The Jam

My dad's church is located in the village which is about 30km from where we live in the city. Every Sunday, the family travels to the village for worship and sometimes for church programmes within the week. Along the road to my village in Iddah, Kaduna state is a small town called Tafa. People who live in this town are mostly tanker drivers and usually park their tankers and lorry along the road leaving just a narrow path for drivers to maneuver their way through to the other side. Drivers who are unfamiliar with the town sometimes run into a parked truck or clash with another in an attempt to dodge the car ahead of them, causing a blockage on the main road.

A large tanker truck had an accident one fateful Saturday and fell on the narrow road. The truck had fallen horizontally blocking the entire road. We had no knowledge of what had happened the night before and we drove through that same road hoping to arrive in the village in 30 minutes. Unfortunately we entered a traffic jam known as hold-up. No car was moving forward and no car could reverse because other cars had driven to that point which was narrow. My dad enquired how long the traffic jam had been and he was told for 3 hours and no one had moved an inch from where they parked.

People who were a bit fortunate or maybe unfortunate joined the one-way lane and again caused another hold-up on the other lane. No car was moving forward nor reversing, everyone was static as we couldn't see the beginning nor the end of the traffic. An hour turned two and it kept counting. My dad's major concern was his fellowship time, he wasn't bothered about us who kept pushing his car to ignite each time there was a movement.

All hope was lost when suddenly a convoy passed through that road. It became necessary for soldiers to clear the one-way lane that was blocked due to car jam. My dad, who was good at driving, followed them closely until we were out. We spent 5 hours on the traffic that day but we were still lucky to meet the service half way.