Emir of Kano, Air Peace tango: This harassment must stop

“AS I ponder over the Emir of Kano, Air Peace tango, I could not help but remember the wisecrack by Sarah Churchwell, the 51-year-old professor of American Literature, who wrote: “People who are given whatever they want soon develop a sense of entitlement and rapidly lose their sense of proportion.”

“That is exactly what is happening in this contrived hullabaloo. For those not aware, the story is that the Emir of Kano, Aminu Ado Bayero, who was returning from Banjul, Gambia, missed his early morning flight from Lagos to Kano on an Air Peace plane.

“It was neither the monarch’s fault nor that of Air Peace airline. His flight from Gambia to Nigeria was delayed, which impacted negatively on both his arrival time in Lagos and ability to board the 6.15 am flight from Lagos to Kano.

“Knowing the Chairman of Air Peace airline, Allen Onyema, the Emir’s cousin, who doubles as his Chief Protocol Officer, Isa Bayero, called to request a delay of the flight. But that was not possible because as at the time his call came through, boarding had been concluded, doors shut and the plane was already taxiing on the runway, about to take off.

“Air Peace duly gave Isa Bayero the situation report and offered to put the Emir and his nine-man entourage on the 7 am flight to Abuja and from there to Kano at the airline’s expense.

“But the royal entourage would have none of that. How dare the airline refuse to abort the 6.15 am flight, knowing full well, in their words, that a Very Important Person, VIP, and his entourage were not yet on board?

“They threatened fire and brimstone and promised there would be consequences if the flight didn’t wait for the Kano royalty, which they portrayed as a “disrespect to the emir and the people of Kano State”…

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