(Okechukwu Charles,Umuahia)
Lady Blessing Ekwueme is typical of the saying that, “What a man can do, a woman will do better”. She is not only a lone player in what has come to be a predominant malevolent profession; she is already making a success of it.
As a bus driver, plying the Ubakala – Umuahia Isi gate joint, she combines the jobs of a conductor, loader and pilot, all in one.
Her job is even made easier because she is a native of Umuosu – Ubakala in Umuahia South L.G.A of Abia State and has won the hearts of her passengers, men and women who readily jump into her bus and assists with fare collection and goods arrangement or loading and offloading.
One significant thing about this unique character of a female bus driver is that at 36 she is not yet married but had four children from four different men.
On what prompted her to choose bus driving as a career she explained that as an ex-lover to a bus driver, she has come to discover that the business is more lucrative than her former business as a petty trader with a wooden table and sitting under the sun all day only to make at most N500 daily profit.
Presently and on daily basis after remitting the agreed amount for the bus which she procured on “hire-purchase basis”, she is sure to go home with at least N3,000 and this amount she admitted can go along way providing for her, her four children and other relations putting up with her at Ubakala.
On what the government of Umuahia North LGA has done to assist her with the payment of her hire-purchase bus, she expressed disappointment that despite the fact that she uses her bus to convey staff of the LGA to and from work, the Council has not deemed it fit, and proper to appreciate her sterling qualities as a bus driver. She then pleaded with the T.C. Chairman and other members of Umuahia South LGA, to provide interest credit facilities for other women like her to purchase bus and easy the problems of the local commuters most of who stand for hours before they can board a taxi to their various destinations. The bus she stated also is readily available to market women who convey their goods to and from the farms and market. She wants government encouragement in the form of scholarship for her four children so that she does not break down due to pressure and stress.
