By Taiwo Adisa
The Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Mr. Festus Keyamo, SAN, added a political touch to the absurdities that unfolded at the Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport, Abuja, and the Murtala Mohammed Airport, Lagos, on August 8 and 10, respectively. The minister had, in trying to find a soft landing for a friend of the government- the popular Fuji musician, King Wasiu Ayinde Marshal (KWAM1)-announced him as an ambassador of Aviation Safety. He also hinted that Comfort Emmanson, the lady who caused havoc on Ibom Air flight Q 9 303, might equally be named an ambassador, as he declared that such a practice was not a strange find in the aviation sector.
The duo, now generally referred to as KWAM 1 and KWAM 2, had seized the nation’s attention with some untoward displays in public glare on Friday, August 8, and Sunday, August 10. Their issues became matters of public concern for days thereafter. KWAM 1 had done the unthinkable when he obstructed a ValueJet aircraft at the Abuja Airport, as he insisted on boarding the plane against the orders of ground staff and the pilot. Emmanson followed suit days after by showcasing her violent conduct inside the aircraft upon arrival in Lagos from Uyo. She slapped hostesses, kicked someone, and attempted to snatch a fire extinguisher with which she would have hit her perceived assailants. She was also seen holding on to the curtains used to demarcate the Business Class section of the plane as she was being forcibly removed from the aircraft. Her actions would have destroyed parts of the plane but for the security men who overpowered her and evacuated her from the aircraft. Though she was rightly prosecuted and promptly remanded in Kirikiri Correctional Centre, luck shone on her as Keyamo and the authorities had to let her off the hook in order to kill the noise of double standard that had rent the air while Wasiu Ayinde (KWAM 1) stayed untouched.
In a statement last Wednesday, Keyamo said that KWAM 1 and KWAM 2 had shown penitence and “great remorse” and that the air ban earlier pronounced on them would be reduced to one month, while KWAM 1 immediately becomes an ambassador on airport security.
The Yoruba have a proverb that says whatever is bad should not be called by any other name; just call it a bad thing. By that, the elders are trying to admonish us not to deodorise bad conduct, whether it’s in public or private life. And the lessons here are very Germain. In a society where the young are watching what the elders and powerful are doing, nothing should be done to provide a hint that bad conducts have good rewards.
The Nigerian scene has been replete with the opposite of the above in recent years, though. And lately, our leaders appeared to have upped the ante with huge rewards coming the way of wrongdoers. We can say that the rain started beating us from a long distance, and that evil has been allowed to trump good for so long. Some would say that society had allocated political offices to ballot snatchers, election riggers, and manipulators. That we have allowed certified 419-ers to seize power and, in turn, replace themselves with the worst of their kind. That our women had cast their ballots for the price of a pot of soup (dibo ko se obe), and that men, who are preoccupied with mindless looting of public till, have taken the reins of power and earned the title Your Excellency!
<span;>Now, they have thrown caution to the wind and poked their fingers into our mouths, believing that the teeth therein can neither bite nor scratch the back of their fingers. They give their decisions some fanciful meaning and want us to clap for the misdeeds. That looks like what Festus Keyamo, SAN, did last week when he announced ministerial pardon for KWAM 1 and KWAM 2. No matter how much we strive to deodorise the wrongdoing of the duo of Wasiu Ayinde and Emmanson, their actions amounted to practically throwing faeces into a fast-blowing ceiling fan.
While there appears to be no division on the definition of KWAM 1’s bad conduct, which he had also acknowledged in a video, some Nigerians had attempted to describe Emmanson’s actions in different ways. Some have pushed narratives which suggested that she was a victim, something that probably informed the announcement of a N500,000 monthly job offer for her by an aide of the Delta State governor. Whatever colouration we may wish to dress the incident with, the truth remains that what is bad has no two descriptions. It, however, appears that Minister Keyamo and the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) had bought into the ‘victim’ narrative as they condemned the salacious display of her full breasts in public glare. Keyamo was livid that one Ibom Air staff member apparently released the video showcasing Emmanson’s boobs, and he ordered the airline to immediately produce the culprit. Others said the dignity of her person was violated as they sought to orchestrate a zero-to-hero narrative.
I don’t, however, buy into such revisionism. What makes her a heroine here? She had issues with air hostesses, and all she could do was offer the ladies hot and dirty slaps. She even attempted to tear down the aircraft and remove the fire extinguisher nearby. Her problem with the air hostess started in Uyo, and even if she was enraged at being blocked from alighting the plane, her next action should not be to slap her fellow women. Her attempt to use the fire extinguisher as a weapon against one of the ladies could have become fatal, if not for the prompt intervention of the security men. So far, no one could deny that she did all of these actions: slapped the first hostess, slapped the other, and kicked a security man. Her attempt to snatch the fire extinguisher would have been more devastating. If she had succeeded in inflicting fatal blows on one of the Ibom staff with the extinguisher, can we stand here to pontificate about the rightness or wrongness of her conduct? If she had succeeded in doing that and the staff had fallen and died, would we have been debating whether she was provoked? Am sure murder charges would have been filed. And then, if we must pity her at all, shall we show her mercy because her top gave way and exposed her mammary glands as she was being forcibly removed from the aircraft? I don’t buy that either. She chose not to wear a bra, despite being heavily endowed up there. No one should give an excuse for a fully grown adult who decided to go half-naked in such a manner. She was wearing a light top, directly harassing the hapless cloth with the rumbling, massive flesh. I don’t pity the fact that she was helped to display nudity in public. I think it should be a lesson to all those ladies who assailed our eyes with all manner of nude scenes, especially at the airports. They never bothered that the airports are public places, where children, adults, religious leaders, and the not-so-religious meet. They don’t care whether some men go through difficulties coping with such semi-nude pictures they parade up and down as they turn the airports into centres of shameful displays. The way things are going, if you permit some of these ladies, they will walk bare buttocks around the terminals. They forgot that airports are public places where the dignity of men and women should be preserved.
Now that Keyamo wants to honour Wasiu Ayinde and Emmanson with ambassadorial roles, what message is he sending to the public, the youth, and the elderly-that bad conduct pays? Methinks such roles should be earned on top of dignifying behaviour, such that each time the ambassador performs that role, he or she is not overwhelmed by shame and regrets.
