he charges passengers the standard N100 fare. While we are stalled in the hold-up around Berger junction, still another drama adds a different angle to the situation. A sleek Mercedes slids to a halt near a group of youths waiting by the kerb. The driver, an elderly man, with a crown of grey, pokes his head out of his car and makes his choice of passengers. The car slips away with three ladies, leaving four young men standing on the kerb.

However, inside the town of Kubwa, transportation is the least worry. White-striped, green colour cars and buses of the FCT cruise up and down the major streets, plying Kubwa and neigbouring towns.  Motorcycles banished from Abuja metropolis also work the streets for as cheap as N30 to N50 to get people to anywhere within Kubwa. First-time visitors need not be bothered with an address book to get to their destinations. All that is required is the name of the neighbourhood/street and an exact stop point. For instance, Say ‘NYSC by mango tree’ or ‘2:2 by Cupid’ to any motorcyclist and they will stop you right on the spot.

Even though there are motels to accommodate travelers to the town, there is wisdom in arriving the town early enough. The town sleeps by midnight, and by then it is difficult to get motorcycles. Late arrivals may have to contend with the discomfort of spending the night like a bird without a branch to perch on. The town of Kubwa observes its sleeping schedule and its people sleep with their two eyes closed.