Clem Oluwole
Penultimate Thursday, three management staff of the National Assembly, Abuja, and two others were held captive by civilization for 50 minutes. Their captor was one of the lifts in the complex, notorious for malfunctioning.
According to a media account of the detention, the five occupants that included a female staff boarded the lift and were descending when the contraption developed a fault. The detainees blamed the management of the National Assembly for their 50-minute incarceration. Apparently, the lift had been infamous for misbehaving but no one cared to “call it to order” until the fateful day when the five workers got stuck and were close to embarking on a one-way trip to the great beyond. Fifty minutes in a near airtight lift can be likened to being buried alive. I can appreciate how frightened they were when eventually they were rescued before they could suffocate to their early graves.
The phenomenon of lift failures is as old as the invention itself. Lift has no respect for anyone. For instance, as far back as 2010 in faraway United States of America, former Chief of Defence Staff, Air Marshall Paul Dike, the Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen Abdulrahaman Dambazzau, some officials in the delegation of the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs and other dignitaries were detained in an elevator at the Nigerian Embassy in the heart of the prestigious Manhattan Business District of New York.
These recognizable personalities were detained for more than 30 minutes without an order of the court. An engineer had to be summoned to the embassy to free the detainees who were in the States on official engagement.
A few days before the incarceration of the military top brass, I read about the demise of an old white couple somewhere in Europe that got imprisoned in a lift for a couple of days in a block of high rising apartment flats. The couple, moving on tired legs from old age, died of asphyxiation in the elevator which obviously developed a fault that was not reported immediately.
Now, let me share my own experience with you. It was a harrowing one but I thank God I survived the captivity. The encounter took place at the 10-storey Joseph Gomwalk House in Jos in the early 80s. I had gone to table the cover page stories for discussion with my editor, Mr. Joel Pwol, who was attending a management meeting on the 9th floor of the building. It was customary that as the chief sub-editor of The Nigeria Standard newspaper, I should present the cover page stories to the editor and both of us would determine which ones should lead the front and back pages of the next day’s edition. He excused himself from the meeting for some minutes to attend to me because we had a deadline to beat. And it was already past
7 pm. After assigning the stories, I headed for the elevator. I punched the button and after a few seconds, the lift marched up to the 9th floor and gave me a huge yawn. I hopped in and asked to be taken to the ground floor. The descent was smooth until it passed the 6th floor heading for the 5th when the elevator hiccupped to a sudden halt. It was my first experience and I assured myself that the drop would soon resume. But I was wrong. The lift became motionless and I soon realized that the compartment had become poorly illuminated. It was at that point that I realized it was NEPA that ordered the unlawful detention that was to last for an hour.
And I was alone. Worse still, it was the pre-GSM era, so I couldn’t send an SOS to anyone.
After about 15 minutes and there was still no motion, I became worried for my safety and the deadline. As a lone detainee, there was no competition for the air that was circulating in the cell. And I thanked God for that. But when 30 minutes rolled by and there was no jerk, my heart gradually began to gather speed.
Forty-five minutes rolled by and yet no shaking. Then I began to wonder what my editor would be thinking if he got back to the office only to be told that his chief sub-editor was nowhere to be found long after our meeting. Would they rush to the nearby Plateau Radio and Television Corporation (PRTVC) to declare me wanted? And what would the story on the front page read? Would the headline scream something like: “Chief Sub-Editor absconds with cover page stories”…in a manner that a cashier would make off with his employer’s huge cash?
As if NEPA was timing the incarceration, it restored power in the 60th minute and the elevator jerked back to life. I scrambled to my feet when the lift re-yawned on hitting the ground floor, and I bolted away so fast you would think my legs were not touching the ground. I narrated my ordeal to the editor. He could not have imagined that I was trapped in the elevator, and told me that he and his colleagues had to use the staircase after the meeting.
The next day, I asked the company’s service engineer whether I could sue NEPA for unlawful detention. He dissolved into a guffaw and told me not to waste my time. He said the judge would simply draw my attention to the functional definition of NEPA which was “Never Expect Power Always” and throw out my case at the first hearing.
After that tormenting experience, I have been avoiding the mobile cells called lifts like a plague.
