SODA ON TRAFFIC

Life is now pricey. It needs money. Money is a necessary part of life. Money refreshes and challenges. We all welcome money. Like true love. But it shouldn’t be at the outlay of our embrace of values and elements of justice, truth and rationality. Never.

Raw Stuffer in the Weekend Nation once called it Soda in one of his well-groomed articles. It’s a term used by those who partake in such uncanny means of fishing money from wells that are legally, morally, and spiritually prohibited. Those experienced just use this term with abandon. Some coin other equally effective ones so long as they communicate.

The role the police play in our societies is quite adorable: they bring order and security through their unstinting efforts in getting rid of darned criminals; they reduce road accidents to some good extent by ensuring vehicles are roadworthy; and they are handy sometimes in coming in time when their service is needed most. That we know.

On Soda, however, they have competently seemed to be good at, too. Observant passengers know it, as they, themselves, do.

A few years ago, a policy was made outlawing minibuses from carrying four passengers in a row. Instead, three passengers on a seat were proposed, then agreed – if agreed – and later approved.

Many spoke on the issue until their mouths ran out of saliva. Minibus Owners Association of Malawi whined and then just kept their voices mute. Many a passenger liberally poured their sympathy towards minibus owners on how much they would be carting home under such a new policy. At last, they grudgingly shut their respective mouths up, and then got prepared for the ‘new normalcy’. Their lives had to go on.

Soon, waters became stabilized; three passengers could be seen in a row, especially in the hub of our cities, towns and districts. Outside these strenuous business areas, the song was the same old one: some conductors would still command four passengers on a seat willy-nilly.

Brawny passengers would at times argue for some change from conductors. It’s quite serious a thing to believe many ever realized any success in such ostensibly odd efforts. Very few light-hearted conductors, after driver’s consent, would return back some kwachas to passengers. That also became another ‘new normalcy’ then.

Gradually, the ‘new normalcy’ began wearing out into the ‘real normalcy’. It no longer became a thing worth shunning away from the police, our law enforcers. Reason? Soda.

Up to date, all Soda-subscribing minibuses freely pass through roadblocks with no qualms. So too, any other vehicles that are justly wanting to be on the road. On the other hand, non Soda-subscribing vehicle owners and operators in general, always face harsh consequences from our long-time entrusted law enforcers – particularly those on the road.

July 31 this year, witnessed all this. The failure of our minibus driver to subscribe to Soda notion, made him become the villain of that day.

When setting off for Zomba from Limbe, one of the passengers was a policeman. He wasn’t in uniform then. He put on a short sleeved white shirt, a coffee pair of trousers, and a pair of black shoes. Perhaps with reference to the ‘new normalcy’, the conductor, probably with the driver’s consent, ordered us passengers to be four on a seat. A good number resisted yet nothing positive in response happened.

Four on a seat, the minibus packed, the conductor inside, the driver with a seat belt on, one kick, the journey started. According to what the civilian police officer muttered to us, back sitters, the driver knew him. “The driver knows me”, he guy said, while showing us his identity card. He didn’t want to warn the conductor and his driver straight off. Reason? Soda. The driver, too, was confident that Soda would not disappoint him.

The guy knew Soda was still in operation and that it would benefit him. He knew it wouldn’t benefit him alone but also the driver and his conductor. He knew, to his advantage, the Soda notion would qualify him to travel all the way from Blantyre to Zomba without coughing K350 from his pocket. Why? He enforces the law.

He knew, too, perhaps, that his fellows at Namadzi roadblock wouldn’t stop the minibus as long as the operators would consent on Soda-notion application. He knew the driver and the conductor were aware that it wouldn’t augur well with them without acknowledging the practicality of Soda then. He must have known all this, perhaps.

When the conductor asked him for the fare, the guy calmly redirected him to the driver: “The driver will pay for me”, he said. The driver commanded K200 from the civilian officer. But the guy had Soda in his mind, perhaps, that Soda was responsible for everything – including that negotiated K200. But the driver needed the money too, everything aside.

Their disagreement was now in plain sight. Out of annoyance, the civilian officer just paid the whole fare in full. The battle had just begun.

After passing Kachere, the policeman requested for a stop at a certain cemetery for urination. When the minibus stopped, the man went to the back with a pen and a paper in his hand, just to take down the vehicle’s registration number. That, he did – tactfully. Soon he jumped in. The journey continued.

After few minutes, he took his mobile and buzzed his fellows at Namadzi roadblock giving them minutiae of the minibus, not to let it pass. Reason? The driver had refused to subscribe to Soda notion. But four passengers on a seat alone, would have qualified him already not to pass the roadblock assuming Soda wasn’t conceptualized.

At Namadzi the bus was stopped for breaking the law. Some passengers were given back their money, and others redirected to passing minibuses by the wedged operators.

The civilian officer jumped out first. “This minibus has had four passengers on a seat all the way from Blantyre. These passengers are my witnesses”, he recounted to his fellows. Yet on the same roadblock, some minibuses were passing with four passengers on a seat. Reason? They were all Soda-subscribers, I suppose.

Perhaps the police at the roadblock knew those operators pretty well to be unwavering subscribers of Soda notion, just Soda, pure Soda on the road, real Soda on traffic.