The treatment of Comfort Emmanson, a disruptive passenger on Ibom Air, by airline staff has been denounced by human rights campaigner Aisha Yesufu.
A social media video purportedly captured Emmanson being pulled and taken out of the Ibom Airplane after attacking airline employees during a travel from Uyo to Lagos.
She was then taken into custody and charged for her actions, which have been widely denounced.
The treatment of Emmanson, however, stands in sharp contrast to that of other well-known individuals, like as former Edo State Governor Adams Oshiomhole and Fuji artist Wasiu Ayinde Marshal (KWAM 1), who were involved in different airline-related situations but were neither arrested nor jailed, according to Yesufu.
“Just the manner they requested that King Wasiu descend… According to rumors, King Wasiu Ayinde literally poured everything he had into the plane and even stopped it. However, he hasn’t been placed under remand,” she said.
“What prevented you from dragging King Wasiu Ayinde in that manner out of the plane? What prevented them from dragging Senator Adams Oshiomhole to the floor in a bundle? “What?” Yesufu asked.
Yesufu also criticized the way security guards violently restrained Comfort Emmanson.
She claimed that Emmanson’s dress was torn during the dragging, revealing her breasts to the world.
“That is sexual harassment.” Emmanson would now “forever live with the fact that her body part… is now all out on display and people will continue to make caricatures with it,” Yesufu stated, bemoaning the fact that she was exposing someone’s nudity in public when there was absolutely no reason for it to be there.
In a post on her 𝕏 account, Yesufu questioned the lack of dignity in the way the incident was handled and suggested that a more courteous approach may have been used.
Think about how they pulled her out. Do they even provide the security guards with training? Yesufu stated, “They pulled her like they were pulling chicken, and someone from the back pulled her dress, tearing it and revealing her breasts.”
Emmanson’s Controversial Story’s Background
When the cabin crew told Emmanson to turn off her phone on August 10, she reportedly disregarded their request, a common aviation safety regulation.
When another passenger turned off the device on her behalf, Emmanson became enraged and this resulted in a conflict.
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Emmanson was charged with assaulting a staff member and attempting to use a fire extinguisher as a weapon, both of which the airline said may endanger the aircraft.
Consequently, the Airline Operators of Nigeria put her on a lifelong no-fly list and Ibom Air banned her indefinitely.
After being detained by airport security, she was turned over to the police, charged with a crime, and placed under remand in Kirikiri Correctional Center.
We Cannot Have Two Justice Systems: Aisha Yesufu Concerns About Emmanson’s Treatment
In a video posted on her official 𝕏 account on Monday, Yesufu criticized the case, arguing that Emmanson’s treatment exposed the systemic inequalities in Nigerian legal systemic implementation.
We cannot have two different legal systems in our country, with the type of judicial system that is applied to you or that fits you based on your social status. “That is wrong,” Yesufu declared.
Although she was “not against the charges and accusations” against Emmanson, the activist went on to say that she thought justice should be served to all residents equally.
“The reason it is the rule of law is that it applies to everyone, not just some people,” she said.
Yesufu went on to attack the selective justice that she sees in Emmanson’s treatment in comparison to other powerful people.
Why was it that only Comfort felt at ease dragging on the ground and flaunting her body everywhere? Yesufu said, “There are a lot of things that are wrong there,” and that the absence of comparable action against well-known individuals like Oshiomhole and KWAM 1 is indicative of a more significant problem with selective justice.
“I will reiterate that selective justice is in fact injustice,” she said in closing.
