Recently, two airport dramas unfolded in Nigeria, revealing two starkly different versions of justice. In Abuja, Fuji icon Wasiu Ayinde Marshall (aka KWAM1), tangled with ValueJet and airport authorities; video clips showed him obstructing a plane and he later issued a public apology.
In Lagos, Ms. Comfort Emmanson was dragged off an Ibom Air flight after a dispute about switching off her phone, her clothes torn as she was hauled across the tarmac, filmed, shamed, hurriedly whisked to an Ikeja court and reportedly remanded to Kirikiri, a maximum-security prison in Lagos.
One incident drew contrition and conversation; the other drew force and humiliation. The contrast is not just stark, it is telling. It says, in the loud language of our everyday Nigeria, that power grants grace while vulnerability invites state-sanctioned indignity.
However, Aviation Minister Festus Keyamo, lifted Ms. Emmanson’s ban, secured her release, condemned the leaked video, reduced KWAM1’s penalty to a month and even named him a FAAN ambassador. Framed as “compassionate grounds,” these decisions, though conciliatory, only reinforced public doubts about bias.
Just months ago, Senator Adams Oshiomhole’s airport scuffle with Air Peace staff—dismissed by him as a “boarding scam” and met with only a call for restraint—again showed how the powerful get soft landings while ordinary travellers face harsh penalties.
Theatre of Power vs. Spectacle of Punishment
Two incidents, two responses. The first, an elite personality risking airside safety, ended in apology and a promise of lessons learned. The second, an ordinary woman caught in a chain reaction, ended in forced exposure, humiliation and incarceration. This double standard thrives in the interstices of our institutions, where discretion converts quickly into discrimination.
Undoubtedly, air travel demands order, but order enforced without dignity is not safety; it is control. Airports are among the most regulated spaces in any country. If we cannot guarantee consistent, rights-respecting enforcement there, where can we?
Standing in front of an aircraft suggests a high-risk breach that obstructs operational safety and could have ended in tragedy. Yet the public outcry, so far, has been largely reputational. In contrast, in the Lagos case, the response spiralled into a spectacle, and a woman’s body made a public warning sign. Even if she had indeed been unruly, an allegation she contests, the choice to strip her dignity along with her clothing was not enforcement; it was degradation.
This is the Nigerian playbook: the rich and well-connected receive process, privacy, and pathways to redemption; the poor and unconnected receive public punishment, often filmed and circulated for clicks and clout. In Ms. Emmanson’s case, human rights voices and the Nigerian Bar Association questioned proportionality and due process. The very act of filming and distributing the footage of her exposed body without consent constitutes a violation of privacy and dignity.
The contrasts are there for all to see. One body was made public; the other, protected. The woman was banned and reportedly remanded within hours; the celebrity’s case moved through apologies and statements, not handcuffs.
The Gendered Script: Why Women Are Stripped First
We must recognise and name the gendered cruelty at work. In many contexts across our security and service sectors, the fastest path to breaking a woman is to strip her literally of her clothes. It is a tactic of dominance and humiliation.
Ms. Emmanson’s testimony that she “can’t go out again because my body is out there” should chill us. It tells us that the punishment did not end on the tarmac; it followed her home, onto screens, into the archive of the internet. This is not a “security procedure.” This is gendered violence by other means.
This is not an isolated case. Many women know this choreography on the streets during protests, in markets during raids, at checkpoints during “routine” inspections. Clothes are yanked; wigs are snatched; bodies are exposed; shame is weaponised. These are not random acts; they are a system of social control that calibrates consequences by gender and class.
To be clear, crew instructions must be obeyed. Unruly behaviour on board is a genuine safety threat and merits sanction. But safety is not a blank cheque for humiliation. Our aviation ecosystem needs a hard reset on enforcement culture, guided by three non-negotiables.
One, dignity-first protocols. No one, male or female, should be stripped or exposed during enforcement. De-escalation training must emphasise preserving bodily integrity. Two, no unauthorised filming. Airport and airline staff who film and disseminate images of detainees or distressed passengers should face disciplinary action and, where applicable, prosecution. Three, proportionate, consistent sanctions. Whether you are a music legend or a market trader, the grid of consequences should be the same: investigate, document, and apply the rulebook.
The Cost of Spectacle and A Culture of Impunity
Some will argue that Ms. Emmanson’s conduct justified firm action. Perhaps. But nothing justifies the public destruction of a person’s dignity. The spectacle sends a brutal message to women and the poor: your rights are conditional, at the mercy of an angry official or a crowd with smartphones. It also sends a message to men of influence: the system will find you a gentler path, one paved with statements, intermediaries, and second chances.
Meanwhile, aviation authorities cite “zero tolerance” and “safety first.” Good. But where is the zero tolerance for dignity violations, leaking footage or turning enforcement into viral entertainment? The credibility of “safety first” depends on pairing compliance with compassion, not with cruelty.
Double standards are a policy choice reproduced daily by institutions that reward deference to power and demand submission from the weak. The pipeline is familiar: a minor infraction or misunderstanding escalates; officials perform domination; social media amplifies humiliation; the courts, if they enter at all, usually do so skewed by the power already exercised in public.
And the gendered layer matters. The humiliation of women is not a side effect. It is a method. In a patriarchal culture that polices female respectability, exposing a woman is an efficient way to punish not just the person, but the group: a warning to other women to stay quiet, stay compliant, stay small.
Toward an Aviation Bill of Rights
We need codified passenger rights and responsibilities that are visible, accessible, and enforceable. Not in fine print or legalese, but on posters at gates, on seatback cards, in bold language and multiple Nigerian languages.
The document should set out passenger responsibilities to obey crew instructions, no physical/verbal assault, no interference with operations and passenger rights of freedom from degrading treatment, privacy, proportionate sanctions, access to legal counsel if detained and clear complaint mechanisms. It must also include enforcement standards with mandatory de-escalation steps, gender-sensitive handling, no unauthorised recording, required incident reporting, and independent review when force or exposure occurs. Finally, we need accountability architecture. An ombuds office or independent panel within the NCAA framework that can, within days, review high-visibility incidents and publish findings.
For KWAM1, a transparent accounting (not trial by Instagram), appropriate sanctions for airside obstruction if established, and a public education campaign funded by penalties about why you never, ever stand in front of a plane. For Ms. Emmanson, an independent review of the chain of decisions, accountability for any unlawful exposure and excessive force, redress and support if violations are confirmed, and a public commitment to dignity-first enforcement going forward. Both outcomes should be grounded in the same rulebook.
But in a country where hierarchy is our mother tongue, ordinary democracy can feel revolutionary, status shields wrongdoing, vulnerability incites violence and humiliation is confused with order. Because the true test of a nation is not how it treats its stars in their worst moment, but how it treats its most vulnerable in theirs.
