I have never been under any illusion that immigration and customs officers at various airports around the world are overzealous. Most often, these officers hide under the guise of enforcing both written and self-made laws and protocols to put passengers under intense pressure. Our home-made officials in Lagos do theirs for at least very clear reasons.
How can I forget the illogicality of a border officer in Frankfurt, Germany, in February 2013, who found it so convenient to seize my small jar of air cream after giving himself the tedious task of screening the cream as if his life and job depended on it? What was more amusing was that I had the cream in my carry-on bag on arrival in Frankfurt late January on my way to Stuttgart for the Africa-US command conference in the historic German city. It was not confiscated.
Over the years, especially after the German baptism, I have always been pretty lucky at the entry points of the few countries that I had visited. A recent experience at the Pudong International Airport in Shanghai, China, however, reignited my perception of border officers as taking their officiousness too far.
Highly rated as one of the biggest airports not just in China but in South-East Asia, Pudong is a testament to the technological expertise of China both in size and facilities. What this fantastic airport has in beauty and size pales to an embarrassment in terms of signs, management and coordination.
With a four-hour layover, four able-bodied Nigerians found it impossible to locate the Customs point for passengers transiting through China to other countries for two hours until they decided to take their destinies in their own hands by joining the points of passengers whose journey terminated in China.
A point specifically designated as the check-in counter for passengers transferring to ‘Macau-Taiwan-Hong Kong’ suddenly became desolate — no one was assigned to man the point — with no explanation. A typical Nigerian inquisitive shouting of ‘Hello, who is there?’ by yours sincerely directed to about three adjoining rooms bordering the deserted desk, brought out a policeman who, instead of offering an explanation for the deserted ‘Macau-Taiwan-Hong Kong’ desk or directing the now agitated Nigerians and a few others to the unknown new Customs point, in hostile voice, shooed them away to no direction in particular.
By divine intervention, a friendly-looking policeman, who consulted briefly with God-knows-who, eventually took the Nigerians to an entry point, where two officers – a man and a woman – attended to them. For reasons best known to the two young officers, they decided to issue them a Chinese 24-hour temporary visa. This move is believed to be another way for China to solidify its claim to Taiwan, our final destination.
After going through two security checks in Pudong, we got to the final security check, an all-female affair, where all carry-on bags were subjected to manual, thorough, ‘down-to-bottom’ checks. A slender one among the girls (they were all slender really) stumbled on a blue container in my carry-on bag containing Nigerian water. The water had survived checks in Lagos and Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), but not in the hands of the slender girl, who held the ‘water bottle’ aloft like a much-coveted trophy and without betraying any emotions, pointed at the bottle before pouring the little water away. She was, however, kind enough to return my beautiful slender bottle.
As I made my way through this point, I realised that one of my colleagues, Adedayo Oketola, Editor, The PUNCH, was going through an ordeal in the hands of one of the girls. She had told Dayo that his power bank, which was above the ‘allowed threshold’ of 100mAh, wouldn’t be allowed to board the connecting plane to Taipei, Taiwan, without a written clearance from the check-in counter of China Airlines, which we had left way back.
Ordinarily, we were already racing against time to board; there was also the dire necessity of not leaving our colleagues in a strange land with these slender girls! While Editor, The Cable, Kolapo Olasupo, and myself raced to the boarding gates to alert the officials to Dayo’s ordeal, the embattled editor equally engaged some officials on his frustrating situation. While we were on our advocacy discussion with the second set of officials, Dayo showed up at the rear, much to the relief of the delegation.
Surprisingly, one of the officials at the first boarding gate, who had issued us boarding passes at the check-in counter earlier, told us that he was aware of Dayo’s case. We were too relieved to survive Pulong International Airport in Shanghai than asking for any explanation from the fine gentleman.
We thought we had survived China after boarding the two-hour flight to Taipei but, alas, China was still waiting for us at the Taoyuan International Airport in Taipei, our destination, on Monday night. Having journeyed for about two days from Lagos to Taipei, four of us had confidently stationed ourselves to collect our luggage.
After about 30 minutes of waiting, our expectations gave way to prayers; then fear set in; then, fear suddenly transformed into a nightmare. China Airlines had left the luggage of four media personalities in Shanghai, despite all the precautions that officials of Ethiopian Airlines at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, had taken to ensure that Taipei was indicated as the final destination of the bags.
Within minutes, however, officials of China Airlines were informed by officials of Ethiopian Airlines that they (China Airlines) had technically ‘detained’ the luggage of the wrong set of people, journalists. The 1,500 Taiwanese dollars promptly paid to each of the four-member delegation at the Taipei airport was barely enough to buy a good shirt. The bags were delivered to our hotels the following day with a written apology to the relief of the much-traumatised Nigerians.
World News Media Congress Taipei 2023
The World News Media Congress Taipei 2023, organised by the World Association of News Publishers, was hosted by the United Daily News, the biggest privately-owned media group in Taiwan. Since 1948, the WNMC is the most important annual gathering of media leaders around the world.
Drawing over 900 newspaper publishers, managers and editors from 58 countries, the 2023 congress was the second to be held in Asia in its 74-year history.
The congress offers news publishers, top management media managers and operators, editors, support organisations and tech giants a single forum to network and share experiences, especially to address challenges and new developments in the media world and how such developments relate to their common business and look for the way forward. The new development, though still in its infancy this year, is the seeming threat posed by Artificial Intelligence to the newsroom.
The three-day global congress itself was a victory of a sort for Taiwan, especially in its current relationship (did I say relationship?) with its brother, China. According to the organisers, Taiwan is one of the world’s most digitally-wired nations. In Freedom House’s assessment of free and independent media in 2019, Taiwan scored full marks.
At the opening, the President of Taiwan, Mrs Ing-wen Tsai, reiterated the determination of Taiwan to uphold and promote media freedom. The 66-year-old only female President in Asia didn’t mince words in saying that though Taiwan wouldn’t be the aggressor in any conflict, it would stoutly defend itself in case of an external attack. She didn’t name names.
Taipei
Taipei is the capital city of Taiwan, hosting almost three million residents and reputed to be one of the most technologically advanced cities in the world. Having been told that there were many Nigerians in Taiwan, I was excited that I would be able to get a little Nigerian food during my one-week stay in this Asian country, apart from the usual leaves and other food you don’t have an idea what they are made from.
My God-given talent of having the capacity to eat anything without any repercussion came in handy as we didn’t come across a single Nigerian in the places we visited in Taipei let alone a Nigerian delicacy. I remember running away from ‘undone’ pork in Stuttgart in January 2013. There was still blood on the meat. Meanwhile, I was super hungry on that fateful Sunday evening, a day businesses and shopping malls used to be closed in Germany.
It will be unthinkable that there is a place under heaven where you don’t have Nigerians, highly unthinkable! We probably didn’t visit their domains in Taipei, which is seven hours ahead of Lagos.
The city of Taipei is a beauty to behold both in the day and at night, from its busy shopping streets, well laid out districts and streets, ultra neat environment (appears too neat at times) to its architectural wonders and of course, its very friendly and courteous people. It’s not possible to miss Taipei’s several night markets. You may not get quality goods from these markets though.
It would be strange if the government of Taiwan isn’t having sleepless nights on the way its citizens eat. The way people eat in this city is incredible. Everywhere you get to, there are restaurants, mobile food stalls and ‘buka-like’ shops; and there must be people in and around them, always eating. I forgot to ask them whether they don’t cook at home or not.
Before jumping on the plane to Lagos, however, I knew my journey wouldn’t be complete if I failed to visit the single most important landmark in the Taiwan capital, the 509 metre-tall, bamboo-shaped Taipei 101 skyscraper, consisting of 101 floors above the ground. There are other floors beneath the ground taken over by all sorts of businesses, especially food businesses. It’s pretty easy for a first-timer to miss his or her way in the basement market.
My mathematics wasn’t strong in school and it still isn’t strong, but my layman calculation tells me that the money generated from that single building in a year would be enough to fund the budget of 10 states in our dear country – without Chinese loans. Everything in this building is money — from entry fees to games to photographs and food – except human beings.
No! I didn’t get to the last floor. My ticket, courtesy of WAN, only stopped at the 89th floor, where one has a clear, almost an aerial view, of the beautiful city of Taipei.
I can’t blame Dayo, who despite his ordeal in Shanghai, still promised me that he would come back to this city someday as a tourist.
