Black and Yellow

As a lagosian, the sight of  yellow buses with black stripes are not unfamiliar. The commercial buses in Lagos, commonly known as danfo, has been of great service, to most Lagosians. Some say, the buses have special abilities to turn it's drivers mad. The recklessness and sometimes, lack of intelligence of the average danfo driver is something I think we should all appreciate.

P.S: That's not shade, some people are just intellectually disadvantaged. C'est la vie.

Let's think of a few times, danfo and their drivers  helped us. First, let us talk about the origin of these vehicles of mass destruction sorry, transportation.

It all started way back in the 1920s, road-based bus transportation was pioneered in Lagos by two Nigerians, Mrs Charlotte Olajumoke Obasa (a leading indigenous entrepreneur of that time) and W.A. Dawodu. This was followed by the establishment of J.N. Zarpas, a company owned by Levantine expatriates. Zarpas dominated the Lagos transportation scene until their buses were acquired by the Lagos Town Council in 1958 to form the Lagos Municipal Transport Service (LMTS), but guess what, danfo still wasn't in existence. The situation remained the same until the 1960s when many operators went into the transport business. This resulted in the emergence of the Bolekaja, which literally means “come down and let’s fight” in Yoruba. 

Bolekaja was an average sized wood axial lorry that had only one wooden door at the passenger cabin at the back for passengers to embark and disembark. The sitting arrangement in the lorry (which was often over loaded) and the single entrance and exit point often led to fisticuffs between passengers who would tell each other to “come down let’s fight” (bolekaja). Bolekaja were usually made from Bedford lorry heads and locally made wooden passenger compartment. The government later banned the use of bolekaja for commercial passenger transport services and they are now used to carry foodstuff in rural communities

Then the Molue's came along, Molues took over when government banned the use of Bolekaja, for commercial passenger transport services. When bolekaja were banned, some transport operators replaced the wooden passenger cabins of their bolekaja with locally made metallic bus compartments. Thus the first molue buses were of the Bedford variety. However, with time the Mercedes Benz 911 flatbed truck, which had been fitted with locally made passenger compartments became the preferred brand for molue operators.

It is not clear what the origin of the term molue is. Some say that Molue is the corruption of “Maul Him”, a description given to the vehicle by the city’s elite who are piqued by the incessant manner the large bodied buses tear clothes and even flesh of passengers while either entering or disembarking as they reach their destinations. Molues are still in use in Lagos and just like in the past, they are not very decent, they are always rowdy, disorderly and unruly.

Danfo is a minibus taxi that, like the molue, emerged in the 1970s. The origin of the word "danfo" is not certain, but some say it means "hurry" in yoruba.

The first danfo buses were Volkswagen Kombi buses which seat twelve passengers. Other models are the Volkswagen transporter (popularly known as FEDECO after the Federal Electoral Commission of 1979-1983 which had a fleet of transporter buses), the Toyota Hiace, the Nissan Urvan, Mitsubishi L300, etc.

The danfo has become the main means of commercial transport in Lagos because of the fact that it plies virtually all bus routes.

I'd like to appreciate  danfo drivers, for the days they got me to work at record speed, for the days they shouted at their conductors for not giving me change 😂, the days they kept saying "Hanty, sorry o" because it was hot and traffic was a lot. 

To every danfo driver, I'd like to say Thank you for your service. 

According to Governor Ambode, danfos would be off the roads of Lagos soon. Do you think this is possible? Also share your best and worst danfo experience.

Bolekaja

Danfo

Molue

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