The airport lawbreaking behaviours exhibited by Fuji musician Wasiu Omogbolahan Olasunkanmi Adewale also known as KWAM 1 and Comfort Emmanson (KWAM 2) revealed how the discretionary powers of law enforcers determine who gets arrested, punished and the limit of such punishment.
When analysing criminal behaviours and the social reactions to it, criminologists often use four frames – the act, the actor, the social situation during which the act occurred and the audience of definers. The act refers to the unlawful action that runs afoul of extant laws. The actor is the person who violates the law. But the actor may have a social capital that may influence how he or she is treated by the criminal justice system. Then, the social situation is the context of the lawbreaking behavior that helps to know ‘how’ and where the infraction occurred. The audience of definers (the state or the general public) are those who observe the lawbreaking behavior and subject it to their own interpretations either as a security threat or as a forgivable misstep of a beloved insider. These frames reveal a troubling pattern in relation to the lawbreaking behaviours of ‘KWAM 1’ and ‘KWAM 2’ in Nigeria’s airports. The act may be the same, but the actor’s social capital tilts the scales of justice.
The handling of these two cases exposed a familiar truth: Nigeria does not lack laws, it lacks the will to enforce them equally. When the violator is powerful or well-connected, punishment becomes negotiable. When the offender is ordinary, the system moves swiftly and harshly. Take the role of Aviation Minister Festus Keyamo, SAN as example. His public response was praised for its speed and decisiveness, yet beneath the performance lay a carefully staged dramaturgy of soft landing. For KWAM 1 who is a musician with close ties to President Bola Tinubu and the ruling party, sanctions melted from a six-month no-fly ban to a mere one month. Before that period was even complete, he was unveiled as an “airport security ambassador”. Comfort Emmanson, meanwhile, received no velvet cushion. Stripped of privilege and unconnected to power, her case became the textbook example of full enforcement: arrest, prosecution, detention, and a flying ban in quick succession. In theory, both cases were about aviation (in)security. In practice, they revealed how politics, power, and proximity to corridors of power shape the laws reach.
‘Airport security ambassador’ has been conferred on Wasiu Omogbolahan as a form of community service without pay according to Minister Keyamo who maintained that it is a global practice. I agree. We have granted amnesty to militants, cultists and the latest are those we call ‘repentant terrorists’. So, granting KWAM 1, a repentant airport security (breach) ambassador status is in order. What is however new is that the ‘offender’ ought to have been allowed to serve the period of his sanction before such appointment is announced. But it is understandable that when the State desires to punish you, you are thoroughly punished and your situation may be framed as a national security threat. But when the state is in ‘love’ with you owing to your affinitive relationship such as being close to power centers, a soft landing will be prepared.
As the cases died down, I reviewed the behaviours of airport security and observed that it was as if the airport staff knew what would eventually happen in the case of KWAM 1. They looked helpless while KWAM 1 ‘performed’ defiantly on the tarmac while obstructing the aircraft. They could not go all out to enforce the law or restrain him. They must have learnt from previous cases on how not to touch a Nigerian big man. This is true because the proprietor and the ‘defiant passenger’ would later resolve the issue as members of the upper social class but the workers may be sanctioned for embarrassing a big man publicly. That partially explains the braggadocio or swagger of the ‘repentant ambassador’ on the tarmac and when he was interrogated in the ‘situation room’. However, Comfort Emmanson (KWAM 2) who does not know the president or known to be a member of the ruling party, was treated as an ordinary Nigerian with swift arrest, arraignment, detention and ban from flying in rapid succession. All men are born equal but some are more equal than others.
I think the Value Jet security team deserves commendation for not looking the other way as might have been done by staff of other airline who may have allowed KWAM 1 to board without querying the content of the ‘fuji golden flask’. With what has happened, how do we now tell Nigerians to say something when they see something when the last one that they saw and reported only got the person ‘rewarded’? The (un)intended consequences would be that the person made to be an ambassador of airport security has been further empowered to lord it over lesser mortals. Who will now dare to search him in the airport when his party is still in power? Who will query an ‘ambassador of airport security’ for carrying onboard something against flight security protocol? How would the Value Jet security staff feel when the powerful ‘ambassador’ comes to their aircraft to board when the one month sanction is over?
The two cases have brought to the fore the gaps in our airport security management. Emergency response systems and staff training are vital, but so too is fairness in enforcement. If Nigeria can create “repentant ambassadors” out of offenders, why can’t it also recognize the Value Jet security team who stopped KWAM 1 in the first place? Celebrating those who uphold the law would encourage others to act with courage, even in the face of power. Because in the end, airport security is not just about metal detectors or access cards. It is about trust. And when the law bends for the privileged, the trust between citizen and state, worker and institution will shatter on the runway.
●Tade, a professor of criminology and security studies writes via [email protected]
