Maybe I should become a prophetess. Only last week in my Comment Section column, I predicted, half in jest, that we were due for another public saga involving a “big man in the wing.” I didn’t expect the prophecy to come true so soon, or in such an ironic twist.
This time, it wasn’t a big man. It was a lone young woman, Comfort Emmanson, whose name has now been permanently stapled to one of Nigeria’s latest social media storms.
Comfort’s offence? An in-flight physical altercation on an Ibom Air flight from Uyo to Lagos. The incident spiralled from a disagreement over turning off her phone to a slap, to her being dragged off the plane, stripped to the waist, filmed, and paraded online like a trophy of shame.
She was arrested, slapped with five criminal charges, and banned for life from flying with Ibom Air. If it had stopped there, perhaps the story would have faded. But in a country where hypocrisy often flies first-class, the treatment she received, compared to others, set off alarms.
It took barely 24 hours for Comfort to go from passenger to prison inmate. The swiftness of her arrest and remand in Kirikiri appeared to be what police only seem capable of when the suspect isn’t wealthy, influential, or politically connected.
Compare that to the saga of Fuji musician KWAM 1, who, just days before, allegedly assaulted cabin crew on a ValueJet flight and obstructed the plane. His punishment? Not a prison cell, not public stripping, not one charge, but an “Aviation Security Ambassador” role. Yes, ambassador, complete with photo ops and smiles. His “indefinite ban” was reduced to a month before it had time to get cold.
So, when you place Comfort’s case beside KWAM 1’s, you might start to suspect that this was law enforcement’s overcorrection, a bid to look decisive after the backlash over their limp handling of the musician’s case.
Which leads to the question: who exactly is more of a threat to crew members? A lone girl with no martial arts training, or a powerful man surrounded by an entourage, who allegedly blocked a plane from moving? If you answered honestly, congratulations, you’re already overqualified to run our aviation disciplinary system.
No sooner had the video of Comfort’s humiliation hit the internet than the judgment began. Not on whether the crew acted professionally. Not on the legality of filming and leaking a semi-nude woman without consent. But on her character, because some people had seen her breasts before. Old photos surfaced, and labels like “runs girl” began flying as if morality itself was the issue on trial.
Apparently, in our society, once a woman’s morality is “questionable”, she forfeits her right to a fair hearing. It’s the same reflex that makes us assume a young man with dreadlocks is a cultist or a woman in tight jeans is “looking for trouble.” The stereotype comes first, the facts much later, if at all. Let’s be clear: Comfort was wrong to slap the hostess and curse out the crew. She admitted as much. And yes, she wouldn’t pass for the world’s most virtuous woman, going by what’s in plain sight. But does her lack of sainthood give those tasked with keeping order the licence to enforce their prejudices from behind the safety of a uniform? Security personnel, law enforcement, and judiciary officers are not paid to moralise; they are paid to apply the law without discrimination.
It’s almost funny, if you have a dark sense of humour, how quickly certain institutions move when the accused is powerless or perceived in a certain light. Comfort’s ban was announced within hours. Her arrest, same day. Her remand in Kirikiri, the next morning. But when the accused is a celebrity or a political ally, investigations stretch like stale chewing gum. Suddenly, there’s “need for further review,” “ongoing consultations,” and “consideration of mitigating factors.”
Imagine if airlines responded this fast to lost luggage complaints.
Nigerians are visual judges. We see a person’s outfit, hairstyle, or tattoos and instantly decide their worth. If they look “respectable,” they can get away with almost anything. If they look “loose” or “wayward,” they can be condemned without trial. Comfort’s case is just the most recent illustration of how dangerous that instinct is when held by people with real power, such as pilots, security staff, judges, and police officers.
When a cabin crew member decides a passenger is “the type” to cause trouble, every small misunderstanding becomes a full-blown security incident. And when the accused happens to be a woman dressed provocatively? The cultural biases do the rest of the work.
Amid all the shouting, one detail has slipped conveniently into the shadows: no CCTV from the flight has seen the light of day. The airline swears it exists, yet the only video in circulation is the one that shreds Comfort’s dignity, not the one that could reveal what happened. Who filmed it? Who leaked it? On that, there’s nothing but dead air.
That’s the kind of “evidence control” that makes you wonder, are passenger rights just decorative words on an airline’s website? If a passenger is manhandled, stripped, and filmed, shouldn’t there be immediate consequences for the staff involved?
In a plot twist that could have been scripted for Nollywood, Comfort’s disgrace turned into an opportunity. Upon release, she received an iPhone 16 Pro Max, a plot of land in Abuja, multiple job offers, and even brand ambassadorship contracts.
The same people who had judged her and spat in her face sent her follower count skyrocketing from a few hundred to over 30,000.
It’s a strange economy we run here, where shame is currency, and the fastest way to fame is to survive a public scandal. “Good girl no dey pay,” they say. Maybe they’re right. In this country, moral approval doesn’t build your bank account, but a viral disgrace just might.
And no, I’m still not becoming a prophetess. But at this rate, I won’t need to be. The next saga is already taxiing to the runway, and something tells me it’ll take off right on schedule.
