A tale of inefficiency

I initially didn’t want to write about this because I’ve all but given up on Nigeria, and I’m tired of complaining. Nigeria is not going to get better in my view. We’ll just plod along on this terminal decline until the inevitable crash that follows terminal decline. But a meeting with one of my mentors yesterday evening changed that. After hearing my tale, he said, “the country is not the land, it’s the people and people can change. But they only change when no matter how hopeless it seems, you keep plugging away.”

Nigeria’s inefficiency will follow you everywhere you go. This is a tale of two government agencies. I missed my flight to Nigeria on Saturday. It was not a “no-show”, I got up at 0430 on the day, in sub-zero temperatures. A friend also woke up, came to my place, picked me up, and dropped me off at the train station, in sub-zero temperatures. I took the train, dragging two suitcases along, eventually reaching the airport. Then I got to the check-in desk and was denied boarding.

The NCDC didn’t generate my QR code for my Nigeria covid test, and the airline desk said they had strict instructions not to board anyone without that. The day before, upon receiving my negative covid test result, I opened up the NCDC portal and then paid for the test I will have in Nigeria after arrival. Even as I showed the airline the proof of bank transfer and all, they refused. I reached out to NCDC on Twitter and Instagram, no response, so I reached out to the NPHCDA on Instagram, as well as a senior civil servant friend of mine, and he called friends in NCDC.

Eventually, the code came, but AFTER the boarding gate had closed. You know oyibo, they won’t open the gate after it’s officially closed, so I had to rebook. $240 just like that, because the airline quite reasonably pointed out that it was not their fault that I missed the flight, but they were willing to concede that it was not a “no-show”, so they waived the “no-show” penalty.

I feel for the family who unlike me didn’t have people in Abuja to harass, and who, after they were denied boarding, broke down at the airport, because they didn’t have the means to reschedule their flight. It put my own anger in perspective, and I do not know if their QR codes came eventually. But what kind of inefficiency prevents a QR code from being generated? NEPA? It’s an automated system for Christ’s sake.

The most annoying part of it is that when I eventually landed, the health form that we filled on the plane, no one took that from us. So what’s the point of it all?

I will complete this by commending the NPHCDA. They respond to all my inquiries and observations in time, and for example, even though I got my booster covid shot in another country, they updated my record promptly upon showing them proof that I’d gotten the booster.

Up until now, the NCDC has not deigned to answer my messages. So much for all the noise about that agency.