Simply how much does a country need to keep its busiest
international airport from running as an oven? The Murtala Muhammed
International Airport in Lagos must be the latest airport in the world. It is
easily the latest I've travelled through and I have been through quite a lot of
airports. Even the Nairobi airport in Kenya that has been engulfed by fire is
much less hot as the MMIA.
Continue after the break.
You should not even begin with comparing it with the airport
in Cape Town or Johannesburg, South Africa. Ghana's Kotoka International
Airport, Accra might be small but it doesn't meet you with the repulsiveness
the MMIA greets you with. Even the Eyadema airport in Togo includes a better
atmosphere. The Léopold Sédar Senghor International Airport in Dakar, Senegal
trumps ours by light years. That is these are African countries.
We dare not try to compare with airports outside Africa. The
moment you descend from the plane to go through the immigration point, the
sensation is like you're being punished for daring to visit to Nigeria – if
your foreigner – or you're being punished for daring to leave the nation – if
your Nigerian. The saddest part with this reality is that money isn't the key
reason why we have an airport that makes us look like we are a people without
shame. Or, are we?
There is a chance you are busy during the week. If you find
time this Sunday, please pay a visit to the MMIA. Find your way to the
Departure Hall. If it does not remind you of the old Oshodi in Lagos, I’d write
an apology for everyone who says it doesn’t. Of course, there is a chance they
quickly react to this piece to make a few cosmetic changes. If it looks better
this Sunday because of this piece, just wait another four weeks; I can bet it
will be back to its seamy self.
Last Sunday, there were more touts than there were
passengers inside the airport. The system is such that even getting your
boarding pass to travel is made difficult so an incentive is created for you to
engage one of the touts. I was approached to pay N5,000 to get my boarding
pass. I wouldn’t pay because I just needed to see if I’d miss my flight despite
arriving over three hours earlier. If that had happened, I’d have made sure the
airline in question never gets to try it with anyone again.
Where else could an anomaly like this happen? If you arrive
the airport two hours before your flight, there is a chance you miss your
flight not because that is not enough time before your flight but because
somehow, someway, bottlenecks have been created to make you need touts to do
what you’d do within minutes elsewhere. Nigeria is a nightmare!
If per chance you are wondering why one would dedicate a
column to an airport of all the myriad of issues facing Nigeria, please have a
rethink. The airport is an essential part of a country’s prestige and
perception. Any country with a badly managed airport as ours is likely to be as
badly managed as our country. If a country cannot manage its main airport, how
can it manage anything else? Travelling through Section D 34 on Sunday and it
was as though someone was increasing the heat as we were getting boiled.
How much does it cost to make the air-conditioning systems
work? What does it cost to make the airport clean enough? Why should we have
people in queues for hours just to go through immigration and security checks?
Why have more metal detectors if passengers are made to use just one or two on
most occasions? Body scanners have been in use since 2007, how much does it
cost to have them in our major airports? Why is Nigeria the only country where,
to travel, you must have your box opened and ransacked by security men? What is
the essence of running these same bags through electronic security? Why in the
world can’t we get even the simplest of things right?
The first impression you get about a country upon visiting
is its airport. There are people who intentionally run their flight connections
through some airports just to make use of their facilities or make purchases. I
know people who travel to other parts of the world but make sure to travel
through Dubai simply because of the travel experience. I dare not start
comparing our airports with Dubai’s because then I’d be comparing two things of
different kinds. You will not find a Nigerian who has been outside of this
country who is not ashamed of our airports.
Of course, this does not include Nigerians who call things
that do not exist as though they do; Nigerians who look at the poverty and
gross unemployment and proclaim our lives are being transformed. You will not
find a Nigerian who has the ability to face the truth who’d not admit shame at
looking at our major airports. I was at the Addis Ababa airport last August
when a Nigerian started lamenting behind me. She was shocked even Ethiopia
could do better than the “giANT” of Africa. Giant ko, dwarf ni. We stay living
in a delusion of grandeur that does not exist.
Having said all this, I will never be able to describe the
pain and sadness that come with travelling from the MMIA. The only way you
won’t feel this sadness is if you’ve gone past caring about this country or you
are one of the reasons this country is so messed us as it is. The MMIA was
modelled after Amsterdam’s Schipol. Over 40 years later, the MMIA is worse than
it looked when the military government of Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo remodelled it.
Just look at Schipol airport today. If you dare compare both, tears will fill
your eyes before you even get started.
Where then do we start? We can start by doing away with the
touts inside the lobby. We can start by ensuring the air-conditioning systems
work. We can look to make sure passengers are well-treated on arrival and
departure. We always look at problems and immediately assume throwing money at
them will solve them. I have since realised half the problems with Nigeria have
nothing to do with money.
Even with all the money in the world, our airports and our
country will not work as long as we do not have people who care about
excellence. Caring about excellence means knowing that Nigerians deserve the
best all the time. When we reserve the rights citizens of other countries take
for granted, upgrade such to privileges for our citizens, we will always miss
the point of making things work.
Nigerians deserve more but as long as we have people –
including the President – dancing on national TV because a road contract has
been awarded, we’d always have a situation where mediocrity will remain the
norm. Would anyone say the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway is the mess it is because of
money? Nay. It is what it is because we are who we are. We have become a people
accustomed to seeing nothing work.
It’d be great to see someone in authority do something about
the mess that is the MMIA for starters. It’s a shame to Nigeria. But does
Nigeria even understand what shame is? Does anyone really give a damn about the
shame?
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