[Ba Issue] Fix Your Own Problems - Stop Blaming Other People

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. ...Read the full article.

[akuluouno]

Esteemed and Hon Villagers,

The only way my parents taught be to gauge the truth in a matter is to measure the subject with a bitter meter
I have put this article in the gadget and it tastes very bitter, meaning that it must be true

[eire]

So Mogadishu and Kabul airports are better than Nigeria's?

Why is Nigeria and Nigerians so easy to insult?

[UncleTisha]

Originally Posted by Nick Clements

...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 **** off and keep their hands off my stuff. That is precisely what they deserved....

Mr Clements,

Would their attitude to you be as a result of some perception of an acute entitlement complex on your part?

As for the other bits in your article, I don't think you are racist, in spite of your pre-emptive protestation. You are just crassly ignorant.

Mxchew!!!!!

[chaos.com]

Like every country we have our problems but we are working on it.
rest assured it would be better.
It was much worse before.

[Balo]

If dealing with Nigeria is such an unpleasant experience for the writer, then why bother going there? Just stay in your country, right! Why he thinks expats deserve protocol officers to take them through the airports whilst other Nigerians have to deal with the same situation is beyond me but might perhaps be a reflection of the writer's unstable mind. He even goes further to tell us that he is married to a Ghanaian as though we are supposed to be impressed with that.

Nigerians are well aware of our many short comings and I am sure there are many individuals fighting to get the system right but this does not mean we do not have a right to protest a glaring injustice such as that meted out to Mr Omotade when we see one.

[Danmeka]

I no blame am, if our yeye leaders sit down for Abuja and plan to destroy our mandate just like as dem do Ekiti people. Egyptian Airlines and Nigeria Airways started at the same time, Egyptian Airlines still dey operational but our dear Nigeria Airways gone forever.

Stop blaming other people, we are to blame, our democracy has become a laughing stock. Ghana and South Africa held elections no palavar, our dear country held re-run and supplementary elections in Ekiti State and it has became a K-leg issue.

Is history about to repeat itself,till then

[kalu31]

Nick is a racist, he wrote the article. that said let me move on.

would the BA guys have thrown out the Nigerian if he had US passport? what if he had a UK Passport? would a Nigerian airline have acted and thrown the passenger out?

we might not have the best airports in the world, but what is BA ranking amonghst airlines worldwide, have they finally sorted out Terminal 5? can you compare Aero Contrators to Ryan Air?

But i lay no blame at the authors feet, rather on the Nigerians who allow mechanics come to Nigeria and call them Engineers, and even give them "Protocool officers" if he does not want pigs to touch his things, let him get out of the 'pig sty" and move back to sunny Middlesbrough

Abacha treatment of BA was spot on.

[Omo Ekun]

This what the man is saying; assumptions made on scanty information. You just assumed that since Afghanistan is a war-torn country then their airport must be worse than ours? Please get informed! This semi literacy we display and the assumption that we a blessing to the black race is doing us very little good especially when have nothing to show for it. Those that are disgracing this nation are not the 419 boys in diaspora, they are those that live within us in Nija coupled with the way we treat ourselves with total indignity back home. Can you honestly tell me that the treatment we get outside our country (either from policemen, traffic wardens et al) is worse than what you have experienced in hands o our own security officials. Charity begins at home!

[RAHIM]

Reading the article, i actually agreed with most of the issues raised by the Author and did not read any racial undertones into until ''i am married to black ghanian''.

That imho is just a case of defensive mechanism most racist and tribalistic people use saying ''my friends are black, white or somali''.

That was an unneccesary bit of info. You can criticize constructively but trying to justify your arguement by saying your are not racist is not important .

[Kenn]

.


Yeah, it’s okay, Mr Clements to give you, a pretentious, patronizing and self-absorbed pinhead a space to spew this crap! It’s fine to let you empty the bilious contents of your constipated insides on our collective faces! Now, does your uncorroborated tale of indignity in the hands of Nigerian airport officials equate to an institutional display of racism, discrimination, intimidation and bad customers’ service exhibited by an airline towards fare-paying passengers of a certain nationality? You see, the only relevance of your story now in the light of the court judgment is that you and your ilk who have continued to stereotype Nigerians and call us names should go hide your heads in shame. British Airways has been thoroughly discredited in a British court of law for its conduct towards Mr Omotade and, by extension, other passengers on the day. You may not be a racist, and oh yes, you say you cannot be because you have a Ghanaian wife and a mixed race son! Hmm, but I’ve seen not a few hardcore racists roll out a list of their black “friends” to support their claim that they aren’t racist! Your words betray you, Mr Clements! Your words betray you bad! Now, run along and do some thinking....


.

[Auspicious]

+

Come on now, Folks..

Allow this man, abeg - let us not lurch into the expected knee-jerk reaction, please. I see, already, people taking assumptions about him rightaway in the first few posts here. We shouldn't be so predictable. Surely, we can do better. Everything he said, we say about ourselves and our system everyday - everyone of us does it. Can we at least assess the merits viz the demerits of his expressed position? Can we at least approach this intellectually, putting aside our egos for a moment to deal with the reality of his position? Please join me on a journey to the very end of my comments here to get a complete sense of where I am coming from.

I, too, brimmed with anger when I saw the headline of this article. I didn't even want to read it; I simply wanted to blast the author and walk away - especially when I saw the name of the author, whom I strongly suspected was some Nigerian with a pseudonym (which is still not impossible) out act holier than the Pope. But I thought better of the unwise choice of just blasting him and decided to read before I commented. And as I read on and on, I realized that, indeed, this man had good points to make in that article. He said so many things that are undeniably factual - that may make us appear as 'funny people' who get irate when others cheat us, but eat humble pie when our own bullies us.

I was reminded again for example, from what the author had to say, that we suffer worse indignities from our own aviation-related personel at home in Nigeria. I am reminded of what our dear family friend who was visiting Nigeria for the first time in many years had to go through, just because she happened to be a dual citizen with 2 passports on her. The young girl with full first and last Yoruba names was bullied by Nigerian custom agents at the airport endlessly, and questioned about her passports, asking her why she had two passports in her possession blah-blah - in her own country for fcuk sakes!! Eventually they made her choose between the two passports. Your guess is as good as mine about which passport she tuck to between her Nigerian and her American passport.

And that is just one small example out of many. There are horrible services everywhere in Nigeria - or at least sub-standard services. We groan and bare it all everyday as we have been doing for donkey years - suffering and smiling is what Fela Anikulapo-Kuti called it. By the time I was done reading the author's article here, I had been humbled and my brimming anger had all but eviscerated. Still, in a way, I want to disagree with him though - especially with the tone of his article, starting with the title. He came across as a little contemptuous of Nigerians. But then again, who wouldn't? Our docility in the face of local injustice is just..numbing! We "manage" (live with) endless indignities all the time at home, only to burst out in anger when it is done to us by outsiders.

The case of the Uche girl who got assaulted and stripped naked by soldiers a few months ago should invoke an instant on-the-spot retribution for every soldier within a mile of the incident - especially the actual perpetrators on the scene. Those soldiers should have been killed on the spot for their brutality on a young, helpless woman. It is the only way through which we can express our defiance in the face of inhuman lawlessness metted on us by those who are supposed to defend us. But up till today, nothing - nothing at all has happened to any of the officers or garrulous conscripts involved in the show of shame. But God forbid it was a British cop who did the same to a Nigerian, the cop would most likely be in jail by now. Now that's the rule of law that we need in Nigeria.

But I digress. My disagreement with the author, as I was saying, was the impression he sought to put foward; that simply because we suffer this indignities at home, we may not campaign against indignities elsewhere. No way, Sir! People can walk and chew gum at the same time - Nigerians can still spare the time to fight for the right of a Nigerian, who in their view, was unfairly treated on that British Airways plane for daring to ask that the flight crew and the agents responsible for handling the other Nigerian being deported to show better professionalism at their job. Nigerians did NO wrong by standing up to defend that man, forget how bad things may be at home in Nigeria. If I am a Nigerian who found himself in Britian, I expect to be accorded the same British standards as everybody else!

And that's the argument we should be making against the author here, Folks, instead of people like Erie coming on board to argue that Nigeria airports are not as bad as Kabul and Mogadishu airports(!). Kabuluuuu! Mgoadishuuuuuu! Is that how low our self-esteem has sunk, that we have to look to Mogadishu and Kabul to feel good about ourselves? Then, a whole UncleTisha came on board to address what he saw as the entitlement complex of the Britisher. What, for the sake of our Lord God Jesus, has "entitlement complex" got to do with expecting the good standards of Airports as upheld everywhere in the world (except places like Nigeria's MML)? Then he insulted the author by calling him ignorant.

Why are we so terrible at taking useful criticisms? Why is insult always our best defense in the face of justified criticism? And Balo, too, came on board admonishing the writer to keep to his own country if he finds Nigeria so intolerable. Well, does Balo and Chaos.com and the rest of us who share these sentiments also realize, that if that's the standards, the British are justified to tell Mr. Ayodeji Omotade and his supporters here the same thing, that is, "if you find Britain and their British Airways so intolerable, why don't you go ahead and get out of England and fly your moribound Nigerian airways"? We are such terrible candidates at self-assessment - or, better said, we are such terrible debaters. We don't know how to stay focused and on-point in civil debates.

This man has come to ring a bell that needs to be rung in our conscience. He has seen what we endure at home first-hand and is in a good position to speak as he did. The least we can do is accomodate his expressed position FOR OUR OWN GOOD! Every point he made is valid - except for the impression that we shouldn't fight for oppressed people like Ayo Omotade. Moreover, his article should NEVER have been held-up by the publishers in the first instance. It is societies that allow constrasting views to be aired that thrive the most in terms of innovation and ideas - that is why the Nigeria Village Square is called the "Marketplace of Ideas". Let us be tolerant of different views, as long as such views are respectful and not filled with spiteful bile. Let us make Lemonade out of the Lemon that this author has given us!

This is Auspicious.

[OweEse]

Originally Posted by kalu31

Nick is a racist, he wrote the article. that said let me move on.

would the BA guys have thrown out the Nigerian if he had US passport? what if he had a UK Passport? would a Nigerian airline have acted and thrown the passenger out?

.

Correct me if I am wrong but isn't Mr Omotade a British Citizen complete with red pali?

Originally Posted by Auspicious

+

Come on now, Folks..

Allow this man, abeg - let us not lurch into the expected knee-jerk reaction, please. I see, already, people taking assumptions about him rightaway in the first few posts here. We shouldn't be so predictable. Surely, we can do better. Everything he said, we say about ourselves and our system everyday - everyone of us does it. Can we at least assess the merits viz the demerits of his expressed position? Can we at least approach this intellectually, putting aside our egos for a moment to deal with the reality of his position? Please join me on a journey to the very end of my comments here to get a complete sense of where I am coming from.

I, too, brimmed with anger when I saw the headline of this article. I didn't even want to read it; I simply wanted to blast the author and walk away - especially when I saw the name of the author, whom I strongly suspected was some Nigerian with a pseudonym (which is still not impossible) out act holier than the Pope. But I thought better of the unwise choice of just blasting him and decided to read before I commented. And as I read on and on, I realized that, indeed, this man had good points to make in that article. He said so many things that are undeniably factual - that may make us appear as 'funny people' who get irate when others cheat us, but eat humble pie when our own bullies us.

I was reminded again for example, from what the author had to say, that we suffer worse indignities from our own aviation-related personel at home in Nigeria. I am reminded of what our dear family friend who was visiting Nigeria for the first time in many years had to go through, just because she happened to be a dual citizen with 2 passports on her. The young girl with full first and last Yoruba names was bullied by Nigerian custom agents at the airport endlessly, and questioned about her passports, asking her why she had two passports in her possession blah-blah - in her own country for fcuk sakes!! Eventually they made her choose between the two passports. Your guess is as good as mine about which passport she tuck to between her Nigerian and her American passport.

And that is just one small example out of many. There are horrible services everywhere in Nigeria - or at least sub-standard services. We groan and bare it all everyday as we have been doing for donkey years - suffering and smiling is what Fela Anikulapo-Kuti called it. By the time I was done reading the author's article here, I had been humbled and my brimming anger had all but eviscerated. Still, in a way, I want to disagree with him though - especially with the tone of his article, starting with the title. He came across as a little contemptuous of Nigerians. But then again, who wouldn't? Our docility in the face of local injustice is just..numbing! We "manage" (live with) endless indignities all the time at home, only to burst out in anger when it is done to us by outsiders.

The case of Uche girl who got beat by soldiers a few months ago should invoke an instant on-the-spot retribution for every soldier within a mile of the incident - especially the actual perpetrators on the scene. Those soldiers should have been killed on the spot for their brutality on a young, helpless woman. It is the only way through which we can express our defiance in the face of lawlessness. But up till today, nothing - nothing at all has happened to any of the officers or garrulous conscripts involved in the show of shame. But God forbid it was a British cop who did the same to a Nigerian, the cop would most likely be in jail by now. Now that's the rule of law that we need in Nigeria.

But I digress. My disagreement with the author, as I was saying, was the impression he sought to put foward; that simply because we suffer this indignities at home, we may not campaign against indignities elsewhere. No way, Sir! People can walk and chew gum at the same time - Nigerians can still spare the time to fight for the right of a Nigerian, who in their view, was unfairly treated on that British Airways plane for daring to ask that the flight crew and the agents responsible for handling the other Nigerian being deported to show better professionalism at their job. Nigerians did NO wrong by standing up to defend that man, forget how bad things may be at home in Nigeria. If I am a Nigerian who found himself in Britian, I expect to be accorded the same British standards as everybody else!

And that's the argument we should be making against the author here, Folks, instead of people like Erie coming on board to argue that Nigeria airports are not as bad as Kabul and Mogadishu airports(!). Kabuluuuu! Mgoadishuuuuuu! Is that how low our self-esteem has sunk, that we have to look to Mogadishu and Kabul to feel good about ourselves? Then, a whole UncleTisha came on board to address what he saw as the entitlement complex of the Britisher. What, for the sake of our Lord God Jesus, has "entitlement complex" got to do with expecting the good standards of Airports as upheld everywhere in the world (except places like Nigeria's MML)? Then he insulted the author by calling him ignorant.

Why are we so terrible about taking useful criticisms? Why is insult always our best defense in the face of justified criticism? And Balo too came on board, admonishing the writer to keep to his own country if he finds Nigeria so intolerable. Well, does Balo and Chaos and the rest of us who share these sentiments also realize that the British are justified to tell Mr. Ayodeji Omotade and his supporters here the same thing, that "if you find Britain and their British Airways so intolerable, why don't you go ahead and get out of England and fly your moribound Nigerian airways"? We are such terrible candidates at self-assessment - or, better said, we are such terrible debaters. We don't know how to stay focused on debate on-point.

This man has come to ring a bell that needs to be rung. The least we can do is accomodate his expressed position FOR OUR OWN GOOD! Every point he made is valid - except for the impression that we shouldn't fight for oppressed people like Ayo Omotade. Moreover, his article should NEVER have been held-up by the publishers in the first instance.

It is societies that allow constrasting views to be aired that thrive the most in terms of innovation and ideas - that is why I believe the NIgeria Viillage Square is called the "Marketplace of Ideas". Let us be tolerant of different views, as long as such views are respectful and not filled with spiteful bile. Let us make Lemonade out of the Lemon that this author has given us!

This is Auspicious.

The most reasonable post I see on this thread in it's entirety. May God save and continue to help Nigeria and Nigerians. See what *some* adults are writing on this thread?

*shakes head*

[Kenn]

Originally Posted by Simbili

The most reasonable post I see on this thread in it's entirety. May God save and continue to help Nigeria and Nigerians. See what adults are writing on this thread?

*shakes head*

Well, better continue shaking your head, because your standard of what is reasonable, in my opinion, is very, very low. Indeed, it is only people who lack self-esteem and who cannot understand when they are being spitefully disrespected that will call the tosh posted by Clements here as just a "different view". If you want me to break it down for you, I will; but, for now, let me go shake my head and roll my eyes as well....


.

[UncleTisha]

Originally Posted by Auspicious

+

Come on now, Folks..

....Then, a whole UncleTisha came on board to address what he saw as the entitlement complex of the Britisher. What, for the sake of our Lord God Jesus, has "entitlement complex" got to do with expecting the good standards of Airports as upheld everywhere in the world (except places like Nigeria's MML)? Then he insulted the author by calling him ignorant.
....

This is Auspicious.

Auspi,

Your answer lies in the quote below:

...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....

That is the premise upon which the drivel coming from Mr Clements was based. How dare 'some new minister' make his eminence go through the indignity of having his bags searched by such lowly officials? Didn't they know he was a Brit, a former overlord that was used to being carried on the shoulder by savages?

[Auspicious]

+

Hi, Mr. Kenn.

While I don't wish to get into endless debate with you or anyone else here, may I make the following clear:

1]. I definitely DO NOT suffer any deficiency in self-esteem. My ability to tolerate the author's views for the many truisms therein is NOT out of a "lack of self-esteem" as you appear to suggest, but is actually a worthy strenght of character that enables people like me to look inwards for my own good.

2]. There is no such thing that fits into "spitefully disrespec(ful)" of Nigerians in that article. If anything, it is the kind of things we say to one another about our country everyday. Yours is a case of convenient, blatant exergerration out of an inability to take useful criticism because of your mmmmmassive ego.

Auspicious.

[Balo]

Why are we so terrible about taking useful criticisms? Why is insult always our best defense in the face of justified criticism? And Balo too came on board, admonishing the writer to keep to his own country if he finds Nigeria so intolerable. Well, does Balo and Chaos and the rest of us who share these sentiments also realize that the British are justified to tell Mr. Ayodeji Omotade and his supporters here the same thing, that "if you find Britain and their British Airways so intolerable, why don't you go ahead and get out of England and fly your moribound Nigerian airways"? We are such terrible candidates at self-assessment - or, better said, we are such terrible debaters. We don't know how to stay focused on debate on-point. - Auspy

My friend, looks like you are having a terrible day. Did you read my post at all before you started trying to narrow it's thrust? Balo did acknowledge some of his valid points which is why I stated quite clearly that we are aware of our our many short comings and we will be working at resolving them.

The thrust of my posts in case it was lost on you is simple, he cannot expect to walk into Nigeria and be treated differentially - simple. Likewise Mr Omotade (even though he carries a British passport) should be treated in a similar way as other fare paying passengers whether British or not. Fair and equal treatment across board. Now what again is it that you fail to comprehend about that simple presentation?

[dem]

The author can kiss my black behind!

Let me put it to you this way; the way the Tories put it to 'foreigners' in the UK everyday: If you don't like it, get out!

When the Brit march into countless countries and take over their resources by force citing some unknown royalty as authority, nobody talked about 'knowing the rules.'

As they departed carrying every valuable that wasn't nailed down, did they not put together a contraption called "commonwealth" to enable them to continue stealing other people's properties? That "commonwealth" arrangement was only common to the Brits. Well, we have come here to partake of the "commonwealth!" But while we are chopping our commonwealth, we expect to be treated with the utmost dignity. Na so o.

'Fix your own problems; stop blaming others' coming from the Brits?! Ha! It is to laugh. We are trying to fix the problem but you people keep enabling, and propping up thieving weaklings as govts to continue your looting.

Corruption? Who taught us? Abi you want us to open the can of govt corruption in the UK? Ministers collecting money just to ask questions in parliament? Is it the Home Office Minister that got the State to pay for her and her husband to watch porn? How about inflated bills claiming for 2nd homes? How many 'pilgrimages' are made annually by Brit govt officials and royalty to the East to bribe for contract?

Abegi!

And, oh yeah. I'm a Black Nigerian with a beautiful Nigerian wife and children. Na so oo!

Originally Posted by Auspicious

+

Hi, Mr. Kenn.

While I don't wish to get into endless debate with you or anyone else here, may I make the following clear:

1]. I definitely DO NOT suffer any deficiency in self-esteem. My ability to tolerate the author's views for the many truisms therein is NOT out of a "lack of self-esteem" as you appear to suggest, but is actually a worthy strenght of character that enables people like me to look inwards for my own good.

2]. There is no such thing that fits into "spitefully disrespec(ful)" of Nigerians in that article. If anything, it is the kind of things we say to one another about our country everyday. Yours is a case of convenient, blatant exaggeration out of an inability to take useful criticism because of your mmmmmassive ego.

Auspicious.

......not to mention a dire need to see a shrink for the required corrective form of anger management therapy, or the adequate titration of some ineffective pharmaceutical regiment for a definitive diagnosis of an exotic, mutant form of pre-existing, exclusively, genetically-predisposed form of bipolar disorder.

I could not have put it better.