‘My chairman sir’: How begging, extortion have become new normal at airports
By Dickson Omobola
Imagine arriving at an airport with your backpack on, and your luggage in tow, without anyone trailing you and saying: “My chairman sir, you no go drop something?”
Imagine pushing a trolley through the terminal without being approached by unsolicited helpers expecting a tip before they have even offered a service.
Imagine making your way through the arrival hall without anyone stopping you to ask what you have to declare.
Now, return to reality. Welcome to the Nigerian airport, where the ideal traveller’s experience remains just that.
At most of the country’s airports, touting, begging and subtle forms of extortion are among the first experiences many passengers encounter.
Despite repeated efforts by the authorities to change the situation, especially at the international terminals, these sharp practices persist, leaving even international visitors with an unfavourable first impression of Nigeria.
Impression
One such traveller was American travel vlogger, Tommy El Forastero, better known as Sabbatical Tommy, who complained bitterly about his experience of visiting Nigeria for the first time in 2021.
Tommy, who lamented that personnel at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, MMIA, Lagos, demanded money at different points, told his more than 500,000 followers that MMIA was “extremely corrupt.”
In a video posted on his YouTube channel, the travel blogger, who tours the world and shares his experiences with his followers, said his encounters with some individuals at the facility made him conclude: “I have been around the world and I have never seen anything like this. I mean, it is extremely corrupt. Picture corruption. The Nigerian airport, the Lagos airport, is that very definition of corruption that would pop up in a dictionary. Literally everywhere.”
No change
Four years later, many travellers say little has changed.
About 16 months ago, specifically on the evening of March 26, 2025, this reporter visited the international wing of the MMA in Lagos to obtain the views of arriving passengers on their airport experience. Harassment and corruption topped the list of complaints.
One of them, a fair-complexioned young man who declined to have his name published, had just arrived from the United Kingdom. As he walked towards the taxi park after exiting the terminal, this reporter approached him for his impressions of the airport.
He said: “Honestly, my experience at the MMIA upon arrival is terrible. It is obviously poor. In fact, I just saw a man harassing a woman. The man was calling himself the woman’s boss, saying he could do anything to her and nothing would happen. There was no respect for the woman’s dignity. He acted as though there was no official channel to report the woman if she did anything wrong.”
Another traveller, who gave his name simply as Chuwkunalu, said: “Some of the immigration staff are corrupt. They treat people differently based on class. I saw them giving white people preferential treatment while we stood in a long queue. All they want from you is money. They keep asking: ‘oga, wetin you bring come for us?’”
Airline operator’s perspective
Travellers are not alone in thinking this way. At the third edition of Naija7Wonders Conference, titled: ‘Detty December: The Lessons and Impact,’ acting Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Akwa Ibom state-owned airline, Ibom Air, George Uriesi, lamented that despite recent investment in airport infrastructure at MMIA, the experience is still disappointing.
Speaking virtually at the event, he said although an airport ought to give an excellent first impression about a country, it is not the case in Nigeria.
He said: “I am in a conference now, the Aircraft Financing Symposium. Everybody is talking about their airport experience coming into the country the last couple of days. Why is it like that? We should stop this.
“We built a new terminal with all its flaws and we carried all the dirty behaviour from the old terminal into the new terminal. You have green and red, which is something to declare and nothing to declare. The nothing to declare is where they go and mount checkpoints. You can’t go through nothing to declare. You must declare something.”
Bad image
In June 2024, Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Mr Festus Keyamo, also acknowledged the problem after receiving complaints from prominent Nigerians.
In a post he made on X, formerly Twitter, Keyamo stated that he had received several complaints about the “menace of begging and extortion at our international airports by a few unscrupulous persons who give all of us a bad image.
“My phones are beeping every minute with messages about this from well-meaning Nigerians. Just to set the records straight, most of the agencies involved in this menace are not under the control of the Aviation Ministry, though they are stationed at our airports.”
He, however, said he was working with other ministers, arms of government and agencies to tackle the problem.
He said: “We are all working under the coordination of the National Security Adviser who called a meeting a few days ago on this issue.”
Two days earlier, the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, FAAN, had announced the establishment of a dedicated task force to tackle touts and extortionists at the country’s airports.
Managing Director of FAAN, Mrs Olubunmi Kuku, said the Director of Special Duties at FAAN, Mr Henry Agbebire, now Director of Public Affairs, was appointed as the chairman of the task force.
At the time, Kuku said the authority had adopted a zero-tolerance policy towards misconduct and warned that anyone found engaging in illicit practices would face disciplinary action.
Two years later, however, the challenge remains.
Progressive measures
Speaking on FAAN in Focus recently, Kuku disclosed that investigations showed many of those involved in illicit activities at the airport are not strangers to the environment.
She fingered trolley service providers, bureau de change operators and shop as some of those whose staff are involved in the act to earn extra income.
She said FAAN had intensified engagement with the affected organisations while working with security agencies to strengthen monitoring through staff rosters and attendance registers.
While appealing to passengers not to encourage the practice by patronising unauthorised persons, she said: “We found out that these illicit activities are actually internal. We found that some of them (those involved) actually work for concessionaires within the airports. For example, people who work for trolley providers, shops and BDCs within the airport.
“Also, we found out that these illicit activities are actually being encouraged by passengers. If you don’t give them money because you want them to carry a bag for you or do something for you, they will stop being there.”
She, however, added that FAAN had engaged “all of the various security agencies again, what we have done in collaboration with some of the security agencies is to ensure that we now enforce rosters at the airport.
“One of the things we intend to do is to make sure that we get clarity on the rosters of the people who are being posted to the airport so that we have a time and attendance register for when they need to be there.
“And then for those who are found to be culpable, whether they are concessionaires, whether they are staff of other agencies, there are consequences to those businesses as well. The businesses, for example, if you have a two-time offender who is your staff, who has been caught there and has not gone to their homes or not at their place of business, we will withdraw the operating licences of those businesses as well.”
Peep into the future
It is March 5, 2028. Chuwkunalu, who last visited Nigeria in 2025, lands once again at the MMIA. The old terminal has been fully rehabilitated. MMIA wears an entirely new look.
As he exits the arrival hall, this reporter approaches him with the same question asked three years earlier.
“How was your experience?”
This time, he smiles, saying: “Everything was seamless. Nobody asked me for money. Nobody offered to help with my luggage. I simply walked through and nobody called out ‘my chairman sir.’”
While Chuwkunalu’s response exists only in the imagination, it is one many passengers, airline operators and airport authorities hope will one day become reality in the country.
That would, however, be dependent on whether FAAN and other relevant agencies will be able to sustain these reforms.
But as at the time of filing this report, arriving passengers are still being assaulted with the phrase ‘My Chairman, Sir.’
The post ‘My chairman sir’: How begging, extortion have become new normal at airports appeared first on Vanguard News.