Nigerian election offers hope of a new dawn (Copy)

By the time you board your plane in Lagos airport, you’re exhausted. Not because of long lines at check-in and security, these are par for the course. But because of the seemingly never-ending requests for money from officials, or those posing as officials.

I’ve loved Nigeria ever since I first travelled there when I was 19. And Nigerians are the most fiercely entrepreneurial people I’ve ever met – which is reflected in the diaspora remittance figures and the success of Nigerian tech start-ups.

Given the record of Nigerian authorities failing to pay public servants on time, one cannot blame airport officials for finding resourceful ways to supplement their salaries. But from personal experience it leaves Nigerians and visitors drained, and negatively impacts Nigeria’s ranking on the ease of doing business indexes.

It also erodes trust in government officials and the very institutions of the state. It is this constant, low-level corruption, which might be helping to stir something in the country.

A few weeks ago, when travelling back after hosting a ‘crisis communications’ seminar for business leaders, and having been asked for $250 dollars by an immigration official so I could borrow his pen, I was experiencing what Nigerians face constantly.

By the time we got to our boarding gate, patience was at a low ebb. So, when an official told us he needed to weigh our hand luggage to check they weren’t overweight, or else we’d need to pay a fine, things began to boil over.

I watched on as fellow travellers, thinking this was yet another scam, began to mutiny. Voices were raised: ‘This is what’s holding our country back’; ‘You and people like you are the problem’;  ‘This corruption is why Nigeria is going backwards’; ‘Other countries aren’t like this’. Then came something that didn’t surprise me given what I’d been hearing all week: ‘This won’t happen anymore when Obi wins’.

Throughout my brief stay in Lagos and Abuja, I spoke to many politicians, journalists and other members of the country’s elite.