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. Continue reading “Getting a boarding pass in Lagos”