Oganya Ochoga Ocha, the first female commercial taxi driver in Calabar, Cross River State, has revealed that she took to taxi driving as a full time job after several commercial male drivers she hired to drive her vehicle, were unable to pay the accepted daily balance to her.
Ocha who spoke on “The Public View”, the Saturday morning news and current affairs programme on Calabar’s premier private radio station, HIT 95.9 FM, Calabar, insisted that, “the drivers we hired were paying N3,000 a day and most of them couldn’t pay. So one day, the last driver brought back the vehicle from the day’s work and became angry after I expressed displeasure at his inability to pay the money. He became infuriated, said I was a woman and shouldn’t talk to him like that. In anger, he threw the car key at me and left. I waited a little while after that incident before I called my husband and told him I was taking up the challenge of driving our taxi by myself. He was in Equatorial Guinea, but he hesitantly agreed and added the caveat that I must not drive at night.”
“So, in March, 2011, I took to the wheels. That first day, I came back home with N9,800, after all other expenses and I was like wow, is this what these drivers make and still refuse to bring my daily balance? It inspired me to drive my taxi and I haven’t looked back since then.”
Asked to look back at 13 years of being in the business and offer lessons from the past, this is what she said. “Initially it wasn’t easy, especially with the issue of several task forces that you will encounter as a taxi driver in Calabar, moreso the only female one like me. In fact the first painful experience I had was with these touts happened like this. Then we use to buy tickets daily and I had this particular customer at Etta Agbor roundabout, Calabar, that I use to buy daily tickets from; even had an arrangement in place with him to collect the ticket and pay him later in the day.”
“This particular and very unfortunate day, I drove to Etta Agbor roundabout to get my daily ticket from him and he was not there. I came back repeatedly and he still was nowhere to be found. So I proceeded to drop off some commuters, without the daily ticket in my possession. Lo and behold, on Marian road by the Calabar Municipality gate, I was flagged down. When I stopped, my taxi was boarded by some persons who unleashed brute force on me before they forcefully collected my car keys and impounded my vehicle. I cried my heart out, begging and offering explanations about my ticketing arrangement, but all of these fell on deaf ears. They now took me to their office. In tears, I entered their office and immediately their superiors saw me, they reprimanded them for what they did to me and why my vehicle should be impounded. God! The persons who arrested me now turned around and began to beg me. They had collected money from me and were immediately commanded to hand me back my money.”
She goes on: “I must recall that at the time I started driving in Calabar, I avoided Watt Market area, all parts of Calabar South, because of the level of harassment I had earlier experienced in the hands of touts there; their level of intimidation was nerve wrecking and always made me cry behind the wheels. In fact at some point when I started driving my taxi in the state capital, they use to call me, “the crying woman”. While some of these persons often felt pity for and granted me waivers, others unleashed near terror on me. But I remained clearly undaunted and fought my way through. One day, after a very hectic day behind the wheels, I resolved and took a decision that, if I don’t fight my way through all these obstacles, women, later on, will never be able to easily drive taxis in Calabar, as a sustainable means of livelihood and support for thr family.”
On finally joining the driver’s union, Ocha informed that, “remarkably, when I joined the union later on, I became quite popular among my colleague drivers to even the point that if I have a flat tyre on the road, the male taxi drivers always will lend me a helping hand. Indeed, help on the road for me also came and still comes from non commercial drivers, who will often stop by my taxi to help me out. I must state clearly here that, no set of persons better convinced and encouraged me to ply this trade and stay on the road, all these years, like my male driving counterparts and I am eternally grateful to them.
Benue State-born Ocha, who will be 60 in December 2024, is a polyglot who speaks Idoma, Hausa, English and Spanish fluently. She is ecstatic that several other hardworking and focused women in Calabar have followed her cue and are ekeing a proud living out of the taxi driving business. Additionally, they now have an association of commercials female taxi drivers in Calabar because one woman dared to be different.
“Stand up on your feet and do something with your life and God will back you up”, is the line she lives behind as this conversation drew to a close.
