Nigerians anonymous

Travelling around the world as I do shows me the amazing character of Nigerians at airports and airport lounges. This characteristic begins at the Nigerian airport sides, checking in counters and waiting areas. It’s a sight to behold.

Let us start with the airports in Nigeria which are still bedevilled with touts and arranges. From the airport door they try to get you into any departing flight, they offer you timelines and other related matters for flights. It is from them you hear about delayed flights, introduction to new airlines you have never heard of and flights that have been cancelled. Add this to gum-chewing airline attendants, ground staff who are shouting at customers and other unrelated airline staff milling around particularly the Lagos airport and you have a near complete picture of an airport situation. The other half are queue-jumping Nigerians who think you are not interested in travelling although you are on a checking-in queue. This attitude is home-based, but what happens outside our shores? Please take a look.

I am waiting to board at a South African airport when a set of gele-tying gaily dressed Nigerian women are emanating from all corners of the airport. The gele, by the way, was bright yellow and they carried on like owners of the Durban airport. They were clearly returning home from a social event – a house warming, a wedding, a naming ceremony, a party, etc. It was a spectacle. It was2:00 in the afternoon. I sat crouched in one corner of the airport reading a book. We were about to board. Then the boarding queue was set up by the airline. Ahead of me, a gele-tying woman in her mid-60s wanted to know where she could sit and eat as she was hungry. She thrust her food in a pack in the face of the ground staff who advised her to sit in any of the waiting lounge chairs.

“No,” she said. She wanted private space. After a long frustrating argument, the airline staff asked her to use a stairway behind the counter. It was a reluctant gele-tying Nigerian who waltzed off angrily while the airline staff sighed in disbelief. Nigerians showing their self-entitlement quotient in foreign climes never cease to amaze me. There are certain minimum standards of behaviour at airports and public spaces. It seems we do not understand them. Sometimes I wonder why this is so lacking among many of us.

Fast-forward to Terminal 5 at the Heathrow airport where a Nigerian top government official is having a meltdown because her personal assistant cannot get through security at the same time with her. She is told by British Airways staff that the PA would only come through when it’s her turn and she is number seven after her boss. The official started a tantrum, describing how the young lady had her bag and how her PA is often behind her in queues everywhere and she needs her. The airline official roundly ignored her and carried on with other passengers, allowing the Nigerian official to make a fool of herself at the other side of the counter, waiting, flexing, exhaling, sighing. It was an ugly sight to behold. PA, security aide all that blah blah blah only works at Nigerian airports. Where persons take their security apparatus seriously, everyone keeps the rule, no matter who you are. You queue up on your own, you get searched alone, you carry your bag by yourself. Outside Nigeria, these big-man behaviours do not cut ice.

Clearly this top Nigerian official, who was a lady, sadly, did not understand that certain expansiveness and rule-breaking can only happen in Nigeria. In other parts, they really don’t care who you are. Security first always. That’s the world mantra. This business of “I am a big man, I can break the law anywhere I am” has to be brought to a halt. At international airports all are equal.

A lesson our dear Nigerians, big and small, have to learn. At those airports, you are fairly anonymous. You are just a ticket, a name, a statistic. Your position, be it in Nigeria or anywhere in the world, does not count. Get on the queue, get a grip. Get it!