A viral video making the rounds on social media shows how travellers and others at the airport experienced a blackout on Friday night, leaving them to wallow in darkness for some minutes.
Nigerian travellers have lamented and lambasted President Bola Tinubu’s government over a power outage at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) in Lagos.
A viral video making the rounds on social media shows how travellers and others at the airport experienced a blackout on Friday night, leaving them to wallow in darkness for some minutes.
Lambasting the Nigerian government in the viral video, a man who said he was travelling to the United States recorded the video, saying, "Here we go. This is a Nigerian airport. We just lost light. Only in Nigeria is where an airport will lose power. People are moving in the dark, and we think we are going anywhere.
"This is a Nigerian airport. We just lost power. People are everywhere using their phones to light the airport. We are going backwards. This is an oil-producing country. It is horrible.
"If I weren't there to witness this, somebody would say maybe it is not true. But I'm here waiting for my flight to the US and electricity just went off."
Flashing his mobile phone torchlight inside the airport, the man said, "This is inside the airport, Nigerian international airport. This is not local; it is an international airport. What a disgrace!"
Confirming the incident, the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) on X (formerly Twitter) said the power outage at the airport which lasted for about three minutes occurred while the airport was switching over to its backup power supply after losing power from the national grid.
The FAAN said, “We experienced a 2-3 minute outage at Murtala Muhammed International Airport yesterday, Feb 2nd 2024 while switching over to our backup power supply after losing power from the Grid.
“The electrical team has identified the challenges with the automatic switch over and working judiciously to restore this immediately. We have put a plan in place leveraging the alternative sources of power to ensure we do not have a reoccurrence.”
However, an X user, @chidimo_dev said, “Una be mumu. So who has been fired so far? Same happened in I think Kenya recently and someone had to go but here una go dey explain rubbish. Na so light go go person go smuggle drug comot. Nonsense.”
Another X user, @Njokuifeom77266 said, “You want some useless staff to smuggle drugs in a passenger's luggage within that space of time. Tueh.”
Also, @DiviBUNTU questioned, “So what if a plane was about to land within that minute. Na this yeye excuse una for take explain the plane crash?”
https://x.com/thecableng/
https://x.com/faan_official/
https://x.com/divibuntu/
https://x.com/njokuifeom77266/
https://x.com/chidimo_dev/