As I fumed at the Supervisor of Enugu Air at the Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport, Abuja, I recalled one brilliant article of the late Dr. Pius Adesanmi that I had read some thirteen years ago.
Adesanmi wrote that article to highlight our culture of anyhowness. He called it “Parable of the Shower Head.” For those of you who didn’t read that article, I can assure you that in thirteen years, nothing has changed. We may have even gotten worse as a nation.
When something goes wrong, one is supposed to complain to get the “something” sorted. But not in Nigeria. When the good Professor Adesanmi complained about the shower head in one of the nation’s five-star hotels here in Abuja, a technician came to the hotel room and masterfully made it seem like he had no right to complain, since four holes out of the many were spitting out water.
But a week later, Adesanmi gets to Ghana, encounters the same problem, complains about it like he did in Nigeria, and someone came and fixed a completely new shower head in place of the faulty one.
Pardon me for deviating. My flight for 3:45 PM was delayed. No notification whatsoever. I got to the airport before I was told the flight had been delayed till 8:00 PM due to a technical issue.
We calmly asked to see the supervisor, since those at the counter had no clue what was happening. Her majesty, the Enugu Air supervisor, comes in and starts throwing frivolous excuses at us. No apologies, nothing. She even made it seem like we were responsible for the bad day she was having.
It’s the culture of anyhowness. It’s the Nigerian attitude of not taking responsibility for irresponsibility. Worse still, she didn’t have an answer as to whether or not the flight would actually leave by 8:00 PM. At some point, she got tired, left us there at the counter, and went to sit down, with a big frown on her face.
Hello! We’re all having a bad day. And Enugu Air is responsible. How do you reschedule a flight many hours later and refuse to take responsibility? Long story short, we demanded to see the manager, and he tried to placate us.
If not for the culture of anyhowness, what’s a supervisor without proper training in customer care doing at the Enugu Air counter? If not for the culture of anyhowness, why would an airline delay flights without notice even after two hours into the delay? If not for the culture of anyhowness, why would we accept this kind of treatment?
Until one airline loses millions of naira in a lawsuit to a customer, others will not learn. But again, this is Nigeria. You may go to court and end up wasting your time and your resources.
Enugu Air must do better!
P.S. Where is Tinubu? Who is leading Nigeria right now? Anyhowness everywhere.
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