In Nigeria, scandal is not the end of a career, it is the audition tape. One week you are blocking a plane on the tarmac, the next you are smiling for photos as an airport security ambassador. And you did not even have to change your agbada.
On August 5, 2025, Fuji star KWAM 1 turned Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport into his personal stage. Security flagged his flask, suspecting alcohol, and refused to let him board with it. What followed was a three-act drama. Resistance, with voices raised and liquid splashing across the hands of startled security staff. Escalation, as the crowd swelled and tempers sharpened. And the show-stopper the man himself, agbada flowing, striding onto the baking-hot tarmac to plant himself in front of a taxiing plane. Passengers pressed against the windows, watching a music icon turn a federal runway into a concert of chaos.
The punishment was swift in name only. A six-month no-fly ban and criminal charges. The apology came faster, a statement insisting the flask contained “medically prescribed water.” Soon the ban shrank to one month, the charges evaporated, and the curtain lifted for Act Two.
But then came the pièce de résistance or the punchline, depending on how you see it.
The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria unveiled him as their new airport security protocol ambassador, a voluntary role framed as community service. Aviation Minister Festus Keyamo called it global best practice, get repentant offenders to preach the rules they once ignored.
But in Nigeria, the ambassador badge no longer signals achievement. We have road safety ambassadors who once drove recklessly, anti-drug ambassadors with past narcotics charges, even tourism ambassadors who barely live here. The word has been handed to beauty queens, reality TV stars, musicians, and political loyalists, often as a reward for fame rather than service. It has become a vocabulary of convenience say ambassador and hope no one notices it is just a press pass to respectability.
Mock job description, must have disrupted a flight in spectacular fashion. Must spill something on staff, preferably liquid and preferably in public view. Must feel remorse only when cameras are rolling. Must possess a fan base large enough to make the PR spin worthwhile. Bonus points for making international headlines.
KWAM 1 is simply the latest entry in a long tradition. Turn a scandal into a stage, hand the offender a microphone, and let them recite lines about repentance while the public laughs, forgives, and moves on. We have seen it with politicians returning after corruption trials, celebrities becoming youth ambassadors after nightclub brawls, and public figures pivoting from disgrace to honorary titles with ease.
What if this was your flight he blocked? What if you were the passenger delayed while a celebrity acted out a personal drama on the runway? The law, in this arrangement, is not a fence. It is a red carpet.
Until we learn that punishment is not a stepping stone to prestige, an ambassador will keep meaning the most famous person who got away with it. And the only security we will improve will be the celebrity’s reputation, while the real safety of our airports stands still on the tarmac, engines running, going nowhere.
Stephanie Shaakaa
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