Trotro Tales – The iPhone Thief

This is a true story, it happened last Monday, when I got on a trotro from Madina to Kasoa. I sat at the rare end of the bus, the first seat near the window…

The trotro was still half empty so we had to wait till it got full, and you could hear the mate (conductor) shouting Dzorwolu, lapaz, Scc, kasoa kasoa kasoa. I had my headset on, listening to Bastille’s Dooms Day album, dope album!

In about 20 minutes, the trotro was full, then the mate rushed behind the troski and said, “Master ay3 ma”. I looked through the window, as I saw the mate directing one unfortunate passenger to the next troski, saying “ay3 ma” (it is full).

The passenger not convinced, peeped through the windows to check for available seats and to confirm whether what the mate said was true. With a sad face, the woman walked away to the next loading bus.

The driver sat down and turned on the ignition ready to move, but we had to wait another 10 minutes for the driver to maneuver his way through the outgoing and incoming buses entering the Madina station.

About 5 yards to the main road, one guy in the bus started shouting “my phone, my phone, I can’t find my iPhone, me phone ayera”(my phone is missing), quickly I checked my pocket to see if mine was still on me, even though I could hear the music play in my headset, I still had to check, I just had to be sure…. lol

The guy said, “driver please wait, I can’t seem to find my phone”, so the driver stepped on the brake, but the engine was still running. We stopped at the exit of the station yard and you could hear other bus drivers behind our trotro honking at our driver, but he only waved at them to wait a second.

Then the guy said to a lady sitting next to him, “please madam, could you please call my number for me please, 02xxxxxxxx”, moments later the phone started ringing, it was very faint at first, but seconds later it got louder, then you could see everyone looking around trying to trace the sound of the ringing phone.

In unison, everyone was staring in one direction, all eyes went to one guy who sat near the window, this guy was doing ‘unlooking’, as if nothing was going on, then I started laughing, cos the thing was funny, then the guy, in the most respectful polite way said, “please give me back my iPhone”, the thief replied, “which iPhone?”

The guy replied, “The iPhone ringing in your pocket right now”. Then the thief said, “my ears dey pain, I no dey hear you, what you dey talk about?”. The guy got angry and held the thief by the neck, then the women in the bus started shouting in the troski, seconds later some guys who sat around the thief, started throwing punches at him, beating him mercilessly.

Then the driver turned off the engine. Suddenly, inquisitive people started gathering around the troski, those selling phones, pure water sellers, those selling pendrives – promotion promotion, the koko seller, even “fos” (second-hand clothes) sellers, passers-by, the waakye seller nearby, everyone was interested in what was happening in our trotro.

Those in the troski were beating the thief out of the troski, but the thief was tough, the people outside the troski wanted the mate to open the door so they could pull the thief out and beat the hell out of him, but the driver told the mate not to open the door.

The incident had caused a long traffic, so one MTTU police officer who was directing traffic nearby, advised the driver to take the thief to the Madina police station, “norrr” the people bore; they wanted to beat the thief up!

They started dissing the driver and police officer, the insults were funny charle, they wanted to beat the thief before sending him to the police station, so as to teach others a lesson. Some of the people outside the trotro were holding clubs and sticks, even the waakye seller was holding her wooden ladle ready to charge at the thief.

Then the driver drove off to the police station, which wasn’t far from where the incident happened. The incident was reported and an arrest was made, everything happened too fast, it was an exciting experience.

I enjoyed the small beatings the thief received inside the troski and also the insults, one guy said, “if his father knew he’ll become a thief in future, his dad would have pulled out”. Another woman said, “condom 2 cedis could have prevented all this”.

Charle I laugh saaaaaaaaaaaaa