While many people are groaning under the nation's current economy, the chaos economy is thriving; and, these days, there is no better place to experience it than at the old domestic/local wing of the Murtala Muhammed Airport Lagos.
Many of us at one point or another have paid what I now call the 'Chaos Tax' to facilitate a situation that, under normal circumstances, should not be complicated or cumbersome to accomplish. Often times, a token is given willingly as a way to say 'thank you' to the person who has helped the process of achieving what it is we need to achieve under abnormal circumstances. This 'thank you' token has taken on a new dimension and my experience at the airport last week opened my eyes to this.
Anyone who has tried to fly out of the old domestic wing of MMA recently knows that there is construction going on to upgrade the airport, and that passengers must arrive at least three hours before their flight is scheduled to take off if they want to make the flight. After surviving the nearly one hour that it will take for your car to make the 200 metres, or so stretch between the gate and the terminals, what one encounters in the make-shift check-in area can test the patience of Job.
Usually, when you get to an airport in Nigeria, there will be young men with all kinds of tags around their necks approaching you to help with your bags, help you purchase a ticket if you do not have one, or help you check in for your flight. At the end of their 'service,' you give them something, an amount determined by the goodness of your heart. At least, I have never had anyone stipulate an amount to be paid for their 'service.' They may grumble if they deem what you have given to be insufficient, but never have I come across an outright demand for a specific sum before the 'service' was provided — until last week.
I was cutting it close with time, but don't blame me; when you are booked on the first flight of the day and have to be at the airport at least an hour in advance (or more in the case of old domestic MMA), you must also weigh the security risk of leaving your house too early. You run the risk of encountering 'bad boys' on the road in the wee hours of the day.
Anyway, I got to the airport, expecting the chaos, but as I entered the check-in area, the pressure mounted when I heard the first boarding call for my flight. A travel/protocol/logistics agent came up to me and asked what flight I was on, as they usually do, and when I told him, he said that he could help me check in. I looked at the queue (if you could really call it that) and determined that there was no way I would catch my flight if I joined it because there was just one queue.
Anyway, his offer to help was welcome, and then he said, "N2,950." Because the number was so random, I assumed it was a direct airline charge and began to reach for my purse when the angel on my right shoulder urged me to ask what the money was for. "To check you in," the man replied. I asked if it was for the airline, but he was neither in the mood for questions nor negotiations; so, he told me to join the queue if I did not want to pay.
I went round to another corner and tried to approach an airline employee as they yelled out that my flight was boarding. I figured I could appeal to his sensibilities and he would usher me to one of the counters, as I had a ticket and no luggage to check-in. Well, the airline employee was no help and feigned deafness as I tried to talk to him. Instead, another agent close by impressed upon me the need to hurry up because my flight was boarding, and offered his services for N2,800.
It was then that it clicked in my brain that there was now a thriving, organised parallel economy caused by the chaos at the airport. Although it should have clicked about a month earlier when I was on my way to Warri and paid N20,000 as excess luggage fees, only to find the airline receipt accounted for only N8,000. Despite all the signs and messages in our airports warning travellers to avoid touts, they have become so comfortable in the chaos and can now operate systematically. I can just imagine a few months from now, after the renovations are completed, when they will look back on these times and say with fond memories, 'Ah, we been make money dat time o. Money no dey airport again.'
Anyway, I took a look at the queue and in the time that I had moved from one corner to the next, it did not seem like the queue had moved half an inch. So, I was back where I started — very little time, needing to make it on that first flight, and no seeming order instituted by the airline. I looked at the queue and then at the counter where boarding passes and identification cards are verified and stamped and I just could not bear the thought of going through all that pushing and shoving. It is not the kind of thing you want to get into that early in the morning on an empty stomach. So, I ended up back where I started and this time, the agent was willing to negotiate. I ended up paying N2,000 — the chaos tax.
It is often said that nature abhors a vacuum. These men have found the vacuum that is created when inadequate official measures are taken to handle the expected inconvenience of a renovation. They are filling it, and thus the economy of chaos thrives on.
