31/10/2023
THE VOYAGE
By Professor Moyo Okediji
About 30 years ago, I slept at the Murtala Muhammed Airport for four days.
No, I was not a homeless vagabond.
I had bought the Nigeria Airways ticket to fly to the United States for a one-year sabbatical leave.
But when I arrived at the airport, I realized that my ticket was not honored, though I had bought it legitimately.
Whenever a plane was about to leave Lagos for New York, the NA officials posted a manifest list, and my name was not there.
They would ask me to wait for the next list.
This drama of “Your name is not yet listed, wait for the next manifest list” continued for four days.
I couldn’t leave the airport and return home because I lived in Ile Ife, and had bid my people goodbye for one year. They all expected I would be in NY already.
I was therefore forced to sleep by the door of the NA office at the airport, waiting for the release of the manifest list with my name on it.
I was not alone. There were hundreds of stranded passengers like me there—men, women, young, old, tall, short, thin fat—all sorts of people.
The Murtala Mohamed Airport was different then than what we have now.
There were no security officers. People drifted in and out in their hundreds. It was rowdy. There was no order of any sort. Food hawkers milled among the crowd of the stranded passengers like me, selling hot dogs, sandwiches, puff-puff, moin-moin, gala, meat pie, hamburgers, even rice and dodo.
People hawked sodas such as Cocacola, Fanta, Sprite and malt drinks.
The interior of the airport was packed like the Oyingbo market. There were also pickpockets and other fraudsters pulling fast tricks on unsuspecting victims.
I was hesitant to buy anything. I had changed all my naira to dollars at the rate of one dollar to three naira. But if I wanted to change my dollar back to naira, I could only collect one naira for my dollar at the airport, which would be a loss.
I was desperate when I got hungry. But someone was willing to give
