By Muyiwa Adeleye
Curiosity they say kills the cat. Yet curiosity is a major attribute to good journalism. I often hide my curiosity, or need to know as I quaintly put it, under this guise. So when Cornelius Tay, an old friend, invited me to the funeral of his mother in Ghana, I felt it was an opportunity to know how the other side handles funerals.

Corny Tay and I go a long way. He was the only ‘Igbobian’ on the editorial board of ‘Teen and Twenty’, a youth magazine that was popular among the elite secondary schools in the early 7Os. The other editorial board members were A level students from Kings and QueensColleges — an indication of the preference of the founder Mrs Adeyola David whose children attended the two schools.

Corny must have impressed the publisher and other members of the board because he became the Associate Editor within two years. He was to hand over the baton to me soon after when he proceeded to University of Ibadan.

This handing over process deepened our relationship which was to continue as he later made his forays into advertising while I made mine into journalism and we had to feed off each other. We lost contact for a while until Forever Living Products, a marketing initiative, brought us together this year.

So it was more than curiosity that took me to Ghana. It was also to honour an old friend. Which turned out to be good since the funeral ceremony was more Nigerian than Ghanaian — Mrs Paulina Masavi Tay spent 60 of her 89 years in Nigeria. But I did ask a Ghanaian next to me who told me that a typical funeral in Ghana would be more sombre. If it was an elderly funeral— as this was— people would be dressed in white; black if it was middle age and red or black if it was a youth. Definitely not the bright colours we adorned for Mrs Tay.

The cultural drumming and dancing were some of the things I took away with me. The scene was so intriguing that I left my seat to spend some time with them. Tradition, properly conducted, always fascinates me.

Yet, it was a simple but touching ceremony. The tributes of the grand children brought tears to many eyes and made me realise what true parenting is all about. This is the proper legacy, ‘the property’ to leave behind. This is the gold that will not rust that we should bequeath to our children. To touch lives the way Mrs Tay must have done, is worth emulating.

But the main lesson of the trip came from a different source. But first, a little background. About a month ago, my missus and some colleagues had travelled to Esanland in Edo State for a funeral. Their return trip from Benin to Lagos was on a Saturday which turned out to be an environmental Saturday— whoever puts a flight for 1O am on an environmental Saturday needs to be taught the ABC of business. My wife’s flight, with some of her friends, was for 1 pm. But because some members of her group had an earlier flight, the bus that took them to the airport was early enough for the 1O am flight which, as you can imagine, was far from full.

It would make good business sense to try to accommodate whoever wanted to take an advantage of an earlier flight instead of flying half empty and then use the latter flight to take those who were bound to be late because of environmental restrictions. But no. The ground crew insisted they had to pay an extra N8,OOO for the privilege.

The passengers, their customers, left the desk angry. About three people who felt getting to Lagos early was worth the extra expense, paid. But the rub was that neither the 1O am nor the 1 pm flight left on time. The two were later combined and left at 3 pm. The N8,OOO  was not refunded to those who paid. Is that how to run a business that is service and customer oriented? It looks more like extortion to me.

But that is the kind of service we get from our airlines in Nigeria. Unfortunately, this unique service was exported to Ghana last week.

A flight by Arik that was to leave by 5.45pm did not leave until 11pm. We landed at 1am Nigerian time and passed through a sleepy, sluggish immigration which did not help matters. We did not get home until 2.3Oam.

In the flight were people who had booked for a morning flight and who were on the queue when they were told the flight was full- how an international flight would leave confirmed passengers behind confounds me. So they stayed at the airport all day with neither attention nor care from the Arik crew.

Many would have had plans for their Sunday which were not to be. Two that I know had connecting planes to catch. One, an Indian, had a taxi waiting in Lagos at an unnecessary cost to him. Another, and older friend, wondered how he would get home since his wife who was to pick him, would not venture out after 1Opm.

The details, pieced together during the ‘wait’, as to how Arik found itself in this situation are too embarrassing to relate here. All I can say is that for a business whose oxygen is customer satisfaction, this is exactly how not to run a business. And the aviation authorities that have limited our choices mainly to two rather incompetent airlines must ask themselves what business they are in.

What is the point in upgrading airports when planes are not flying in them?