Thread by @ShoutsAndMiras

Rigasa is so confusing today. Even though:
A) they start selling tickets 1 hour before the train leaves; and
B) I get here 50 min before the train leaves...

Somehow, simultaneously:
C) hundreds of people already have tickets; and
D) they are not selling tickets right now.

🤨

Now they have opened the gates. Some guys just came up to me telling me they can help me get a ticket or at least get inside. I don’t know them and I feel like they targeted me because I’m white (so many people want tickets, why approach me?) so I decline their help.

One lady standing next to me said she bought her ticket at 9am - thought they didn’t sell tickets before an hour before the train? Also, if she has a ticket why is she standing with all the people who still need them?

I sent my driver up to try and push through to the window. Meanwhile I’m standing 10 meters back in a what I think is a queue but honestly it’s hard to tell because it’s more of a crowd. This is madness. And maddening. It’s not hard to sell tickets, people - just do it properly.

last time I took the train, the first class thing was stupid (they weren’t selling first class tickets even though they were available) but at least there was a queue and a process. Some people just went through a gate that was opened to being out a wheelchair, then locked again.

Next sketchy person who comes up to me offering to sell me a ticket, I will buy. I am picking someone up from the airport who has only been to Nigeria once before, and I need to be there to receive her. Missing this train is not an option.

Ok the guy in front of me in the “queue” said that in 15 min they will start selling standing tickets. Guess I’ll be standing to Abuja.

Meanwhile people keep going through this side gate. Why?

I sent my driver over to ask the security guy what’s going on. He said “these people have their MRS papers which is allowing them to pass.” No explanation as to what an MRS paper is. Sometimes living in Nigeria, I feel like a character in a Kafka novel.

My driver called my logistics guy who called someone else who gave him a number. My driver called the number, told me to give him 3k, disappeared and 2 min later came back with a first class ticket. Now I’m sitting in an 2/3 empty, air conditioned first class car. WTF

Beyond the fact that I feel guilty about playing a role in reinforcing this totally f-ed up system, I’m astounded that so much insanity can come from someone marking up a ticket by just 500 naira. The normal price is 2.5k and I paid 3k. People are going through all this for #500?

Also, it doesn’t seem like anyone else in this first class car gives a single hoot about the madness taking place outside. They are reading their papers, joking and chatting, typing on their phones.

The train experience is a metaphor for the country as a whole, I guess.