Many air travellers missed their flights yesterday when physically challenged Nigerians, especially the blind, blocked the two major access roads to both the domestic and international wings of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos in protest against alleged neglect by government.
The physically challenged, numbering over 100, sat on the road at the roundabout leading to the domestic terminal of the airport, known at MMA2, to block vehicular movement across the road linking the domestic wing to the international wind of the airport.
Some of them sat in front of the vehicles that wanted to drive past the roundabout, thus blocking them from any movement and were shouting on top of their voice, lamenting the way they were being maltreated by concerned authorities.
They also used the buses that conveyed them to the airport to block the thoroughfare and inside source told THISDAY that they came with their food with the intention to spend their day on that road.
The traffic gridlock stretched from the MMA2 roundabout to over three kilometers into the airport, blocking movement from the cargo terminal area to the international terminals of the airport.
This led many intending travellers to miss their flights and many of them with light luggage trekked from the obstructed parts of the road to the terminals to board their flight.
Eye witness, who identified himself as Dolor and who may have followed the physically challenged to the airport spoke to journalists.
Dolor said: “Alright, you can see the blind people; the disabled people. They are actually angry for lack of welfare to them. They are angry that most of them are begging to survive. And even at that; a lot of Nigerians are against them begging, saying why should they be coming out to beg. Now, they have their own school: school of the blind, school of the disabled that they were supposed to be attending. But unfortunately, the school has been shut down for some years now. And according to them, they have tried their best to pressure government to reopen the school for them but all their efforts proved abortive.
“So, they have decided to come out and protest against their situation, saying that since you do not want us to go to school, let us come out and shut down the system so that all of you will hear our voice. They are not actually fighting. They are pleading to the President because they believe the President is a father. They feel that this is the only way to make him hear about them because any other way may not be effective to pass their message to the President.”
He believed that what the physically challenged did to block critical road to the airport will make President Bola Ahmed Tinubu hear about their grievances.
“They are coming out en masse. More are still coming,” Dolor said at about 12.00 p.m yesterday.
According to him, the school of the protesters is located at Isheri area of Lagos state (perhaps, Thefarm Craft Blind School, Isheri-Osun Lagos) and it was closed since 2023 and the students had written several letters to the concerned authorities.
“They have written several letters to both Abuja and Lagos. I don’t want to go into details but they are over 500 here right now and they are still expecting another 500 who are coming from Ikorodu and other parts of Lagos.
As at 2:00 p.m yesterday, the physically challenged were still sitting and standing around the roundabout to MMA2. Many of them who are blind were still holding their guiding sticks and those who sat down under the bonnets of vehicles, kept their sticks besides themselves.
