Dear NigeriaTodayOnline
During the past two weeks or more I have been reading ad nauseum about the ‘BA incident’ and what I am reading sounds more and more pathetic. You Nigerians are all jumping on the ‘shared indignities’ bandwagon, without a full knowledge of the facts and with a lot of prejudice and self-pity, and you are beginning to sound like a rabble.
Why don’t you forget about all that for a moment and spare a thought for the gross indignities we ‘Brits’ and other expats suffer every time we have to negotiate Murtallah Muhammed Airport.
Most of us in the oil industry have ‘protocol’ staff who save us from the worst of these indignities (the work of ‘protocol’, in this context, being more or less a business of handing out bribes.) However, the last time I arrived at Murtallah Muhammed Airport I discovered, to my great dismay, that some new minister had recently banned expat protocol staff from the terminal building in an effort to ease congestion, meaning that for the first time I was going to have to ‘run the gauntlet’ alone.
As soon as I entered the baggage ’security check’ area it was evident to me that the staff there had knowledge of the minister’s new directive because they were praying on the expats with unusual rapacity. Describing the two security agents I had the misfortune to deal with as ‘unprofessional’ would do them too much honour: they were aggressive, presumptuous, offensive, rude, insulting pigs. They upturned everything in my bag as though they were going through a garbage dump, continually asking unnecessary and intrusive questions about every small item they found - when not single thing in my bag needed to be identified or justified. To be frank, I just wanted to tell them to fuck off and keep their hands off my stuff. That is precisely what they deserved.
Finally - predictably - they found something to take issue with: a carton of cigarettes. They took these out and wanted to confiscate them, saying it was illegal to take them out of the country. I told them it was not illegal. Their insistence that I would ‘not be getting on a plane’ unless I gave them the cigarettes was both sinister and threatening. But I refused. I even asked them to go and get a senior official to confirm whether or not I was carrying anything illegal, which of course they didn’t see fit to do because I wasn’t. So I stood my ground for several minutes and it was only the pressure of the waiting queue behind me (replete with fresh ‘victims’, of course) that finally persuaded these vultures to let me to pass - with my belongings intact, thank you God, but in complete disarray.
These two travesties of the security profession are, of course, scum - and Murtallah Mohammed Airport is full of them. But don’t get me wrong, there is white scum as well as black scum and there is even British scum. The difference is that you won’t find British scum systematically raping and pillaging the belongings of innocent passengers at Heathrow, Gatwick or any of our other airports: we try to put as many of them as possible in prison.
I remember a very revealing and entertaining BBC documentary series entitled ‘Airport’ that explored the workings of Murtallah Muhammed Airport – famous at that time for being the ‘worst airport in the world’. As I recall, it finally took a healthy dose of British management and British expertise to teach the airport how to operate with at least a modicum of decency and dignity (not to mention efficiency). Now, it seems, everyone is falling back into their old ways!
As far as the ‘BA incident’ itself is concerned, I will say this. I have been flying all over the world for years and have no particular feelings for BA or any other airline: they are all much the same at the end of the day. Also, I think that airline staff are, for the most part, carefully-selected and well-trained to deal with ‘difficult’ passengers or incidents: they have to be. In the many years I have flown on planes with tough oil industry workers who, more often than not, board a plane tired and/or under the influence of alcohol, I still cannot recall a single incident that was remotely serious enough to delay a flight or require the removal of a passenger.

Although actually, now I think about it, that isn’t quite true. I can recall such an incident – just one. But this wasn’t on a long-haul flight full of drunken oil workers, it was on a local Virgin Nigeria flight to Accra – full mostly of what looked like ‘locals’. And it left at 9 in the morning, so I don’t think we can blame this on alcohol.

The incident centred around one man – a ‘local man’ - and the big, heavy video camera he carried with him onto the plane. When he boarded, the cabin crew obviously assumed he was going to store this camera in an overhead luggage compartment, just as all the other passengers do with their luggage. But they were wrong. He wanted to hold the camera on his lap, for safe-keeping, throughout the flight. (For those of you who don’t know how things work on a plane, let me explain that this is obviously dangerous and therefore, strictly against the rules. It also begs the question why, if the camera was so valuable and so fragile, did the owner not even have a protective carrying case for it ?????? !!!!!!!!!

The cabin staff made repeated but fruitless efforts to persuade this passenger to put his camera in a locker but he flatly refused and the camera stayed on his lap. Continual refusal and continual arguing-back were the only strategies he could offer to resolve the situation. First, he argued very childishly that ‘all the other airlines’ let him carry the camera on his lap, so why wouldn’t Virgin Nigeria? This was obviously a blatant lie, because no airline – except perhaps a Nigerian one - would ever allow it. Then he demanded (naively and childishly) a written guarantee from Virgin Nigeria, on the spot, that they would pay for any damage his camera incurred. And so it went on…and on…and on.

Finally, the Virgin Nigeria captain announced over the speakers that he was holding the plane on the runway indefinitely. So an entire planeload of passengers was forced to sit and watch in complete disbelief, for some 40 minutes, as one pain-in-the-ass passenger was gently and patiently persuaded, by a highly professional and well-trained cabin crew, to accept their offer of a specially-emptied, specially-lined locker for his very special camera. It was just like being in a kindergarten!

Without attempting any deep psychoanalysis, what can we say about this incident and the man who caused it – apart from the fact that he was an embarrassment to humanity?

That he didn’t know the rules? Not knowing the rules is easily remedied, normally, with the appropriate instruction. But clearly, this man did know the rules. For some reason though, he preferred to play a perverse and confusing game with the rules, based on lies and deceipt, in order to get his own way. Besides, when the rules were formally explained to him – on repeated occasions - he flatly refused to accept them!

This is the behaviour of a dysfunctional misfit. He will always be in conflict with society and he will make very little contribution to society. He basically doesn’t know how to behave. He also has a diminished sense of social responsibility – not caring what damage or inconvenience he causes others in the pursuit of his own ends – as well as a diminished sense of personal responsibility – always looking for ways to place the responsibility for his problems on other people’s shoulders.

CONCLUSION: We will never know whether or not there were any people like this on board when the ‘BA incident’ occurred, but one has to admit it’s a possibility. Nigerians don’t have a reputation for stuff like this for no reason.

Finally, I read on Sunday 27th April that the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, in its great wisdom, is now traducing British Airways with the additional ‘offences’ of baggage delays, flight cancellations and overbooking - ‘among others’ - !!!!!.)

Come on Nigeria, GET REAL! Apart from having – still – the world’s worst airport you also have, arguably, the world’s worst airline industry. If Nigerians ran the world’s airlines, the entire world economy would probably grind to a slow and painful halt!

In making the ‘BA incident’ a focus for your ‘shared indignities’, you are once again making yourselves the laughing stock of the planet.

STAND UP - FIX YOUR OWN PROBLEMS - STOP BLAMING OTHER PEOPLE

(I hope you will print this in the interests of providing your readers with a ‘balanced view’. I am a white Brit with a black Ghanaian wife and a mixed-race young son. So, ‘rejoinders’ suggesting racist attitude should be kept to postcard-size please! Better to address what I am actually saying!)

I say, leave Omotade to face the music but we should focus on the treatment of deportees and BA’s tolerance of the inhumane treatment accorded them.

Too many times I have been embarrassed by my countryfolk who have acted in a bad way towards the crew for no reason. On one trip a woman next to me was asked to show her seatbelt to the cabin lady before take off. She refused and said that she was only being asked because she was Nigerian. This was ridiculous and gives us all bad names. So many times I see fellow passengers acting like spoilt children when they do not get their own way. If this is the way you want it, hire a plane and you can pay to have your own way.

I have witnessed a fellow countryman being deported from the UK with Bellview so please do not attempt to say to me that is is only the European airline that is making this happen to us. I spoke to a guard who was going back with one woman who shuoted all the way back to MMA. He said that she had tried to bring drugs into UK. If she did it then she deserves what can happen to her in nigeria.

The victim attitude that is so evident in these pages makes us seem weak. Behave ina civilised manner and you will be treated respectfully in return. Behave like a spoiled child or pull the race-card as so many countrymen do and you will be treated the way you deserve.

En-route to Copenhagen Denmark from Lagos Nigeria via Istanbul on the 29th of August together with her husband, an officer at the point of boarding the 10.15 flight to Copenhagen refused her entry into TURKISH AIRLINE TK 1783. Without been interogated or questioned, the officer together with other officials took her to the deportation department in the airport, falsely accused her of using a fake visa which was actually authentic and issued by the Swedish government. She was not allowed to talk or interrogated and threatened to beat up the husband. Together with the husband, they were verbally assaulted with words that are unimaginable, constantly making reference to Nigeria and Nigerians as criminals.

Several attempts were made by the embassy of Sweden in London, Istanbul and other officials in Sweden including the University where she studies to get across to the Turkish officials to confirm the authenticity of her visa, all to no avail since they have made up their mind about her. The most annoying part was that the Turkish Airline officials made no attempt to confirm the authenticity of her visa. She was finally taken back to Nigeria on the 30th of August 2008 after being detained in a room filled with smokers without window for over 24 hours.

This is not the first time Turkish Airline will be deporting Nigerians without just reasons as confirmed by a senior Nigerian Immigration officer on duty when she arrived Nigeria. The officer now getting seriously disturbed with the rate by which Nigerians are been deported by Turkish Airline said it’s time for Nigerians to stop patronizing this airline.

I will like to use this medium to inform fellow Nigerians and anyone who loves justice to stop travelling through TURKISH AIRLINE just like BA until they recognize how to treat their customers with respect irrespective of their race, colour or nationality.

RESPECT NIGERIANS COALITION (RNC) TO HOLD A PEACEFUL PROTEST AT THE BRITISH AIRWAYS CORPORATE HEADQUATERS, HARMONDSWORTH ON WEDNESDAY, 17 SEPTEMBER, 2008

Fellow Nigerians and well-wishers of Nigeria,

This is to inform you of our intention to hold a peaceful demonstration at the Waterside Corporate Headquarters of British Airway Plc at Harmondsworth, London following the airline’s persistent refusal to do what is right by Ayodeji Omotade and the Nigerian passengers whom its officials treated in a disrespectful, discriminatory, dehumanizing and racist manner on March 27, 2008 aboard Flight BA 075 from London Heathrow to Lagos, Nigeria. You are all aware of what happened on that day and you are all aware of the position we have adopted since Tuesday, April 15, 2008 when we made certain demands of BA, including following up with a declaration of a worldwide boycott of the airline’s goods and services by Nigerians and well-wishers of Nigeria since May 15, 2008 when they refused to heed those demands.

Despite our attempt to let British Airways see reason, including holding a peaceful protest at their Lagos headquarters, discussing with their Executives in Nigeria, writing to their shareholders here in London and meeting and discussing with some of them at the venue of their AGM, the company insists on playing dumb. Indeed, several attempts by the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Mr Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and some ministers of his government to let British Airways see reason, has equally fallen on deaf ears.

We have therefore decided to take our Protest to their world headquarters with the hope that those at the very top of the organisation will understand better our demands and address them. We shall be there on Wednesday, September 17, 2008 (12.00 midday) to hold that peaceful protest outside the company’s headquarters. The address is:

British Airways Plc
Waterside (HAA3)
Harmondsworth
UB7 0GB

The following day, Thursday, September 18, 2008, we shall also be at the Uxbridge Magistrates Court where the trial of Ayodeji Omotade is to resume at 10.00 a.m. on that day. We are using this opportunity to invite you and well-wishers to come give support to Mr Omotade who, as you know, is being unfairly and wrongly prosecuted. The address of the Court is:

Uxbridge Magistrates Court
The Court House, Harefield Road
Uxbridge UB8 1PQ

For the avoidance of doubt, our demands on British Airways remain that they:

- tender a clear and well-worded apology to all passengers affected by their discriminatory and intimidatory conduct aboard flight BA075 on 27 March, 2008 in a Nigerian national newspaper;

- tender a clear and well-worded written apology and appropriate compensation to Mr Ayodeji Omotade for financial and emotional losses suffered as a result of the conduct of British Airways and its agents on the day;

- withdraw all adverse statements made to the police about Mr. Ayodeji Omotade over this incident;

- lift the ban imposed on Mr Ayodeji Omotade, even as he would still retain his right to decide whether or not to fly British Airways in the future, and

- issue an undertaking that British Airways shall improve its customer care culture and desist from such practices that give the impression that the airline is arrogant, uncaring and discriminatory.

Nigerian passengers will be treated with respect within and outside Nigeria. Until British Airways addresses our demands, we shall continue with the Boycott British Airways Campaign which has been on since Thursday, May 15, 2008. It is our strong belief that British Airways must be made to behave like a good corporate citizen. We condemn the attitude of those who run its affairs so far and call on all decent people everywhere to continue to join and sustain the Boycott British Airways Campaign until they address our demands and learn to treat customers with dignity and respect.

The purpose of this note is to invite Nigerians and well-wishers of Nigeria based in the United Kingdom, especially the London area for this Protest. We need the numbers to prove that Nigerians indeed strongly condemn the untoward attitude of British Airways. If you can also make the court the next day, that will be nice; but at least make sure you come for one of the programmes indicated. If you are interested, please indicate so on this page. We need an indication of how many people to expect so as to make the necessary arrangements with the police on the day. You can indicate if you are coming for both or one of the programmes. Please, just let us know. Invite as many people as possible that you think will be interested. Just direct them to come and sign up here.

Thank you and God bless!

Signed:
Nosa Olotu
Tosin Awotesu
Michael Egbejumi-David
(For and on behalf of Respect Nigerians Coalition)