In 2018, Mary Ishai, an employee of Lakewood Development Company Limited, a cleaning contractor for some of the nation’s airports, made headlines when she found and returned a bag containing different cash sums, passports, ATM cards and bag claim tags to the owner.
Ishai found the bag containing $2,000, $140 Canadian, eight pieces of coins, N21,850, two international passports, four ATM cards, four bus cards and baggage claim tags in one of the toilets at the airport.
With this act, she distinguished herself, wrote her name in gold and projected the image of her organisation positively.
The same, however, cannot be said of a lot of her colleagues I’ve encountered.
These ones will steal from you if they have a chance and are unlikely to return any item found in their area of duty to the owner.
I came to this conclusion because of their penchant for badgering air travellers for money.
From Abuja to Lagos to Port Harcourt, they are the same. Once you approach any of the toilets, where they hibernate and wait for their prey, they are overly nice, pointing you to which of the cubicles to enter, offering you tissue paper you can see by yourself. And once you’re done using the convenience, they are all over you, attempting to even wash your hands for you.
Make no mistake, they are only setting the stage for what’s to come.
“Anty find something for us” “Anty you no go bless us?” “Fine Anty anything you give us will be fine,” are among the things they say to you, in a bid to make you part with money.
The employees of this company in the habit of doing this have been at it for many years.
One time I asked one of them why she resorted to begging travellers for money and she said the company owed them salaries for many months.
After sympathising with her, I told her as a journalist, I could help by writing about her plight and that of her colleagues if they would give more information.
She declined. It was probably a lie that she was being owed.
In another related instance, I was travelling through one of the nation’s airports with some cash sometime back and when I got to the screening point, the female Customs officer, after seeing that I had some money in my luggage, sought to know how much it was.
When I told her, she said it was above the threshold and I asked according to which regulation.
She said the cashless policy forbade me from moving with that amount of money and went on to say I’d have to go to the DSS for interrogation.
Confident that I had broken no law, I asked her to show me the DSS office to which she replied “one upstairs outside”.
She was already getting irritated but I couldn’t be bothered and so I asked if she was taking me there or if I was to go and report myself?
Seeing that I was unflustered, she asked “who are you?”
I gave her my business identity card as I didn’t want to identify as a journalist yet. She took her time to read it, front and back, then asked if I work for the company and where it is based.
I told her I own the company and it is based in Abuja.
She sized me up and down. I was dressed in a pair of slacks, a T-shirt and mules. There was no way I could own a company, if my dressing was anything to go by, in her reckoning.
Then came the usual.
“Find something for us from the money,” she said.
I told her I couldn’t because it is business money.
Not one to give up easily, she said “give us from your personal money,” and I told her even that wasn’t going to be possible.
I then asked her if I could proceed now to which she angrily replied, “be going.”
The other day, a staff of the immigration services narrated how his colleague makes a big issue when travellers hand him their documents with the left hand but is quick to receive money from them even if given with the left hand without complaining.
Airport security officials, especially, delay people unnecessarily when they are unable to make them part with money and many travellers, seeing that they may miss their flights, are left no choice than do their bidding.
Things are generally difficult in the country but that does not make those who travel by air rich guys. They travel because of necessity so the assumption that they must have money to part with at the airport on flimsy reasons is unfortunate.
The arm-twisting tactics these guys deploy to extort money from people is shameful and embarrassing.
