Despite the terrible state of affairs in Nigeria, it is most appalling to realise that there is still huge pockets of fraud and corruption littered all over the place, in every sector in Nigeria. This has been made worse with the fact that most of these agencies are Government controlled sectors, and the Nigerian Government is well aware of their fraudulent dealings and yet chose to remain mute about it as it benefits them.
All over the world, air travel is an experience new and frequent flyers look forward to, because of its ease, speed and comfort. But oftentimes in Nigeria, before an air traveller embarks on his journey, the experience is usually best described as long and tortuous. Reports reaching Africa Daily News, New York have shown that there is a huge fraudulent racket at Nigerian Airports, especially the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja in the form of COVID-19 forms and tests being used to cleverly extort money from both inbound Nigerian passengers and expatriates.
It has been revealed that the Nigerian Airport officials subject inbound passengers to a harrowing experience of long queues regardless of health status or purpose for travelling. These queues are used to manually register passengers as most of their computers are not in use for the process. The registration is to enrol for a compulsory COVID-19 test regardless of whether you have been tested at your destination country or not and each registration costs a whopping forty thousand naira (₦40,000) for COVID-19 tests that are relatively free in other countries. Also, it has been revealed how these airport officials cleverly make use of only one particular hospital in the whole country for the test thus delaying these inbound passengers the more and defrauding them of their hard-earned cash.
Last November, some Nigerian Airports were ranked top among the world’s worst 20 airports by the aviation organisation. According to the survey, the criteria used included comfort (gate seating and availability of rest zones), services, facilities and things to do, food options, immigration/security, customer service, cleanliness, navigation and ease of transit and sleep-ability. The website explained that the airports that appeared on the list of worst airports in the world are those that have the capacity to truly offend travellers. In the rating of the Nigerian airports, corruption was also a major factor considered, with details that airport officials often demanded bribes to get things done. This is the terrible state of aviation in Nigeria.
These airports have continued to be a ‘national embarrassment’ for a country aiming to make revenue from tourism. People are embarrassed by the look of Nigerian airports and the situation of the aviation sector today and this is because Nigeria has never paid attention to the huge benefits that abound in tourism. With huge revenue accrued to aviation in Nigeria, it is only sad that the situation should remain this way. Even smaller countries in the world have better airport and travel facilities with premium services.
The Nigerian Government would be doing itself a lot of good if they re-strategise on the state of airports in the country. An airport like Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja which generates roughly ₦5 billion every month in revenue and cannot churn out ₦100 million for maintenance of airport structures and better services is a huge problem. It creates a terrible International image for Nigeria and ruins the chances of exploiting the tourism sector in the country. For an airport that receives every nine months, an average of 92 million passengers, operatives of the Immigration, Police, Customs, health and security screening, no doubt give a poor representation of Nigeria, with their brazen corruptive proclivities at the points of entry and exit. Instead of chasing shadows and milking the country dry through wild projects, which bear little or no impact on the life of the average Nigerian air passenger, it may not be out of place for the Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, to take a cursory look at the model adopted in Ghana, with a view to replicating same in Nigeria. Secondly, a holistic overhaul of the operations of the management and re-training of the operating staff within the airport is crucial to its survival. The care-free, careless, lazy, unfriendly attitude of the immigration staff has for long given a first, negative and remarkably terrible impression of Nigeria to millions of visitors who daily visit.
AFRICA TODAY NEWS, NEW YORK