Airport colloquium

Well, I did play that role yesterday at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Lagos en route Frankfurt. As we inched our way on a long queue to the immigration desk, a rough-looking Marxist-cum-Rasta type fellow behind me was grumbling aloud that the fittings demarcating the rows were badly installed and that it was a shame […]

Well, I did play that role yesterday at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Lagos en route Frankfurt. As we inched our way on a long queue to the immigration desk, a rough-looking Marxist-cum-Rasta type fellow behind me was grumbling aloud that the fittings demarcating the rows were badly installed and that it was a shame that it had been approved as job well done. “Just look at how these poles are shaking. Most of them have two or three bolts instead of four. They are not properly bolted to the ground. Very soon they will start falling apart one by one and we would need to award another rehabilitation contract ….”
The man rattled on and on until, mercifully, I was able to rid myself of him at the screening point. But I had no way of knowing that a bigger scene awaited me at the boarding gate. Seated in no particular order in the waiting area of the gate were ordinary Nigerians rattling out their views at ear-splitting decibel. I first thought I was walking into a fight until I realised that all the theatrics were the usual Nigerian Shakara when trying to ram down a point of view. It was rowdy, noisy and at times pedestrian, but the verbal warriors would yield no quarter. They had the energy; none of them appeared to me to be beyond 45 years.
I have chosen to report on the three main characters in the drama — two foreign-based Nigerians and a home-based patriot just going abroad for a conference. We shall call them Diaspora 1, Diaspora 2 and Patriot.
Diaspora 1: I’m glad to be heading back to my base. Each time I come home, it is problems … problems; pressures from friends and family. The same people I’ve been assisting financially in the past 14 years are still where they were when I left home. What kind of country is this?
Diaspora 2: There is no progress at home. I wish there was because I really want to return home in the next five years. The humiliation of being a second-class citizen is getting too much. But we have to fix this country. There is so much corruption everywhere. Everybody you meet is trying to do you in.
Diaspora 1: They think you’re plucking money from the tree overseas. Can you imagine that whenever I send money to my people for the construction of a small house I’m trying to put up, they first take care of their own problems before spending the rest (usually less than 50  percent) on the project. The government is sick but the people are sicker. I don’t even know which is worse between the people and the government.
Patriot: You guys amaze me. This is the only country you can call your own, yet you hardly find anything good in it. You’re going away to Europe to do menial jobs only to return to condemn everything at home. Who built those European cities which you are all proud of?
Diaspora 2: Look at this man! What kind of question is that? Let me tell you, Nigeria lacks the most basic human necessity — security. Yes, say what you like about menial jobs, when I collect my salary in Europe, I am able to enjoy the small comfort I can afford. But here at home, people steal billions but can’t go out for fear of Boko Haram or kidnappers or armed robbers or cultists. In fact the list of killers and abductors waiting to do the affluent in is frightening.
Diaspora 1: What is the use of money that you can’t enjoy at home? Most of the looters now come to Europe to enjoy their money because that continent has 24 hours security. Is there any Nigerian city where one could feel safe to go out by 2am as we do in Europe?
Patriot: Ah, look at this man! Where are you going by 2am when all honest people are supposed to be in bed? You see yourself now? Is that how you measure security?
Diaspora 1: Say what you want, but the problem is that many of you at home have got used to mediocrity. You have taken insecurity as normal. That is why incompetence is glorified. See how a rag tag bunch of terrorists have given your army a run for its money. It saddens me.
Diaspora 2: In which country can you have the kind of situation where our government first denies the seriousness of the security threat it is facing, then proceeds to demonise all those who are calling on it to do the right thing only to make a u-turn and announce that it was negotiating the release of the abducted Chibok girls who were originally said not to be missing.
Patriot: Maybe you have a point there. But why don’t you come home and help salvage the country if you think you have something to offer?
Diaspora 2: Me? This man does not wish me well o! What will I be returning to at home? Joblessness and insecurity.
Patriot: You can’t stay in another man’s country forever.
Diaspora 2: Who tells you that I want to stay abroad forever? I will come home someday, maybe in 15 years time. Hopefully Nigeria would have got things right by then.
Patriot: Oh, so you want us to do the dunked work for you so that you will just stroll in when everything is okay?
Diaspora 1: I think you re getting it wrong. Right now, those of us abroad are helping our various families. We have so many dependants. We are already contributing our quota to Nigeria’s development. If we return home to become a burden to our families, who is going to bail out who?
Patriot: Some of your courageous colleagues have returned.
Diaspora 1: You are a blackmailer. Are you PDP?
Patriot: No, I’m APC.
Diaspora 2: PDP, APC, RIP … you’re all the same to me.
Diaspora 1: Thank you jare my brother. They think what differentiates parties is the alphabets, not ideas.
At that moment the airport announcer’s voice rang out: “Attention please, all passengers checked in on flight number …..
Just when I had begun enjoying the colloquium, it was time to board.