Getting a boarding pass in Lagos

In all my years of working in Africa I did not personally come across a great deal of corruption  – this particular experience at Lagos International Airport is the exception rather than the rule.

Lagos is a very large city in Nigeria – it is the second largest city in Africa (Cairo is the largest) with an estimated population of 15.5 million. It is an overwhelming city which is full of life but also mostly poor and dilapidated.   I first visited Lagos in the late 1990s on an assignment for UNICEF – the UN Childrens’ agency.  We could only travel in convoy with an armed escort and it was not recommended that you walked around in the city.  I recall very clearly arriving at the hotel I was to stay in with a colleague from the United Nations.  As I checked in the clerk asked me how I was going to pay and I put my credit card on the counter.  My colleague slapped his hand down on the counter covering my card and gave it back to me saying that I must not use it or let it out of my sight anywhere in Lagos – I paid in cash.

My memorable experience of catching a British Airways flight from Lagos to London happened on the same trip as my remarkable flight from Abuja (read about it here) – it was a long day.  I arrived in the domestic terminal in Lagos and went by Taxi to the Sheraton Hotel to wait out the afternoon before returning to the airport to catch the flight to London.  The domestic terminal was in a general state of low level chaos and tardiness.  I was mobbed first by people offering to carry my bags and then by prospective taxi drivers, clamoring and pushing to get my attention and custom.  Fearful that I would never see them again, I hung on to my bags and pushed my way through the throng to the taxi rank outside, rigorously avoiding eye contact.  Doing rapid mental arithmetic, I chose what I thought was a reasonable taxi driver and was soon on my way to the hotel with that familiar sense that I had been undoubtedly ripped off but was nonetheless relieved to be in the relative calm of the taxi.

No seat allocation

In the lobby of the Sheraton I settled down to pass several hours with various draft reports and bits and pieces of work to be done at the end of my mission.  I left the hotel to return to the International Terminal at 5pm with plenty of time in hand.  However, when I arrived I was handed a piece of paper by a BA representative saying that the 8pm flight was delayed and would leave at 10pm.  Because of the delays the airport authorities would not allow passengers into the building so we hung around for a couple of hours. Eventually at about 8pm we were allowed to check in which is when my next adventure began.  When I was handed my boarding pass I noticed that I did not have a seat allocated.  I queried this to be told that although I had a boarding pass, this did not necessarily mean that I was on the flight which was apparently overbooked – I would have to wait and see.  Although I had a boarding pass I could not go through departures.  I was then approached every few minutes by a variety of people, some looking more official than others, with the offer that if I gave them my passport and between 50 and 100 Dollars, they could arrange for me to get a seat allocation.  I declined and hung on to my passport but I  noticed one or two other passengers (who had arrived at the airport after me) make use of this dubious service.  Eventually at about 10pm we were told to go through emigration and on to the departures lounge – the holy of holies.  Despite the fact that I still did not have a seat allocation, this seemed a good sign.  We were told that the plane was further delayed and would only be coming at midnight – not a good sign.

It was at this point that I discovered that I did not have my PDA with me, on which I relied enormously – it had my diary, all my contacts etc. etc.  It was no where to be found and, working back, I realised that I must have left it in the hotel.  I knew that I would never see it again.  Feeling increasingly irritated at how this whole day had turned out I went up to the desk to do battle once again with the BA ground staff to get a seat allocation – a number of passengers who were behind me in the queue earlier now had seats allocated.  The check-in crew made it clear that they would do me a favour if I made it worth their while – so they were in on the plan as well!  This made me even more irritated but I decided to bide my time and perhaps speak to the cabin crew when the plane arrived if I got the chance.

A warm buttock sandwich

Eventually at around midnight the flight finally arrived.  After about 1/2 an hour they started boarding the Lagos passengers – I still had no seat allocation and it seemed that I was the only one left.  A final discussion with the check-in staff confirmed that they were not going to give me a seat.  I now had the prospect of having to either sleep at the airport or try to get a taxi back to the hotel at 1am in the morning.  I decided that I was not going to let this lie and took out a pen and piece of paper and started writing down the names of the check-in team from their name tags.  They asked me what I was doing and when I explained that I would be contacting BA in London the next day to inform them  what had happened, as if by magic a boarding pass was slid across the deck with a seat allocation.  I was the last person in the lounge and my boarding pass had evidently been there all along – waiting for me to buy it from them.  I went on board and took my economy seat where I was held in a warm buttock sandwich between two very large people all the way to London.

The worst and the best

Just to contrast the worst with the best from Nigeria, I must tell you what happened with the PDA that I had left in the hotel.  The day after I got back to London I received a phone call from a duty manager at the Lagos Sheraton Hotel who had found my PDA.  He said he would keep it until I returned to Nigeria which was in about a month’s time.  My next trip took me directly to Abuja (the capitol of Nigeria) so I did not go through Lagos.  The Sheraton Man organised for the PDA to be couriered to Abuja at his own expense and would not hear of me making any payment to him.

Viva Nigeria.

Author: admino

Kenyan born, United Kingdom resident, photographer and African natural resources development specialist. View all posts by admino