The longest 40 minutes of my life

Josh
Josh
Jul 25, 2017 · 4 min read

21km of thrill, suspense and the palpable fear of death.
That’s what riding from Ikoyi to Oshodi at 40 miles/hr, across third mainland bridge, on a 2 wheeler felt like.
 I had just rounded up the third of as many very important business meetings in a space of 5 hours and I was mentally exhausted but I had one more meeting, the most important, one meeting to rule them all and it was an appointment with a potential high net worth client.
 Alfred Rewane/Osborne traffic was doing me wrong and with an hour thirty to get to my next meeting, I did what I’d consider the riskiest thing I’ve done yet. Without a helmet, without a leather jacket or any of the protective gear a rider should have on, I got on an okada. To be honest, all I could think of were the gory stories of accidents on 3MB. What if I fall of? What if the tire bursts? So many "what ifs" and I know what we say about negative thinking but I couldn’t help it. I tried to distract myself by making a video of the “beautiful waterfront and the underage fishermen” but twenty seconds in, the bike got into a bump that made me look right into the eyes of the sea (that’s what it is right?) and start to imagine falling into it. I can’t even swim in a bathtub.
My mum will go crazy to know I did all this.
To put things in context, I was involved in a ghastly (a life was lost) okada accident in 2016, I barely survived but I did and it was a MIRACLE. I still have the jacket and cotton shirt I wore on the day, hanging somewhere in my room to remind me that I’m alive for a reason. And that Startup hustle gotta pay. Lol.
The bike I was on was racing so hard that we saw the heap of granite too late. The guy tried swerving and I commend his agility but at that speed, it was futile. The bike hit the obstruction, went into a full stunt grade death spin in the air and came crashing with both of us beneath it. It hit the floor, dragging us, me face down, for a few metres on the tarred Lagos-Badagry expressway till it came or rather grinded to a stop.
In the seconds that followed, I toggled between consciousness and unconsciousness and then strength and a sense of awareness came from a place that I can’t explain. That’s why I call it a miracle.
I gathered my stuff, laptop, phone and all, staggered or rather got helped to my feet by the mob who had gathered and then I saw the reflectio of what I looked like for the first time post-impact. I was bruised and bloodied and out of extreme hysteria, I remember asking one of the people around if i would ever look human again. People talk about saying a last prayer. In those moments, I remember shouting “Jesus” a couple of times while I was in the air but saying a prayer was the last thing on my mind. In the same breath, I got on another bike, and asked to be taken to a hospital. Even the feeling of rushing breeze on my skin hurt like hell. I was a mess and I shouldn’t bore you with gory details. I passed out in pain when I got there and my parents (including, obviously, my mum who had just gotten into the country after a trip and was looking forward to seeing me) and some church members were welcomed to the agonizing sight of me hurt so badly that my clothes and skin had pretty much mingled at multiple pain points from the nasty shredding.
I still don’t understand how I didn’t have any fracture or need cosmetic surgery after the two months I was hospitalized. Recovery was long and painful, really painful (think of spirit on open wounds all over your body) and humbling but it didn’t break my resolve.
If I wasn’t trying to beat Lagos traffic after a business development meeting ended much later than expected, maybe I wouldn’t have these scars. Not to say I regret going though, not at all. I’m an entrepreneur, my business meant everything to me and I did it because I had to attend a meeting that could potentially grow my startup, only one of the thousands of meetings that Nigerian entrepreneurs attend every month, usually with zero actual outcome.
There are risks to take at every turn in basic day to day life. Your business is likely one of the nine that will fail, out of ten, so starting up is a risk, you could probably be the one in eight people that die in their sleep (the Nigerian in you is saying God forbid), so sleeping is some kind of a risk, people get into trouble they know nothing about so heading out and about town carries with it some degree of risk and FGS you’re 1 percent likely to die of some accidental kind of overdose or medicine abuse in your lifetime so even legitimate drug use is a risk! So while I agree that wisdom is profitable to direct, risks are a part of the struggle not apart from it.
I’m grateful I survived this, I’m even more grateful the meeting yielded positive outcome, I still have my 20 second video to show for the ride but honestly, I pray I never have to do it again.
The 500 Naira bike fare was in some way my saving grace. It could very easily have been my last card. Literally.

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