The driver slammed the sliding door of the Toyota Sienna shut with a loud, metallic crack. He wiped a streak of sweat and dark motor oil from his forehead and shouted to the noisy motor park, "We need just one more person!"
It was a lie, of course. It is the oldest, most universally accepted lie in Nigeria. I was sitting in the middle row, my knees pressed painfully against the back of the driver's seat, and I knew for a fact we needed three more people. But in a Nigerian motor park, the truth always bends to the hustle.
Outside my window, the Ife Park was a living, breathing theatre of chaos. The midday sun was violently hot, baking the asphalt and filling the air with the smell of diesel exhaust and overripe oranges. A young girl balancing a massive tray of gala and lukewarm drinks on her head navigated between moving vehicles with careless grace. Nearby, a park union worker in a faded yellow shirt was screaming at a taxi driver, violently demanding his daily cut with a thick wooden stick raised in the air.
Then, the sliding door of our Sienna slid open again, letting in a wave of hot air. But it wasn’t our missing passenger. It was the preacher.
He wore an oversized, slightly faded suit and carried a worn, leather-bound Bible in one hand and a small metal bell in the other.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
"Praise the Lord, my people!" his voice boomed, filling the cramped, suffocating space of the vehicle. "I have come to commit this journey into the hands of the Almighty. The devil is a liar, but we shall not be his victims today!"
For the next ten minutes, we were a captive congregation. The preacher began to violently bind the blood-sucking demons of the Lagos-Ibadan expressway. He prayed against armed robbers in the bushes. He prayed against brake failure. He prayed against the dark spirits that cause tyres to burst at top speed.
Beside me, an elderly woman in a faded Ankara wrapper closed her eyes tightly. She rocked back and forth, muttering fervent, desperate "Amens".
Sitting there, watching the preacher sweat through his faded collar, it hit me. We are deeply religious people, yes. But half the time, our prayers are just a trauma response to the government.
The preacher wasn't really fighting spiritual entities; he was fighting terrible infrastructure. We pray against brake failure because there are no strict vehicle inspection laws to keep bad cars off the road. We pray against blood-sucking highway demons because the roads are riddled with crater-sized potholes that swallow cars whole. We pray against armed robbers because the security system has completely failed us.
In a country where the government cannot guarantee your basic safety, God becomes the ultimate minister of works and housing. Religion steps in to fill the massive, terrifying voids left by a broken system.
When the prayer ended, the preacher didn't leave. Instead, he pulled out a small, woven basket. "My people, as you sow into the work of God today, no evil shall befall you on this road."
I watched the elderly woman beside me untie a tight knot at the edge of her wrapper. She pulled out a crumpled, dirty two-hundred Naira note and dropped it into the basket. She wasn’t just giving an offering to God. She was paying a spiritual tax. She was buying divine insurance because the earthly system offered her none.
The preacher thanked us, stepped out, and moved to the next bus. Ten minutes later, our final passengers arrived. The driver turned the ignition, the engine coughed to life, and we pulled out of the park.
As we hit the highway, bracing for the first set of potholes, the elderly woman beside me finally relaxed her grip on her bag. We were moving forward, relying entirely on faith, fifty naira, and the desperate hope that the road wouldn't swallow us today.