No sunshine in the elevator

Elevators were developed to make life easy in terms of vertical access to our modern city buildings. If not for such an incredible product of the creative human mind, life would have been extremely hard in the cities' skyscrapers. However, Africans have peculiar and sometimes very annoying ways with elevators. Here are a number of them:

Hostage holding - I have observed in a number of African cities that there are some individuals who are so selfish and insensitive to the needs of others. These are people who hold the elevators from proceeding with the journey because they have important matters to discuss with their friends out of the elevator. An elevator will be held hostage for a whole two minutes for these Africans to finalize their last minute chatting; it is very unethical!

Unnecessary use - Ideally the elevator was invented to aid in climbing high floors. It is surprising that a good number of Africans use these facilities to access Mezzanine 1, 2 and first floors. These are surely walking distances for someone who is not disabled; but you find a physically fit African who is well-fed using the elevator to access first floor! 

Allergy to backspace - There are Africans who are very allergic to using the backspace in the elevator. These are people who once they get in, they stand very close to the entrance and they remain unmoved when the elevator opens for more people to get in. Whatever goes on in their minds nobody knows.

Neglect - Landlords and government departments are guilty of this crime! You find a very tall building by, African Standards, duly fitted with a number of elevators but ironically they do not function; all of them! Those who have been to Nairobi City County's City Hall Annex building will agree with me on this. The building's elevators broke down in the 19th Century yet even after transition to devolved system of governance and the change of the governor of the city, they remain out of order by the time of going to press! It is so frustrating for those city county employees and customers who have to climb up and down covering 8 floors several times a day! In some cases, the machines are so neglected that they keep breaking down mid-way sending passengers in panic. 

Discrimination - Christians often tell us that we are all equal before the Eyes of the Lord. However on this earth, we are never equal. In important buildings, designers have set aside VIP elevators that are out of bounds for commoners! These elevators are fitted with telephones with officers assigned specifically to man them! For these Africans who man VIP elevators, there is no sunshine for them. Their job is to get to the VIP elevators very early in the morning, stay right there and wait for instructions regarding where to drive the elevators. And whenever a VIP enters the elevator, the guy manning it feels so small and in most cases you will see him literally trying to coil in a corner very far away from the guest. 

Small and very slow - Some buildings have unreasonably small elevators that are annoyingly very slow in their motion! You find a building that hosts several hundreds of people in a day is only served by one small elevator that cannot carry 5 well-fed Africans!