Friendly Robbers

“No forget your lip oh.”

The armed robber pointed at Tony’s badly torn, bleeding lip.

Tony was our driver.

“Take this five naira for tollgate and shine your eye as you dey drive. Plenty robbers like us dey front.”

Yes. Bloody lip. You read that right, sadly.

The good news was that we were all alive. The bad news was that no one was OK.

It was around 11pm on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and raining gently. We had just been robbed and were in shock.

Dad was picking me up from school because I’d been ill. One of the tyres went flat, so Tony stopped to change it and Dad got out to help.

Suddenly, four rough-looking men appeared from the bushes.

Tony tried to run.

They caught him and beat him up, telling him he was foolish because, frankly, where was he going?

Dad wasn’t opening his briefcase quickly enough, so he got some beating too.

Me?

I was used as the caution sign to keep incoming traffic away.

I had never prayed so much in my life.

The fever I’d had all day vanished.

Once they finally got the briefcase open and saw a good amount of cash, everything changed.

They were delighted.

They hugged each other.

They helped fix the bad tyre.

They practically ushered us on our way.

Dad even tried his luck.

“Bo, please, I have my glasses and paperwork in that briefcase. Abeg no vex. Take all the money, but give me the briefcase,” he pleaded.

“Hahaha! Oga, you dey craze. Take this five naira and get out of here before we change our minds!”

They laughed, pointing their guns at us while flinging Dad’s papers into the bush.

“Tony, drive! DRIVE!” Dad shouted as we sped off.

We were all soaked from the rain. My fever had returned.

The last thing I remember was wet papers everywhere. Noisy wipers going back and forth. Poor Tony drove, his badly torn lip still bleeding.

And my dad rocking me in the back seat, saying,

“We’re OK. It’s over.”

I woke up the following evening in hospital with my mum and aunt praying frantically beside my bed.

Tony’s lip had been stitched and he’d been discharged earlier that morning.