At a checkpoint in a remote part of Guinea, an official scanned his eyes repeatedly over Pelumi Nubi’s car in disbelief. “I asked him, ‘What are you looking for?’ And he replied, ‘The other person.’ Then he looked me dead in the eye and asked, ‘Where’s the driver?’ I was holding the steering wheel. My right-hand driving confused him, but people couldn’t fathom that I was doing this by myself. It’s interesting what societies expect from women, and the box they keep us in.”
When Nubi rolled into Lagos in her trusty Peugeot 107 in April, she became the first Black woman to travel solo overland from London to Nigeria. Her welcome by cheering crowds was the culmination of a 74-day, 16-nation journey through areas of West Africa. After trundling through France, Spain, and Morocco, the British Nigerian had planned on traversing Mali and Burkina Faso, but instability there forced her to reroute via West Africa’s less-travelled nations such as Guinea-Bissau, Republic of Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia.
*The views of the above article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Africa Speaks 4 Africa or its editorial team.