The internet was abuzz Monday after Tonye Cole, billionaire politician, shared his flight experience on how Wole Soyinka, Nobel laureate, was asked to vacate a seat by a passenger onboard a flight.
Cole, the co-founder and former group executive director of Sahara Group and Energy, had taken to his Instagram page on Sunday to narrate how a young passenger insisted that the foremost playwright must leave the window seat assigned to him.
This was despite pleas from him and the cabin crew.
He wrote: “I met one of the greatest Nigerians walking on earth and as with other times, he was genteel, witty, forthright and humble.
”My smile gives me away as he permitted the picture whereas he would have preferred to get back to his newspapers.
“Then we boarded the flight and after assisting him with his bags, he took the window seat and promptly started reading again.
“A few minutes later, this young man, wearing baseball cap, t-shirt to show his muscled chest and tattooed biceps boards the plane and tells Prof he’s on his seat (which he was).
”Those of us, including the cabin crew, tried to reason with young man to let the old man be but the chap refused. He insisted Prof should vacate his window seat, which the old man quietly did for his original aisle seat next to him.
“I couldn’t understand how we got to this point where we no longer have respect for elders, even if we are so ignorant of the great global personalities.
”Is it too much to ask that an elderly man be allowed to remain in a seat allotted to you in the same business class cabin and the same row?”
