When You Don't Know Your Friend's Name

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the unemployment rate in Nigeria was 14.2% in the last quarter of 2016 (up from 13.9% in the preceding quarter).

Bad as this looks, I think it's actually much worse than the numbers show.

Let me paint a scenario.

Say Mr. Emeka Babatunde Ahmed has a job or is employed or engaged in some meaningful way and he is on his way to work on a Monday morning.

The time is 7:15am

Somewhere around Yaba bus stop, an accident occurs. A Danfo runs into an Okada, and both rider and passenger are sprawled on the ground. A small crowd gathers and the driver is trying to explain how it was the Okada man's fault while everyone is insisting that he takes the accident victims to the hospital.

What do you expect Emeka Babatunde Ahmed to do?

Join the crowd in hassling the Danfo driver or continue on his way to work?

We all expect he would feel pity for the Okada rider and his passenger and maybe stand in the crowd for a minute or two ranting about how reckless Danfo drivers are and then he would continue on his way to work.

I said I believe the unemployment rate in Nigeria is a lot higher than 14.2% and I will tell you a story to illustrate why I think so.

Early this year, right after MMM crashed, I was driving to work when this guy steps in front of my car on Apapa Road, just before Costain roundabout. Thankfully, I was only doing about 40 km/h. I was about 20 meters away from this guy and I saw him look at me, turn away and step off the curb onto the road. I virtually stood on my brakes to avoid hitting him.

There was some impact and my right headlamp broke but he didn't seem too battered; just a little shaken. Luckily for me, everyone around saw what had happened and there was even a policeman in mufti who told me to get in my car and drive away since it wasn't my fault and the guy wasn't hurt.

Then out of nowhere, this other guy shows up and starts talking about how his friend may be bleeding internally and had to be taken to a hospital. And then three more guys show up and apparently, they are all best buds.

I agree to take their friend to the hospital and all four of them hop into my car. At first, they say there is a traditional chiropractor not too far away in Ebute Metta but when we get there, we are told she is not in. Next, they say we should take him to the General Hospital. At this point, I call an admin officer at work and ask if my medical benefits could cover other individuals in accidents I was involved in. He responded in the affirmative.

When I tell them I'm taking their friend to my own hospital, three of them ask me to drop them off. Now it's just the first friend and the dude involved in the accident left in the car.

We get to the hospital and the nurses take the guy involved in the accident upstairs to run preliminary tests. The lady at the front desk asks for his name so she can open a file for him and this guy's friend goes, "I am coming, let me go and ask him his name". He didn't even know the guy!

Why would a full grown man with no visible physical disabilities or apparent mental impairment jump into a car with another man involved in an accident who he does not know on a weekday morning. It kind of reminded me of how I used to jump at every opportunity to get into the car whenever my dad, brother or one of my sisters was going out. I didn't have any business where they were going, but I just loved being in the car.

I left the hospital after signing for his treatment to be billed to me.

And this story is the basis of my assumption that there are more unemployed or underemployed people on the streets of Nigeria than the statistics would have us believe.

Time and again, I have seen it happen. There's an accident or an altercation of some sort and before you know it, a crowd has gathered and most of these people stay until the very end.

Statistics always tell a story. And like every story, it is entirely the prerogative of the story teller to take the plot wherever he wants.