By Gboyega Adeoye

Copyright tribuneonlineng

The Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos has become a hotbed of scams and extortion, targeting unsuspecting travellers and there seem to be no end in sight.

Fraudulent activities pervade the air such that airline staff and touts collude to sell tickets to unsuspecting air passengers at exorbitant rates, often using private POS machines to collect payments.

In some cases, passengers are forced to pay as much as N250,000 for a one-way ticket as these touts often work closely with airline staff, who provide them with codes for payment, making it difficult for passengers to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate sales.

Meanwhile, the age-long atrocities at the airport may continue unabated due to the connection of perpetrators and their links which are seemingly impenetrable.

Aviation security expert, Group Captain John Ojikutu (retd), said it would be difficult to abolish the scourge due to the location of the Lagos Airport, the layout and the strong understanding of the airport terrain by those involved in the illicit activities.

“The location of the airport at the middle of uncontrolled urban development areas of Oshodi, Ikeja, Egbeda, Shasha and Mafoloku with some sharing their perimeter fences with the airport and alongside complicated road networks of Oshodi/Apapa road and Lagos Abeokuta road is albatross. Vehicles transiting the airport from the airport surrounding areas through to connect Oshodi/Apapa road are also serious burden.

No security on these surrounding roads and on the service road transiting from the domestic terminals to the international terminal.

Touts can only be reduced if the burdens of the surroundings are removed.

There are touts among the airport workers, especially those that have been relieved of their appointments, but still carrying identification cards from their previous employer.

There is also the presence of hawkers; many of them have no Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) ID card. There could be employees that have no right to go into the airport security areas, but still have their ways into the security-controlled areas. I’m not sure if FAAN still knows the geographical surrounding of the airport survey. Most land in the areas I listed are on the airport land,” Ojikutu said.

And rather than assuage the present awkward situation at the airport, Ojikutu posited that the planned reconstruction of the Lagos airport would further aggravate the already horrible situation.

“The envisaged reconstruction of the passenger’s terminal in Lagos is going to be another attraction for many more touts except risks of the surrounding public and private structures on the perimeter are removed.

But to mitigate the trend, Ojikutu said: “the tollgate must be removed to the entrance from Mobolaji Bank Anthony Road and the other at entrance of the road from Oshodi. Public Buses small and big must not be allowed to pass through the airport. Remove the blue cars from the airport. Concession for shuttle buses from terminals to terminals before the tollgates should be prepared for the shuttle buses.

There should be electronic controlled access gates for staff besides the tollgates. These may not remove the touts completely, but can reduce them. Some of these touts were born in that airport and we are likely to have it tough to identify or locate them as some of them have ‘allegiance’ to some of the senior airport workers,” he said.

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Aside the civilian touts, travellers have also reported cases of extortion by immigration and customs officials.

A Dubai-bound Nigerian citizen alleged that immigration officers extorted N10,000 from her before stamping her passport, prompting the Comptroller-General of Immigration, Kemi Nanna Nandap, to order an investigation and withdraw the entire shift on duty at the time of the incident.

Similarly, a United States-based Nigerian returnee accused customs officers of extorting N1 million from him under the pretext of clearing his luggage.

Other incidents include: two men arrested for scamming a traveller out of N16.6 million at the airport, posing as Bureau De Change operators, and a man caught claiming his luggage was missing, only to be revealed that he had fraudulently removed the baggage tag to try to beat the system.