When air travel sanctions on Libya were lifted, I was among the first to fly from Tripoli to Malta
When Air Travel Sanctions Were Lifted On Libya: Living in Libya Series | By Femi Omidiji
When air travel sanctions were lifted on Libya, I was among the first set of people who took the few flights available at the time from Tripoli to Malta.
We had a stopover to connect another flight to Lanaka, Cyprus. I remember traveling with three other Nigerians, where we were met with first-grade racism. It was a horrible experience. That was around 1999 or thereabouts. We were detained at the airport cell for a week because, at the time, flights from Malta to Cyprus only happened once a week. They tried repatriating us the very night we got into the airport, but we protested, and the airline couldn’t wait, so they had to lock us up.
The flight from Malta to Cyprus was just about three hours. A few days in the airport cell, we welcomed a Ghanaian who happened to also be a traveler who had met the same fate as ours. He narrated his ordeal and how he was treated at the airport. He said he was in Cyprus just to cross over to Greece. I noticed that this guy was beginning to talk too much, so I spoke in Arabic to my Nigerian friends not to divulge too much. I have had a lot of experiences with fellow African countries who always like to beef Nigerians out of envy.
You see, we Nigerians outside the country are seen by other African countries as arrogant, pompous, and that we are always too full of ourselves, so we rarely get along with other African countries’ citizens outside of Africa because we actually see them as not measuring up. We believe we have the swag, but they don’t! Unknown to me, the guy also spoke Arabic with so much fluency. He replied in Arabic, ‘Ana mush gawat,’ meaning ‘I’m not a mole!’ Well, I still had my reservations.
A few moments later, a guard called for him. He left for a while. When he was taken out of the cell, I told my guys that we shouldn’t trust this guy; he might be more than what we thought. We should be cautious about disclosing our mission to anyone, particularly if we were released from the country through the border, as our visa was a tourist visa, but we had other plans.
The Ghanaian guy came back again, and this time, he was trying to ask what our mission was and how we intended to leave Cyprus because he was also trying to go to Turkey. I said we didn’t have any plans of leaving; we just came to see the ancient city of Nicosia. He asked if we had drugs, that his brother told him before he left the country that the cost of drugs in Cyprus was golden, and he had connections. I told him we don’t do that. At that point, I had serious doubts. I held him immediately and told him he’s a mole, that I would give him a beating of a lifetime if he asked any questions again. That was where he knew the game was over. He was talking too much. When he got the grip that we were a hard nut to crack, he tapped the door, and he was removed from the cell. My friends were impressed with me.
The following day, the airport manager asked to see me alone, I was taken to his office where he interrogated me and said he ll allow only me into the country and deport the other three guys, I declined the offer, he made me a lot of promises but I was kinda young and maybe I should say ignorant, I declined all the offers that I’m not gonna betray my guys, that he had to allow us all into the country, the man said its not gonna happen!
I was returned into the cell…
By the time I got back into the cell, a Bulgarian was in our cell, learnt he was arrested for drugs, he asked why were detained,we told him, he spoke good English, he said in Cyprus the only way we could get their attention is to go on hunger strike, that if we do that for two days we will be granted asylum, BOOM!
The idea sank,, we that have been eating Pizza for days started rejecting food😁, immediately the airport manager noticed that we have been given` a clue he got so furious and tries to persuade us to eat that he ll make sure he release us, unknown to us that he was trying to buy time for the next flight which was few day to come, we continued with the hunger strike but unfortunately we started too late!
A day after we started the hunger strike, our plane landed, we were all forcefully whisked into the plane in cuffs, escorted by armed guards to the back seat before passengers were allowed to board, so no passengers noticed that we were cuffed.
We were deported back to Malta, where a new episode unfolded
To be continued…
