Accra’s central bus station is a hub of travel and of turmoil. On its grounds, a great many people interact with each other in a great many ways. While this plenitude of actions and transactions is framed by an eclectic array of involutionary-evolved organizational structures, in the combined thrust of activities, confusion and unpredictability abound. For the transient traveller, the experience of the station’s turmoil translates into feelings of threat and anxiety. For those who inhabit the station, it is the very unpredictability inscribed into its space that provides opportunities and shelter. These contrastive local perceptions of the station echo the diverging academic discourses on the states of disorder that rule many spheres of everyday life in African cities, in which scenarios of unruly chaos are contrasted with visions of the self-regulating powers of social ingenuity. In this article, I explore urban disorder’s ambivalent potency as it becomes manifest, writ large, in the organization and the everyday life of a West African travel hub.