Chat with a London cabby and catch a plane

My encounter with him was as unexpected as it was exciting. It was unexpected because my usual driver was away and I had to make an impromptu arrangement with this one—worse still, I had to do it in a hurry. It was all my fault, though. I had originally planned to return to Nigeria last […]

My encounter with him was as unexpected as it was exciting. It was unexpected because my usual driver was away and I had to make an impromptu arrangement with this one—worse still, I had to do it in a hurry.

It was all my fault, though. I had originally planned to return to Nigeria last June but academic commitment, the comfort of London summer and, let’s be honest, the fear of returning to the same deteriorating social services in Nigeria—I was regularly reminded that they were even getting worse by the day—made me to cancel my return flight, without notice.

I stayed put in London until I summoned enough courage a few days ago and began to plan my journey home. First, I checked my online booking with the British Airways (on their website) to see if I could make an adjustment online, pay penalty fare and fix a new flight date. To my shock, the information they put out there showed that I had used off my June 28 return ticket. It was a lie; I hadn’t.

I refreshed the site but it still released the same information. I did all I could to make it tell the truth; it refused. I began to wonder what trick was the British Airways up to. I knew instinctively that they were trying to extract as much money from me as they possibly could, on the pretext that I didn’t notify them of my change of return flight schedule.

Based on my past experience, I didn’t really have to notify them of any change of plan. All I have to do is to go to the airport on the new date I intend to travel and pay a penalty fare of $100 (or $125) and they would reactivate my account and allow me to travel. I was willing to do it now but they seemed unwilling to let that happen.

I then tried to make a new online booking for a London-Abuja one-way trip, and the lowest price they put there was about £2,500. Converted into Nigerian naira at the rate of £1 to N280 (which is shamelessly the prevailing rate), it is a staggering N700,000. If it were for a first or business class, that would have been fine; but for an economy class, it was outrageous. “I cannot and will not pay this price,” I told myself and shut both the website and my laptop.

I began to contemplate taking Egypt Air for a one-week holiday in Cairo after which I would proceed to Abuja. I called Egyptian consulate in London and told them I needed a visa. One lady, with a British accent, told me that I could apply but that considering my nationality (a Nigerian), it would take between two to six weeks to get it. It would have been faster and easier for a few other nationalities. South Africans, for instance, would get it free and faster. Nigerians are among the nationalities that have to pay the highest rate and take the longest time before getting it, I later learnt. Our reputation around the world has indeed been plummeting, rapidly.

I shelved Egypt’s idea and returned to British Airways—after all, they need to explain to me why I couldn’t fully use my ticket.

I rang their number, and after putting me on hold for about 20 minutes (at my expense), a male voice, with a non-British accent, asked me what could they do for me. I told him I would be glad, if they could fulfil the second part of their contract and fly me home. He asked for my details; I gave him.

“Salamu alaikum,” he said politely when my Arabic-sounding names gave him a hint of my possible religious identity.

“Alaikumul salam,” I answered.

“You’re supposed to have travelled on June 28,” he said.

“I was but I didn’t”.

“You see, Mr Abubakar, the terms of your contract is such that…”

I didn’t pick exactly what he was saying but I knew it was part of a scheme to extract more than the usual $100 from me.

I told him that all I wanted was to use my ticket and return home. He said I could but at a much higher cost.

“How much?”

He said he couldn’t give the price until I tell him exactly which date I wish to travel, and he checks and finds availability.

“Next week, Thursday,” I said slowly.

“Are you sure?”

“Hmmm” I wasn’t really sure.

“Well,” he said politely. “You have to be absolutely sure because if I fix you for Thursday and you fail to show up, they gonna charge you again for a ‘no show’”.

“I’m not really sure,” I confided in him.

“Well, I suggest that you call back when you are really sure of the date. Otherwise, you’d keep on getting additional charges,” he advised.

I heeded his advice and thanked him.

When I was sure of the date, I rang them again. This time a lady picked the call (again after I had spent about 20 minutes waiting on the line, at my expense).

How could she help me?

I told her.

“What’s your ticket number?”

I gave her my booking reference number.

“No, I need your ticket number, Mr Abubakar,” she said with a tinge of hostility. “It starts with 2 4 …”

“I don’t have that. It’s a reference number I have and I was supposed to have returned on June 28, but I put it off”.

“Well, June is quite a long period, isn’t it? The ticket might have expired,” her hostile tone was now undisguised.

“No way, the ticket is still valid,” I said firmly. “Your staff confirmed its validity just a couple of days ago. He could have fixed a travel date for me, had I not asked him to hold on until I was sure of a new date”.

There was a long pause, presumably occasioned by her search of my details in their system.

“I got it,” she said with a friendly voice now. “When do you want to travel, Mr Abubakar?”

“Tuesday next week”.

Another long pause—she’s perhaps searching for availability or calculating the charges or doing both.

The total charges amounted to £202 and I should pay at the British Airways desk at Heathrow Airport on the day of my travel, she told me.

I said that was fine and thanked her.

At least it wasn’t the outrageous £2,500 one-way ticket price they had put on their website, and I need not to spend between two to six weeks waiting for an Egyptian visa before I can travel.

What is more, the airline even sent me the confirmation of my ‘Executive Club’ membership, with some enticing offers.

“Soon,” they said, “you could be taking a boat along the River Thames in London to see the beautiful historical landmark, St Paul’s Cathedral, and the modern London Eye, before taking in an art exhibition at the National Gallery or Tate Modern”.

Well, I said, these are not good enough for me because I had done them years ago.

“Then again, you could be strolling round the boulevards of Paris, taking in an exhibition at The Louvre and eating in Belle Epoque brasseries,” their offer continues. “Or you might choose to explore Amsterdam by canal boat, before gazing at the paintings of the Old Masters in the Museum Quarter”.

Yeah, now you are talking, you can really catch me with these ones.

With the flight issue now resolved I became relaxed.

Instead of commencing the travel preparation in good time to avoid last minute rush, I went about enjoying the summer in Central London. I did occasionally venture into the poor areas of the city and report about the riots that wrecked them. And I did also do one or two things regarding my return journey. But generally I left most of the preparations until the last day. It wasn’t a clever decision.

I realised to my annoyance that on the last day, I had to visit University of Westminster’s Research Office, had to buy a couple of items requested by some people back in Nigeria, had to buy additional luggage (because the ones I have could not contain all the items), had to send a couple of emails, had to write a short news story, and, worst of all, I had to do the packing.

By the time I had finished some of them, it was already getting late, the long-hours of fasting in the summer was taking its toll on me, and I hadn’t yet done the packing. Nor had I called my usual driver to arrange for my conveyance to the airport. And I needed to go to the airport early to pay the charges before they would allow me to check in.

It was already 6pm and my items were still scattered across my Central London flat. I was tired, thirsty and hungry. I felt like abandoning the trip and throwing myself onto my well-laid bed (incidentally the housemaid, who didn’t usually touch my bed, did make it well today because I left it unkempt when I went out early in a hurry). But I know this would hurt both my economy (high rent and airline charges) and my image (I’d told many people that I’d be leaving that day).

I mustered enough energy and slowly started packing. As it progressed, I realised that my suitcases could not take all the items. I have to throw away some less valuable items.

I called my usual driver, but his firm told me that he was away but could send a different driver.

I said they should.

He came with a huge car, large enough to evacuate an extended family and too bulky to run comfortably on the congested streets of Central London. I wasn’t too happy with it but I didn’t complain.

We loaded my luggage and he asked me to sit in the owner’s corner. London taxi drivers—both the traditional black taxis and others—are used to having their passengers sit in the backseat (the black taxis do not even have front seats for passengers). But I usually prefer to be modest and sit on the front seat (unless unavailable), and many of the drivers seem to like such modesty.

I did the same thing this time around and sat with the driver. It was a mistake.

For as soon as we started moving, the driver, an elderly man with a thick East European accent, opened a torrent of talks without any solicitation.

He was a Muslim from Kosovo, he told me. He had fought off the Serbs, he bragged. He was now a British citizen along with members of his immediate family, he smiled. He hated Russians, he said. He didn’t like Greeks.

“Are you going for a holiday, sir?” Shaaib, as he said his name was, asked me after his prolonged monologue.

“Not really, I’m going home,” I told him.

“And where is that?”

“Nigeria”

“Oh, Nigeria? You don’t speak like a Nigerian,” he said. “The last time I drove a Nigerian he spoke with a different accent—a very aggressive man,” he paused. “He was so aggressive I had to tell him to go to hell”.

I felt like telling him too to go to hell but I restrained myself. Shaaib was really an elderly person, old enough to be my father. And he seemed to be expressing his prejudices from the bottom of his heart.

“You’re different, sir,” he continued. “The Nigerian I met wasn’t a good man. He was shouting at me just because I came a few minutes late. ‘Do you know that if I miss my flight I would hold you responsible?’ he shouted at me. I said sorry but he continued to shout at me. Then I said to him: f…k you, get out of my car! I fought a war; you didn’t. It was only then he shut up—he was a very bad man”.

I made no comment.

“But you’re different, sir,” he repeated. “Which part of Nigeria do you come from? The other man I drove was going to Lagos. Are you going there too?”

I didn’t really want answer him but I did so, reluctantly.

“I’m going to Abuja”.

“Which part of the country?”

“In the North,” I said. “Nigeria is a big country with over 160 million people—more than two and a half times the size of the UK’s population. It’s not a small nation like Kosovo”.

“Yeah, we’re only two millions in Kosovo, but Albanians are spread in many countries. We have the whole of Albania. We have people in Macedonia,” he said proudly before he went into a long history of Albanians, from the time of Ottoman Empire to their current conflict with Serbia.

I wasn’t really worried about listening to his one-sided history. My real worries came when he brought out his iphone4 and began to search for the Kosovo map while he was still driving the big car on the narrow streets of London. It was one of the riskiest driving I had ever seen in my life.

“Look,” he said when he finally got the Kosovo map. “All here down to Macedonia and Albania; we are all the same people. We’re mainly Muslims. We have Christian brothers, but the majority of us are Muslims,” he added and went again into another long history of conflict in the Balkans.

With all my knowledge and interest in international affairs, the complexity of the Balkan region is something I prefer to stay away from. But Shaaib was dragging me into it.

His contempt for the Greeks and Russians was unmistakable. Hardly would he make three sentences without making a derogatory remark against one of them. “The Russians and Greeks are Orthodox Christians,” he said. “They all hate Muslims. Forget about the way Russia supports Arabs; it is all politics. They hate Islam more than the Americans do.”

He didn’t like Serbs too, which is understandable, given the long wars Albanians fought with them and the fact that Serbia still refuses to recognise Kosovo as an independent nation—all these, amid claims that many Serbs still regard Kosovo as the political and spiritual capital of greater Serbia.

Whatever the politics, the way Shaaib spoke showed the kind of antagonism that is still brewing in the Balkans. It also gave a hint of what went into the minds of war crimes’ suspects like former Yugoslav leader late Slobodan Milosevic, Radovan Karadzic, Ratko Mladic and Goran Hadzic.

The encounter equally improves my knowledge of the London cabbies. There were stories of a few of them having links with Somali pirates and even offering help to negotiate the release of hostages off the coast of Somalia. There were also stories of some of them having contacts with Mujahideen and Talibans in Afghanistan.

And now there is Shaaib, with his Balkan narratives. Despite his obvious partisanship, the old man has really given me additional insight into the complicated conflicts of the Balkans, though, at a very high cost—risky and slow driving. We were really lucky to escape a head-on collision and the normally 45-minute drive was turned into a 90-minute journey. I nearly missed my flight.