When next you find yourself at the Airport or travelling by air, be ready to paddle your canoe by yourself, and never get too close to ‘spontaneous friendship offers’.

This might save you from trouble, if the account of an international air passenger, Kofi Badu, is anything to go by.

According to Badu in a video making the rounds on social media platforms, he boarded a flight to Dubai and found a matronly looking lady, seemingly descent and well educated as seatmate.

Oblivious of the lady’s evil intentions, Badu allowed himself to be engaged in chit-chat with her al through the journey, only for her to feign ill as the flight was about landing in Dubai just to draw empathy from and implicate Badu.

He was saved by an observant co-passenger who offered him tips and helped him witness to the Dubai Police that he was not the strange lady’s son.

Badu said, “There was this day, an old lady comes in and sits next to me inside the plane she asked me to help her put her bag in the overhead luggage compartment… she strikes up a conversation she was very pleasant and well-spoken so we chatted all through the flight to Dubai.”

The lady’s theatricals took a new turn, and she feigned sick, as the flight was about to land, Badu stated.

According to Badu, “Suddenly when the pilot announced that we were now proceeding to begin our descent into DXP ‘my good friend’ developed stomach pains.

“Me with my good heart I pressed the steward’s button… and this lady suddenly began to address me as ‘my son’,” Badu stated.

That was when a fellow passenger’s wise counsel came in handy. “The same gentleman who helped put up her luggage in the overhead compartment removed her luggage but as he removed the luggage, he advised me to distance myself from this lady and make it clear to the cabin crew that we were not travelling together. This man was a God-sent.”

The elderly woman’s evil intentions came to the fore when the plane landed. She made deliberate efforts to implicate Badu, by claiming to be his mother and oblivious of the contents of her luggage, which she claimed was packed by ‘her son, Badu’.

She was carrying drugs which Badu was ignorant of!

“As we waited for our luggage to come through I didn’t hear this commotion; my new friend was running, trying to escape the cabin crew, luckily the airport police were faster than her.

They got hold of her and brought her back in handcuffs and this lady starts calling out me ‘my son’ ‘my son’ ‘how could you do this to me?’ that’s when it occurred to me that she was carrying drugs and she was trying to implicate me,” Badu revealed.

His saving grace was the fellow passenger’s testimony and a lack of physical evidence linking him to the drug-carrying old lady.

He explained it thus, “Luckily for me, the gentleman who had helped her with her luggage came forward and told the airport police that me and her had just met on the plane.”

The experience has changed Badu from the chatty guy to a grim looking one, each time he found himself at the Airport. And he would advise anybody to do the same.

“I was let go with advice never ever to touch anyone’s luggage either on a flight or at the airport so from that day I don’t care how much luggage you have he will deal with it yourself, I will not even offer you a trolley to put your luggage on your luggage your problem that is my new policy and if you can’t reach the overhead compartment and I am the nearest person please call the cabin crew because all I’ll do is give you a blank stare and then look away. This is a simple advice I’m just saying it please think about it,” Badu stated.

The Air Nigeria Airline project has been indefinitely suspended by the Federal Government.

Minister of Aviation and Aerospace, Festus Keyamo, made the announcement during a Ministerial briefing to commemorate the first year of the Tinubu administration on Monday.

Keyamo clarified that the project, which was branded as Air Nigeria, was actually a partnership with Ethiopian Airlines to operate under the Nigerian flag.

He said, “It remains suspended and it was never Air Nigeria. It was only plated Air Nigeria. It was Ethiopian Airlines trying to fly our flag.

More to follow…………. 

Emirates Airlines has announced plan to resume flight operations to Nigerian airports on October 1, 2024, after a two-year hiatus.

The news was shared by the airline on its verified X handle on Thursday.

It stated, “We’re back Nigeria! We’ll be resuming services to Lagos from 1 October 2024, and we can’t wait to offer unrivalled connectivity to Dubai and beyond to over 140 cities.”

The development was hinted at earlier by Nigeria’s Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, SAN.

In a post on X on Wednesday, Keyamo disclosed that he met with the Ambassador of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to Nigeria, Salem Saeed Al-Shamsi, in Abuja on Tuesday.

He stated that during the meeting, Al-Shamsi handed him a correspondence from Emirates Airlines confirming the flight resumption date.

The Minister wrote “Yesterday (On Tuesday), I paid a working visit to the Ambassador of the UAE to Nigeria, His Excellency, Salem Saeed Al-Shamsi at the UAE Embassy in Abuja.

“He handed me a correspondence from the Emirates Airline indicating a definite date of their resumption of flights to Nigeria. That date will be formally announced by Emirates Airlines in a matter of days.”

The announcement signifies another step taken by the Nigerian government to reinstate flight operations between Nigeria and the UAE.

In November 2023, Minister Keyamo had announced that Emirates Airlines would soon disclose the exact date of their return to Nigerian skies.

The flight suspension between the two nations had been amidst a broader diplomatic dispute, primarily concerning the Bilateral Air Services Agreement (BASA).

Visa restrictions further exacerbated the situation, impacting numerous Nigerian migrants and tourists, given the UAE’s popularity as a destination.

Recall that Emirates Airlines suspended its flights to Nigeria in 2022 due to challenges in repatriating funds trapped in the country.

Despite a meeting in September 2023 between Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu and UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in Abu Dhabi, where there were rumors that the UAE had lifted its visa ban on Nigerian travelers, the ban still stands.

Presidential spokesman Bayo Onanuga later clarified that the UAE had not lifted the visa restrictions on Nigerians.