One and a half hours
to departure time, and I stood in line at Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, gazing in despair at the long
security line that snaked through the hall. "It was long, but at least it
was moving consistently", I consoled myself. The announcements boomed from the speakers in
the new brightly lit portion of the departure hall. We trudged along inching
down the eternal line.
I heard some
rustling behind, and a voice asked to be excused. Without thinking, I stepped
aside, and a lady, with her luggage in tow brushed past me, making her way
rapidly down the line. A few minutes
later, another passenger breezed by me. I noted that the first lady was already
at the security point. The line moved slowly. I wondered what flight the people
rushing through were catching. It also suddenly occurred to me that airlines
usually send someone to expedite their passengers through the security lines,
if they are checked in and the plane is about to depart. I resolved to guard
the line the next time someone came through.
The next set of
people were a pair of presumably gentlemen. A light-skinned man probably in his
late fifties, accompanied by a man who was about twenty years younger. When
they got to me, the older man bellowed :"excuse me!" forcefully. I
breathed deep and asked them boldly but politely, why they needed to pass
through, since we were each trying to catch a flight. The older gentleman
explained that he was running late and needed to catch his flight. I asked him
what flight he was on and what time it was departing. A flash of irritation
crossed his face, and he retorted that I did not need to know, then curtly
asked me to step aside. Oh boy! Well, I politely let him know that he could not
pass through. It was my place in line and I had the right to cede it to
whomever I wanted to. He threatened to move me out, if I did not move. I dug my
heels in and stood akimbo with my arms gripping each side of the rail. To my
surprise, this man shamelessly and forcefully tried to push me aside.
How did I get here?
I wondered in a surreal moment: being shoved aside by an elderly man at the
international airport in Lagos. More importantly was how do I get out of this
mess? Remember that there was a hall full of people all around me. In fact some
people muttered indicating I should just let him pass. I started calling for
security, as I realized that the man emboldened by the onlookers inaction,
could very well land me a slap, and he was pushing me more forcibly, as I
resisted by shifting the weight on my legs to counter his push, while trying to
maintain as much dignity as one can muster in such a situation. The situation
was rapidly deteriorating, and I quickly scanned through my options for a
graceful exit. Two airport security men finally showed up. After listening to
my complaint, one of them reprimanded him lightly, saying he should have
"asked me nicely". "That's not the point!" I thought.
"When you ask for something, you may get an affirmative or negative response"
in this case, my response was negative. The security did not seem to think it
was such a big deal that he assaulted me when he did not get the response he
desired. I explained to the security that he had "asked" me, but he
refused to volunteer his flight information, to aid in my decision on whether
to let him through or not. The security man then asked him what flight he was
rushing to catch. Well when he finally deigned to respond, it turned out we
were trying to catch the same flight! Needless to say, I ensured he stayed
behind me the rest of the way. He and his colleagues spent the next few minutes
taunting me, meanly calling me the "line police", and accusing me of
infringing on their freedom of movement, and railing at how this could never
happen in the United States. "At least on that last point we agreed",
I thought, with the smug satisfaction that their comments were coming from
behind me.
Such an incident can
and does occur in Nigeria, not because the people are particularly unruly, but
because we let it happen- Yes, you and I, if you are a Nigerian in Nigeria. The man in question, judging by his accent must
have spent at least twenty years living in the United States of America, and was probably just visiting. He knew better. He was perfectly
capable of conforming in a law abiding society. It is the people in line who
stepped aside to let him pass, the people who looked the other way when he
assaulted me, that make Nigeria lawless. It is the airport security that did not
see anything seriously wrong with the man's actions, and as such treated the
incident with levity. It is you and I. So, if you jump queues, if you step
aside and let people jump the queue, or if you look the other way when someone
plucks up the courage to address the queue jumper, then you and only you are
Nigeria's problem. Not anyone else. Do something today. You are Nigeria. Change
the Nigerian story.
