A crash course at driving school
It’s a driving school like no other, with myriad obstacles and moving hazards that also happen to be alive.
There are the bicycle boys, wobbling along, finding their balance in the same vacant stretch of red dirt where drivers learn to shift and motorcyclists learn to ride. Balls sail at multiple informal soccer matches, while dogs scuttle and children meander.
The driving school is flanked by a busy road. Avoid that. Steer well clear of the huge oily pond, grey with trash, on the other side. And watch for the ruts left after the rains have eaten away at the ground.
It all seems a bit much for Bilyaminu Saminu, who sits behind the wheel of a black Honda Civic sedan for the first time as instructor Muhammad Sabiu takes five minutes to explain the basics in a calm, almost hypnotic voice. Ignition. Clutch. Gas. Brake. Then he tells Saminu to start the car up.
It jolts forward, shimmying over the undulating ground. Driving slowly, Saminu avoids a soccer player, a bicycle and three boys walking by.
Good thing Sabiu, the instructor, isn’t an impatient man. He started instructing at 17, shortly after he learned to drive. A fellow driving teacher began at 14.
The instructors are all from a nearby neighbourhood in Kano, Nigeria’s second-most populous city, and saw the entrepreneurial potential to turn a vacant block into an informal driving school.
Nigerian traffic is not for the faint of heart. Yellow auto rickshaws buzz thickly, changing lanes abruptly, dodging trucks and cars. Beggars and hawkers on foot weave between the traffic. Trucks burp black smoke like impolite drunks before lurching without warning into your lane.
Saminu, a 22-year-old student, seems slightly nervous. He keeps taking his eyes off the scene in front and turning his head toward Sabiu. The teacher constantly gestures with his hand, as though bouncing an invisible ball, telling Saminu to slow down.
Saminu is studying mass communications but knows many unemployed graduates, and his uncle promised to give him a car to become an “inter-city driver,” sort of a taxi driver here, if he learned to drive. Kano has formal driving schools, but they are expensive. For Saminu, the open, red field was the cheapest option. Saminu changes gear and the car jerks forward. “Why is it jerking?” he asks, eyes fixed on Sabiu. “Because you lifted your foot off all at once.” Two footballers dash in front of the car. The car jerks again. Suddenly a soccer match seems to have exploded around the car, with players dashing everywhere.
“Just go on at this slow pace. Second gear is OK. When you’re turning, put on the indicator,” Sabiu says blithely.
Over the years, Sabiu has found that the timid are hard to teach, and his remarks about women drivers reflect this city’s sexist culture.
“They have this phobia of the car,” he says of female driving students. “They think it’s something like rocket science. The tension makes them slam their foot on the gas or the brake and they lose control of the car.
“Of course, we do have some crashes,” he continues. “Our pupils crash into another car or hit a footballer or someone learning to ride a bicycle. Even this afternoon a boy was hit by a motorcycle here. He just got some bruises.”