Our Adventure at Oko

By Sanya Oloruntoba and Akin Adesina

 This is an exciting true story of a car breakdown adventure on May 20th, 2006.

OKO is a small village near a much larger town called EJIGBO on the road to Ibadan from Ilorin , the capital of Kwara State . Akin, in his school days, had schooled at Ejigbo Baptist College . Naturally, Oko is a village well known and often visited by him with other students in those days. Little did he know that the village will be the focus of a car breakdown and an interesting adventure on Saturday, May 20^th, 2006.

We left Ilorin at about 9am on that Saturday for Ibadan which, in normal circumstances, would take just about 3 hours by car. I traveled with Akin with the aim of returning to Ilorin on the same day after dropping him in his house at Ibadan . I also wanted very badly to see his parents whom I had not been able to visit for a long time. Another reason for going on this journey with Akin was that the driver we have was at that time only a week old with us. He had never driven to any place outside Ilorin , much more to a complex city like Ibadan . I therefore decided to go along and guide him back to Ilorin later.

About 10 kilometers from OKO, we were stopped by the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC). The FRSC are employed and empowered to check reckless driving on the highways. We were driving very carefully and so we were surprised by the abrupt stoppage of our car.

The Corps Officer in charge of the beat politely approached us and asked to see the driver’s license. He held on to it and asked if we have a fire extinguisher and an emergency reflective triangle. At this point, Akin and I came out of the car and told the officer that fire extinguishers and emergency triangles are meant to be carried by commercial vehicles and not private cars.

“No, No Sir” he said. “All vehicles must carry fire extinguishers and emergency triangles” he added and produced a document in which there were more than 100 chargeable offences, including absence of fire extinguishers and reflective triangles. The fine for any of those offences was hefty, including the impounding of the vehicle.

Akin and I looked downcast and realised that we have to change our stance. We told the officer that in law, there are two types of offenders – first offenders and habitual offenders. We agreed that we were first offenders by virtue of the fact that we were ignorant of the law on fire extinguishers etc. We argued further that first offenders in civilized societies are usually warned and let go. Our plea seems to work and he advised that we buy our fire extinguisher and emergency reflective triangle in any big town on the way or in Ibadan . We thanked him and drove away.

About 5 kilometers away from OKO, the driver told us that he smelt something burning in the engine and we advised him to stop immediately by the side of the road. As we got out we found that the fluid from the radiator had leaked and the engine had overheated. When we opened the bonnet we found that somehow and sometime the radiator cap had been opened by someone who was careless in locking it up properly. The driver later confessed that he opened the radiator and maybe he did not close it up properly.

By this time all attempt to restart the car failed after we have allowed the engine to cool and refilled the radiator with water. THE ENGINE MUST HAVE KNOCKED, WE FEARED.

The breakdown occurred just opposite a village church on the way to OKO. We thought, God must be watching over us. It was now getting so hot and unbearable in the scorching sun. We made our way to the little church building. The lush mango tree in front of the church building provided a much welcome shade.

I called Mum in Ilorin to let her know how our journey, or should I say Safari, was going. We asked the driver to go to the village of OKO and bring any mechanic he could find to help us. Fortunately, there were numerous motorcycle taxis running on that road. He took a taxi, went to Oko and returned with a mechanic.

The mechanic did his best to no avail. He then suggested that the fault may be in the ignition system. Off he went to Oko to bring a car electrician. The electrician and the mechanic worked for hours without finding the fault. At the end, the electrician suggested that the gasket of the engine must have burnt up. The mechanic, as is common practice with roadside mechanics, used a small pipe to suck the water which has found its way into the main engine block. Our hearts missed their beats because that smell the driver reported, must have been the gasket burning!!.

WHAT DO WE DO THEN? Our roadside mechanic and electrician suggested that we send for a towing vehicle and tow the car to OKO where there are garages to help. I was relieved when they said there was a ‘good’ garage in OKO. I thought, free at last! We agreed and at enormous cost the car was towed to OKO by a mini bus and a rubber towing rope. We sat on the back seat of the car while the mechanic steered the car on tow. It was really crazy. However, on reaching OKO the car was parked at the road side work shed of the mechanic. There were no garages of any sort around. I asked ‘where is the garage’? The mechanic, wondering what I meant, responded with an unsettling smile on his face, Continue on next column>>>

We found a shed. A woman selling fruits allowed us to sit on benches used by her customers and others. It was a fascinating sight to see how relaxed people were, going about their business, while Akin and I were tensed up wondering how we will get out of our ordeal.

Our mechanic called a fellow worker and the two of them set out to dismantle the top of the engine to get to the burnt gasket  – all with crowbars, screw drivers and spanners as their tools!!. Our hearts missed a beat again at the thought that the engine of our car was being dismantled at the roadside and not in a garage, for a major job of changing a burnt engine gasket. Akin, shocked at the sight, said “God have mercy!”.

As the work progressed and the day was going, we decided to make a contingency plan. The plan was to ask Akins’s daddy in Ibadan to send his car and driver to OKO. We had contacted him before to report the breakdown. In fact, Akin had contacted Yemisi in Nairobi by cell phone, not only to report the breakdown, but also to give her minute by minute news of the progress or lack of progress being made.

The idea of getting dad’s car from Ibadan was that if the repair on the car could not be completed before dark, we will go to IBADAN TO SLEEP AND LEAVE OUR DRIVER AND THE MECHANICS TO CONTINUE WORKING ON IT.  That, we thought, would be better than sleeping in a ramshackle hotel in the village, if one could be found.

Daddy in Ibadan responded to our call by sending, not only his driver, but also the Reverend Kayode Adesina to Oko. Mum in Ibadan sent along a basket load of food and ice water together with a table cloth and napkins. And so, under the mango tree at Oko, by the roadside, we used the benches available as tables and chairs for our lunch. It was the best lunch we ever had. (The Reverend Kayode Adesina is Akins’s younger brother).

The time was now 4pm and the mechanics have at last got to the gasket of the engine. Truly, the gasket had burnt and the task now was to remove it and get a replacement. There were no shops in OKO and nearby Ejigbo selling the correct type of gaskets for our car. The mechanics informed us that the place to get one was the town of OSHOGBO , about 50 kilometers away.

The Rev Adesina came to our rescue on this. He volunteered to drive daddy’s car to Oshogbo with the mechanics to hunt for a new gasket. They found one and by 6pm, fitting the new gasket and reassembling the engine started. So many people gathered around the car (men, boys and girls, or anyone made curious by the sight) to watch how the village mechanics were working on the car at night. Without electricity and with the night so starkly dark, they stood no chance of being able to fix the car. The head mechanic yelled out for a torch light. So began the unbelievable attempt to put the engine together, one bolt and screw at a time. 

By 8pm precisely, the fitting was completed. We stood round the car with our hearts beating heavily and waiting for the engine to be started. The head mechanic then called our driver to start the car. He yelled “give the car some fire!” With one kick, the engine roared to life!!  Hurrah! The place erupted into applause for the ‘Nobel Prize’ road side mechanics that have done their village proud on a night to be remembered by all! His job done, the head mechanic, like an astronaut just landing from a space mission, walked away proudly into the cool of the night - waving and shaking hands as he went, obviously mindful of how proud he has made his village. It was a victory walk. OKO was proud.

With Akin driving and Reverend Adesina leading in the other car, we reached Ibadan by about 10.30pm and fell into the warm embrace of Mum and Dad in AkinYemisi’s house there.

EPILOG: On returning to Ilorin the next day we called at the market in Ibadan to buy two sets of fire extinguishers and emergency reflective triangles.

When I asked the driver why we should buy two sets, he said the second set is for mum’s car in Ilorin .

On reflection the half an hour we spent with the FRSC, ten kilometers to OKO before they released us, as first offenders, must have cooled the engine down enough to get us to our breakdown point near OKO.

Believe it or not, we were stopped again by a new group of the FRSC near the same spot as before. When they asked for our fire extinguisher and reflective triangle again, the driver opened the boot to show it to them. “Why are you carrying two reflective triangles and two fire extinguishers” the Corps Officer asked? “That is another story” said the driver.

=The End=

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