It was the 16th of September and I was supposed to be at Abuja that evening, by 6pm. So I left my house at Apata, by 1pm. The drive was smooth up to the roundabout facing the Plateau Specialist Hospital, Jos. I was coming from Joseph Gomwalk Road and ascending the road beside the hospital. All of a sudden, I saw this yellow PW Limited articulated truck hurtling down the road, moving dangerously against traffic and towards me. For a moment, I was bewildered. Why should the truck move against traffic when there were two police men directing vehicular movement at the roundabout and I had just seen men of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), directly in front of the hospital, in the seeming act of controlling traffic? However, the truck kept coming and filling up all the spaces ahead of me on the road. I am used to the recklessness of heavy duty truck drivers on Nigerian roads, so I edged my car as close as possible to inches within the open gutter at the side of the road. I had thought the truck driver, having seen me, would steer clear and just move straight ahead down Joseph Gomwalk Road, even though, on the wrong lane.
However, just as the head of the truck passed me, I saw its long metal trailer begin to curve towards my, now, stationary car. The driver was negotiating his way into the roundabout while on the wrong side of the road. This is crazy, I thought. By this time other cars had stopped behind me and there was no way to move back and prevent the long mass of steel, twisting towards me, from crushing my car. In panic I started horning and shouting at the driver. He was not watching his mirror, instead he was looking ahead at the traffic police man and FRSC officers, who kept asking him to move against the direction of other vehicles in the roundabout. Then the crushing of my headlights and fender started and I had to increase the intensity of my horning and shouting. The truck did not stop until it had fully turned into the roundabout and completed the destruction of my fender, headlights and driver’s door. At a point, and in panic mode, I reversed the car and rammed into another car parked inches behind me. At this time the FRSC officers and the traffic police had seen what was going on and alerted the truck driver. But it was too late. The deed had been done.
I managed to squeeze out of my car and ran angrily to the driver who had now parked the truck, facing Joseph Gomwalk Road, beside the hospital’s fence.
‘You must pay!’ I shouted angrily, as the driver came down from his truck. One of the FRSC officers came to us and in Hausa told him that if he had been more observant he would have prevented what had just happened. But the traffic warden with the name tag, David Ojo, who was now also with us, at that instance, tried to defend the driver. Pointing to his chest he kept shouting in Hausa, ‘I asked him to drive against traffic, I asked him to drive against traffic’. Then I asked Officer David Ojo, who I later found out was from Kogi State, whether he had directed the driver to hit me. The implication of my question hit him and he vigorously shook his head and now turned to blame the driver for not using his mirror. The driver looked confused and kept saying in Hausa that it was the police man that kept directing him to move against traffic.
‘That is not my business o!’ I screamed. ‘All I know is that you will pay’. I whipped out my phone and dialed someone I knew at Toyota. I told him about the damage to my car and asked for an estimate of the cost of repair. When I told the driver it was going to cost 80000 naira according to my man at Toyota, he was visibly shaken. He then said in Hausa, ‘let me call my boss’. He called the boss and Officer Ojo magnanimously decided to wait and explain the incident to the driver’s boss.
We waited for two hours for the boss. At about 3pm a yellow Toyota Hilux van with PW Ltd written, in black, on it pulled up beside the truck. From where I was standing, I saw alighting from the van a chubby European. His ash-coloured vest exposed his tattooed arms and chest. He was a little less than five feet tall and was closely followed by a groveling policeman of about the same height, who brandished a gun, and was obviously a bodyguard. We stood at our distance watching the truck driver meet his boss. A few moments later, the driver beckoned us to come. The policeman and I walked up to them. The European, in halting, accented English, asked me what happened. I only managed to understand what he said because the accent was really unintelligible but I told him what happened. He asked Officer Ojo for his own version of the story. Officer Ojo narrated a similar story to mine.
‘Is it because I Whiteman?’ the short European asked in his faltering English. I got alarmed. He reminded me of those miserable characters from Jerry Springer Show. I asked him what he meant by his question.
‘Is it because I Whiteman two of you tell same story?’ He asked.
‘I am telling you what happened, not because you are Whiteman’, Officer Ojo, obviously agitated, said.
‘But the driver needs space to turn the truck,’ the Whiteman grunted.
‘Yes, but I heard the driver telling you that he wasn’t watching his back and was moving against traffic,’ I replied. ‘What have you to say about that?’ But he kept repeating ad nauseum ‘the driver needs space to turn the truck’ and ‘is it because I Whiteman?’. I got angry and pointing my finger at him, told him to stop this nonsense of Whiteman and address the issue of his driver damaging my car.
‘Stop pointing your f**** fingers at me!’ he yelled. ‘Look I am a very busy man and you should count yourself lucky that I came here. See, I only need to make a few phone calls and this matter will be over, in my favour’. What he said, in addition to the garbled accent got me into a rage. Who was this cartoon character? Who was this white clown trying to show off his importance in MY OWN country, just because he could afford to move around with an armed policeman? I also yelled back at him and Officer Ojo tried to calm things down. The police guard at this time drew closer, menacingly fingering the trigger. We all then decided to go and take a look at my car, which was parked some distance away. He saw the damage and I guess he sensed I was spoiling for a fight. He changed tactics.
‘Look I am going to help you,’ he said pompously, raising his eyes to look at me from his short frame.
‘Help?’ I looked down at the disheveled hair on the oblong head of this arrogant squat man.
‘See, your car is damaged; it’s not the end of the world. How much do you think it will cost to repair it?
‘80000 naira,’ I said.
‘Ok. We share it 50-50. After the repairs I will give you 50% of the cost’.
‘Do you want to follow me to confirm the cost?’ I asked.
‘No, I am a very busy man.’
‘How do I get back to you?’ I asked.
Pointing in the direction of Old Airport Road, he said, ‘just come there and ask of me.’
I said, ‘who are you?’
‘Gerry’
‘Gerry who?’
‘Just Gerry’
‘Can I have your number?’
‘Let me write it in your palms’
‘No,’ I said.
‘But I write in my palms,’ he said, stretching out his palms and the hideous tattoos on the whole length of his arms.

‘Well, you are in construction. I am not.’ I said.
He searched the breast pocket of his dust-covered vest and came out with a pen. Then he pulled out a torn piece of paper from one of the baggy pockets of his grimy brown trousers. He scrawled frantically and handed the paper to me. I looked at it and repeated what he had written to the hearing of all.
‘Gerry PW Limited Old Airport Road, Jos. 08134617117’. I asked Officer David Ojo for his number and from his phone he read it out to me.
‘08036923790 of Police Headquarters Jos.’
It all seemed to have ended amicably until two days later, which was the 18th of September, when I got to the PW Ltd Camp at Old Airport Road to show Gerry the bills for the repairs. When I was ushered into his office, a stuffy makeshift metal container box, I noticed this time that there were two armed policemen hovering outside the office. I showed him the bills. He looked at them and made two phone calls, apparently to confirm the prices I had given him.
‘Your Toyota man has done you 419 o!’
‘How do you mean?’
‘The cost of repair is too much o! I don’t think I can pay this o!’
I looked at him shocked and disbelieving that such nonsense was coming from him.
‘But I told you two days ago that it would cost 80000 naira and I asked you to follow me to confirm the cost.’ He was quiet. ‘You refused to follow me claiming that you were a busy man.’
I continued in a measured tone, ‘and you said you’d give me 50% of the cost,’
‘I said I’d help you,’ he hummed, in his irksome accent.
‘Help?’ I was beginning to boil. ‘I don’t need your help. It is justice that you pay for what your driver has damaged. You agreed to that!’ I was now shouting and could see through the window his guards drawing closer.
‘Calm down sir, calm down,’ he gritted his teeth as he tried to pacify me.
‘Why should I calm down? Look, I am on my way to Abuja now and I just thought I’d come here, pick up 40000 naira and continue on my journey. But what you are trying to show is that you don’t care about my wasted time and resources.’
‘I’ve not shown you any disrespect since you came into my office. Calm down.’
‘It is disrespect to say that you won’t keep your own part of the negotiation. Look Gerry, if I had the slightest suspicion that you were this dishonest, I wouldn’t have left you to leave that spot two days ago.’
‘I’ve not shown you any disrespect since you came into my office. Calm down,’ he repeated.
‘Ok. Show me some respect. Give me my 40000 naira’
‘Sorry, PW Limited gives only 5000 naira for any vehicle damaged by our trucks. There was no life lost. But I am ready to give you 10000 naira.’
‘Mr Gerry, are you saying that you are acting according to your company’s policy.’
He said, ‘yes’ with the assuredness of a boy whose father had asked him to go steal from his neighbours.
‘That is stupid and callous. Do you know how much a pair of Toyota Yaris headlights cost? Do you know how much auto based paints cost? What about my fender? Do you know how much a new one costs?’
‘See I am not from your culture, but here we only give 5000 naira as long as no life is lost.’ The guards and other workers had heard our dialogue. None was bold enough to come in and arbitrate. They were too scared of their tattooed master.
I looked angrily at this caricature of a Whiteman and wondered what to do to him. I knew that I couldn’t do much. I was in PW’s construction site, more or less, a maximum security prison. I was out-manned, out-armed and out-witted by this dubious character, who had led me to believe he was honourable because he worked with a well known construction company.
‘I am not collecting your miserable 10000. Send it back to your poor folks at home. They need it more than me.’ I walked out of his office.
As I walked towards my car, I was amused by the tricks of poor unconscionable Gerry trying to make ends meet in Naija. Gerry’s problem may stem from his perception of 5000 or 10000 naira as a big deal to Nigerians. As one of his workers told me, he was a roadside mechanic in Ireland but here in Naija he is ògá, lording over Nigerians who are more educated and even more intelligent than he is. May be none of the daily paid workers earn up to 10000 naira a month. Ten thousand naira may just be the world to Gerry and his PW Limited masters.

This still shows that anything like a gentleman's agreement in my dear country Nigeria is noting to take serious. OP, I empathize with u on your loss. I still believe if u share your story on other blogs & forums, people with similar bad experiences with the so called company can fill us in with their experiences. More so, nobody likes a bad press. I still wish u can still report the case officially to the appropriate quarters & follow it up to a good conclusion.

I feel a picture equals a thousand words. Please give us 2 or 3 pictures to assess the damage.

dsunmade: I feel a picture equals a thousand words. Please give us 2 or 3 pictures to assess the damage.

seconded