People don’t care about lives in Nigeria and I’m reminded often.
I just had an experience that almost gave me a heart attack.

After wrapping a shoot at Ikorodu last night, this morning I decided (for the first time) to take a boat from the jetty back to the island
The jetty

We paid for tickets to Lekki. And although it had rained earlier and it looked like it was still going to rain, I didn’t worry too much because I saw some big boats, with covering and also figured that it’d be a short trip. 20 mins or so.
Only for us to be ushered into this joke

Apparently it’s the only Lekki boat.
Anyway, no wahala. Shey folks are entering? Must not be so bad. We entered and hit the water.
That was when I knew I had made a mistake.
This boat looks like it hasn’t been maintained since God knows when. IT FELT LIKE IT TOO.
Anyway..

We kept on.
About 7 minutes later. The boat just stopped.
Something entered the engine or so.
Aight cool. It happens, I’m familiar with getting on boats (mostly outside this bladclaaat place sha) and it’s happened once or twice. Probably water vegetation. It’s cool.

But I’m my experience it’s not a long thing. You pull out the debris/plants caught in the engine and you chuck it back to the water and get on your way. But the engine guy and driver seemed to be shalaye-ing something amongst themselves.
Several minutes later, all good.
Hmmm ok.

We hit the water again.
About 3 mins later. Engine stops again.
This time for much longer + more shalaye. Passengers started getting antsy. The smell of fuel filled the boat.
The water was VERY choppy so we were just bobbing in the middle of deep water with no land in sight

We kept asking what the issue was. Driver no wan talk. Engine guy no talk.
They were just talking to themselves.
Some people had started trying to call the company, He Reigns boats. From their name you can already guess the only insurance they have is blood of Jesus insurance.

After several minutes of passengers complaining, people panicking, me calling on to my chi to not allow me die in the Lagos lagoon of all places. The boat started again..
BUT guess what? Like 2 minutes later, stopped again.
Panic rising at this point.
Then my dad calls me..

My heart entered my stomach.
The thing is, almost every single time I have been in a near death experience, my dad calls right at the moment.
Car accident, Abuja BH bombing, hospitalization etc
We joke about it, that he gets a bat signal when I’m in danger.
I didn’t answer

So he texted, wasn’t calling for any particular reason. Just to check in.
Hay God
My dad literally never calls anyone at almost 1pm on a Monday just to check in because busiest day for him.
Bad sign?
I really start to panic now like hyperventilate
We’re still stuck btw

The boat company was not even answering.
Someone called the jetty to send another boat. At this point, I contemplated sending out our co-ordinates in case shit the fan. Then boat starts moving. Ok good, thank you Jesus. Please get us back to land. Oh hey look, it’s now raining

Anyway, long story short. This dance happened at least four more times. Rain got heavier, water got choppier, I prayed harder, glued to the map trying to calculate the distance to lekki jetty
I started thinking of all the fatal boating accidents I’ve seen on TV