Blowing Hot Air

"Aaaaargh!" A shrill scream reverberated through my head. I glanced around furtively to ensure no one else heard me. I was HOT! Hot and angry. I was mad. "Aaa argh!" I screamed internally again in frustration. I just arrived back into Murtala Mohammed Airport in Lagos Nigeria, and it is boiling hot, from the finger, through the motionless escalators, down to the very long immigration lines. A line that has two to three Immigrations officers handling one traveler at a time. In between my angst, I mischievously wondered what would happen if they gave the wrong passport to the wrong person. I scanned around and observed with pity and shame, the warm pinkish red Caucasian faces, their faces glistening with sweat in the hundred degree heat, like lobsters in a tank waiting to be eaten, standing in the "Other Nationalities" line. Their eyes were glazed over, and the mouths slightly open, almost audibly panting. The bluish white lights scantily interspersed through the uneven newly constructed suspended ceiling, casting a sickly dim pallour on all who stood under its glow. We straggled through the lines moving gradually, as time stretched eternally.


At last it was my turn to have my passport stamped, and as I approached the immigration officer, there was a tall young man standing to the left of her. He looked like he was about 17 years old. A pair of female immigration officers seated behind the counter conferred with each other, then one of them turned to the boy saying: "why did you not come when I called your name? Why can't you follow simple instructions? Now somebody else has taken your passport." she scolded. Staring in disbelief at the drama unfolding, I realized that alas, they had handed his passport to another traveler, who probably did not open it to check, and now it was his fault. Please help me resolve my consternation. Why do you need two people to handle one passport? Let me explain. When you get to the Immigrations border, there are usually two officers in each booth. You hand your passport the officer on the right, who scans it, looks over it, and does some documentation, before she passes it to the officer on the left who then stamps it. As soon as you hand your passport over, you asked to wait in front of the officer to your right, whilst another traveler is processed. So, by the time you move to the officer on your right, the officer on the left may be processing another passport, whilst the officer on the right may have your passport. However, if the officer on the left is quicker at processing than the officer on the right, there could be a pile-up could be up to four passports. These are handed back to the traveler in the order they were received, which usually correlates to the order in which the waiting travelers are standing in line. However, people with similar names, can accidentally pick up the wrong passport. The immigration officer, usually calls out the name on the passport and then, the owner comes forward to claim his/her passport. However, if people have similar names and one of them is not paying attention, well...that was the situation unfolding before me.

"You asked me to wait, which was what I did", the young man calmly responded to the officer's unfair charge. The woman and her colleague eyed him belligerently, clearing wishing he would go poof and disappear. I watched this exchange in disbelief. Now there were three people behind me, so there were four passports piled up with the officer on the right. I kept my eye firmly on my passport. Another officer, comes up to investigate the matter, and has a eureka moment. He suggested they announce the name on the passport that was left behind. He grabbed the left passport and ran towards the baggage claim area, calling out the name on the passport, amidst the din of people struggling for their luggage. I watched in dismay as people wheeled out their luggage, leaving the hot chaos, of the baggage claim hall for the slightly cooler raucous of the arrival hall. Nobody responded to the call. Imagine the owner of the passport, arriving at home, and finding out that he had someone else's passport, not his own. What if he lived in another state. I inspected the pages in my passport which was now in my hands, and as I suspected, there was no provision for an address or phone number. How would the passports and owners be united? I wondered. I lifted my bag from the carousel, and wheeled it towards the hovering swarms of customs officers guarding the "nothing to declare" exit. As I left, I looked back and caught a glimpse of the boy with the missing passport, standing forlornly by an immigration counter.