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I really don’t know how new this trick is in Lagos but it was sure new to me yesterday when I was driving my wife and my little princess to church in Victoria Island. It was on a Sunday and the road was quite empty, along the expressway leading from Ijora to Apongbon, was a Toyota space van parked at the reserve lane with its bonnet up and a man neatly dressed waving cars to stop and looking very helpless.

 

The man looked like an executive and my heart went out for him (I immediately placed myself in similar situation on a Sunday morning with nobody willing to help me). May be he needed a phone to call his mechanic or just engine oil or water; I really could not tell. I did something I normally would not do on a week day, slowed down on the expressway beside the car; hit the window and the caution light button to ask the man what he needed, all the time looking at the rear mirror to ascertain no car in sight.

 

 

 As the man was begging me (using his finger to make the sign) to park at the reserve lane so he can tell me his problem (s), two things immediately happened; I observed the Toyota Space van highly tinted and I could make the feature of a man in the driver’s seat. The second thing was God’s blessing in disguise; two motorcycles ran past me; one nearly hit my cat but swerved to the front of the Toyota space van while the other motorcycle uprooted my side mirror.

 

 

There were two passengers each on the two motorcycles and they all appeared to have injured each other. Everything happened at a speed; more motorcycles started coming from nowhere. The man that was begging for help that his car was spoilt immediately entered his Toyota space van and the car sped away; I was shocked, the sound of the engine for the Toyota space van was excellent – nothing was actually wrong with the car.

 

I had the motorcyclists to contend with; but theirs was a much lesser evil than what I just witnessed in Lagos on a bright Sunday morning – an attempt to steal my car. My saviors were these northern motorcyclists who knew nothing about traffic rules and did not see my caution light flashing for any incoming vehicle to stop. As you may have guessed, the motorcyclists increased and they obviously demanded compensation for the injury and spoilt motorbikes.

 

 

I knew I was not at fault but these motorcyclists, who were totally ignorant at what has just happened, saved me from an impending car theft. I obliged them after a military man intervened and told the motorcyclists in Hausa Language that they were wrong for ignoring the warning light which was obviously still on. I took the injured party to their preferred clinic; just some minor injury. I paid for their health and waited for one with a deep cut to get sewed-up.

 

I went out of this incident with just one side mirror ripped off; I was totally grateful to God. This is indeed the doing of the Lord. Then something else started bothering me; we are becoming hardened by the day to help our fellow human beings. Why do fraudsters and thieves use human sympathy as a tool to get results; about 90% of fraudsters use these sympathy tactics to commit all manners of atrocity.

 

What kind of human beings are we going to turn to if we cannot help our fellow men. Experiences like the ones I just had, will definitely on a subconscious level, hinder me from helping anybody with a car problem on the road. I remember my decision to stop having house helps when the only one my wife brought from her village stole her money and some her belongings and ran away after enrolling her in a primary school and footing al her educational bills which I was not mandated to do. The worse part of that situation was the police involvement accusing my wife of human ritualism; we later found the girl with a man.

 

 

When do we help? How do we help and worst of all should we be helping at all? A young man begs you for a job and two months down the line, he is already ripping you off. A lady begs you to hold her bag in the airport so she could rush to the rest room, only to realize that you are with illegal drugs. Your relative begs you for twenty thousand naira and you give; the relative suddenly believes you have so much and you become an enemy when you cannot maintain your initial benevolence. The list goes on and on…

 

 

 

We are mandated in the bible to help our fellow brothers when we can (stories like the Good Samaritan, teachings on giving the poor, etc). When do we draw this particular line or is it better not to initiate it at all? I realize that those that help people are more prone to danger than those that do not give a hoot about their fellow brothers. I believe we need answers to this challenge or we may end up a totally hardened being. I saw this particular quote after the incident and I could not help laughing: “The hands that help are holier than the lips that pray……..”