In Nigeria, to Err Is Human, Unless You Are Poor or a Woman

Wasiu Ayinde PKA Kwam1 and Comfort Emmanson. Photo illustration by Dami Mojid / THE REPUBLIC.

On 10 August 2025, Ms Comfort Emmanson boarded an Ibom Air flight from Uyo to Lagos. That flight ended with her being forcefully dragged, stripped bare, jailed and turned into an internet spectacle and talking point till this very moment of my writing. Nigeria is classist, Nigeria is sexist, both truths as old as time, and Emmanson gives us our most current evidence of both.

According to alleged eyewitness accounts, Emmanson was asked to turn off her phone despite it being in aeroplane mode, leading to a verbal disagreement between her and an air hostess. From the videos circulating on the internet, she was, at the point of deplaning, prevented from doing so by said Ibom air hostess, who insisted that she could not leave because security officials had been alerted to punish Emmanson’s ‘unruly behaviour’. When the air hostess would not budge from the door, Emmanson resorted to slaps and shoves to get her out of the way to no avail.

We are able to infer that, when security officials arrived and began to drag Emmanson off the plane forcefully, a yet-to-be-identified airport or airline staff member pulled her shirt loose until it tore and exposed her. Eventually, when she could not meet bail conditions, she was condemned to KiriKiri Prison, just as the Airport Operators of Nigeria imposed on her a lifetime ban for both local and international flights. The video from this disturbing event, captured at a place and time when only security officials, airport and airline staff were present, was circulated on the internet with no care for Emmanson’s partial nudity.