Hours after their flight from Kano to Abuja was delayed, several members of the House of Representatives Committee on Petroleum Upstream and Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF) are still seething.
According to reports, the legislators landed at Kano airport to take an Azman airline trip to Abuja.
The flight, which was supposed to leave at 12:30 p.m. on Wednesday, was instead delayed until 2:30 p.m. As passengers screamed and cursed, the flight was rescheduled for 6 p.m.
After that, the flight was rescheduled for 9:45 p.m. But things worsened. The legislators were told to depart by 12:15 a.m. on Thursday.
The airline's officials also failed to address the passengers about the reason for the delay.
These members of the House of Representatives, who were in Kano for an oversight mission, were among the enraged airport travelers in the lounge that day.
The legislators said they have never seen anything like it before.
“It is important that the people we represent know where we are and the national assembly knows we are still stranded here. As we speak to you, nobody is at the counter to address us, not even the manager,” says Benjamin Kalu, spokesperson of the House of Representatives, who is one of the stranded passengers.
“We just came out to see the manager and other members are still inside.
“In the hall, a lot of Nigerians were left stranded. There are other Nigerians who are stranded and we are witnessing this firsthand and we are feeling it; some of the citizens are abandoned here.
“We are raising this call for common Nigerians. Sometimes, when citizens bring their complaints, it appears as if they fabricated it, but this one we are involved and we are seeing this for ourselves.
“We don’t know when we are leaving here, and we have shown interest to find out from the ministry of aviation and the Consumer Protection Council (CPC) what is happening to the aviation sector as soon as we return,” he added.
Rotimi Agunsoye, Henry Archibong, and Gboluga Tinboju are among the lawmakers who have been stranded at the airport.
Azman's representative was unavailable for comment at the time of publication.
In Nigeria, Africa's most populated country and greatest economy, flight delays and cancellations with no explanation are typical.
Due to a day-long delay in flight departure time, furious passengers assaulted United Nigeria Airline employees at the Owerri airport in April.