“See this yeye man o, after wey u don stand for one hour for queue, you enter bus come give up your seat for ordinary woman…stupid woman wrapper like you’’.
We were all passengers on a Lagos BRT bus. The fully loaded bus, bursting at the seams, with passengers ‘’hanging’’ ‘’bumper-to-bumper’’ on the long aisle, was heading towards Obalende from Ajah.
Earlier, at the BRT terminus, I had arrived to join some passengers standing impatiently in a long, winding queue. But there was no bus in sight. After more than an hour’s wait under the blazing Lagos sun, a bus finally arrived. Inside, passengers crammed into every available space. I settled into a seat close to the aisle and the journey soon began. Then I noticed her. The lady, the subject of the bigoted “woman wrapper’’ outburst from a middle-aged man was standing a few bodies away. She was sandwiched between two men. With a heavy travelling bag in one hand, a heavy Ghana-must-go bag also dangled on her left shoulder.
