‘TOPE FASUA FROM PREMIUM TIMES
This time, it is different. The circumstances have changed. A lot of time has elapsed. I support the idea of Nigeria Air as packaged.
I think we should give Nigeria Air a chance. I think also that as Nigerians we should resolve to conduct ourselves more respectably all over the world, going forward. Back in the day, it was a privilege to travel, and our people understood that if you were visiting someone else’s country, you needed to be somehow decently presented. These days, I see young Nigerians with little exposure showing up deliberately shabby at another man’s border.
I must confess that years back when Minister Hadi Sirika first toyed with the idea of Nigeria Air – a sovereign airline for Nigeria – I wasn’t on board with him. I felt it was a wasteful idea and since we hadn’t run anything well, any such massive idea to be handled fully by Nigerians was likely to fail like the ones before it.
I also had a few examples to show. In the dying days of Nigeria Airways, when President Obasanjo got Mrs Kema Chikwe to try and revive the airline – somewhere around 2000 and 2001 – I recall going to the London with them from Lagos. It was a hilarious disaster. Of course, by then Nigeria probably had no aircraft of its own left, so we actually boarded an unbranded white aeroplane. It had a white crew, with a few Nigerians in the cabin crew (a wet lease, such arrangement is called). It was our last-ditch effort at running an airline. The fare was around N70,000. I recall that they served cold food and warm Coca Cola, complaining that there was no electricity in Lagos to freeze their drinks or to warm the food. It was in the dead of winter, and as we climbed into the air and it got chilly, they apologised that they had no blankets. When I arrived London, my luggage did not come with me. I filled a form indicating my friend’s address at Hackney. Seven days later when I was departing London back to Lagos, I had to buy Ghana-must-go bags (I hate that phrase) for the stuff I had purchased in London to take back home.
The flight back was better for the in-flight catering, but they also lost my Ghana-must-go bags for over one week. My outbound luggage arrived in London days after I had departed too. I had to take a flight back to Lagos from Abuja after another week, to come retrieve my bag. My friend’s brother had arrived in London on the Tuesday before I did, and he told a very hilarious story. He said when they took off from Lagos and the cabin crew started wheeling out the inflight services, someone jumped up from their seat screaming, ‘Ejo! Ejo! Ejo!’ (Snake! Snake! Snake!). There was pandemonium on the flight. The cabin crew scrambled away as people jumped on their seats. Somehow, he said they killed the small snake – perhaps it had escaped from somebody’s hand luggage! Such was our experience with Nigeria Airways in its dying days. The poor company died in the hands of Nigerians who had used and abused it. Nigeria Airways died because of the many demands on it by Nigerian elites. We don’t know how not to take advantage of things. And at one point, it became a shambolic bedlam, as everybody rushed in with their daggers. Those who could steal ticket sales did so with impunity. Those who could strip assets did so too. Others merely traveled for free with their harem and dozens of children. Who cares?
