Mariam Mariam
I spent the second half of last week, from Thursday evening, in Lagos. I was attending a retreat at the scenic Eko Tourist Resort at Akodo, organised by ‘Abuja Initiative’, an organisation that has been in existence since 1998, formed to ‘influence politics and policy’ in the words of its members My plan was to do this week’s column around the very interesting issues that came out of the retreat. This was because a lot of very thought-provoking assessments of various aspects of the Nigerian situation were offered that I wanted to share with the reader. We, Dr Abubakar Siddique Muhammed of ABU and I, had been offered a ride out of the resort and had got to the airport on time to be able to get tickets for the 12.30pm IRS flight to Abuja.
Just as our flight was announced, a call came through from Kabiru Yusuf, who wanted to know how and where I was at that moment. He had been told by our Board Chairman, Abdulmumini Bello, about the tragic air crash which occurred within the hour. I told a few people, kept the story away for all the other people on our flight, a very uneasy flight in the circumstance of what I already knew happened at the Abuja end of our journey. After what felt like forever, we landed at Abuja, and as I brought my phone back to work, the calls and text messages came flooding in, the first from Umar Jimada, a childhood friend whose highly informed understanding of aviation and especially the problem associated with various accidents with the Boeing 737 aircraft, I have always admired. Our Acting fediter, Abdulazeez Abdullahi, gave me a list of some of the people who lost their lives in the ADC flight, including, of course, the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Muhammadu Maccido. It was at this point that I now informed other people on the flight about the accident and the loss of lives. I found very poignant the comment by a lady who sat behind me, and who had complained earlier about the ‘heavy manner’ of the plane’s landing. If she had known at the Lagos end of the accident, she assured that she would not have taken the flight to Abuja.
Like almost every Nigerian, I have felt very angry, very sad and very helpless about the situation with the aviation sector in Nigeria against the background of the tragic loss of lives in Flight ADK 053. It was one year and a week after the BELLVIEW tragedy, ten months after SOSOLISO and, of course, the tragic loss of the lives of some of the most brilliant officers of the Nigerian Army. The president of the Christian Association of Nigeria, Archbishop Peter Akinola, was very apt when he described air travel in Nigeria as having become a “journey to the grave”.
There is clearly a far greater level of crisis, a deeper rot in the state of aviation than we have cared to know, steeped as Nigeria’s ruling elite is in cosmetic, quick-fix approach to issues that demand a fundamental shift of paradigm and an appreciation of the multi-faceted nature of the origins, growth and decay of the phenomenon being studied or examined for solution. I will explain. THE GUARDIAN newspaper of Monday, October 30th, 2006 gave a very instructive highlight of the history of aviation accidents in Nigeria in its eighty-one year history, since the first plane landed in Lagos in 1925. The report said that Nigeria has witnessed over fifty air crashes since the first one, the crash of ^ VC-10 aircraft on November 20, 1969, at Ikeja, which led to the loss of the lives of all the eighty-seven passengers on that plane.
It was also interesting to note that this report added that “the skies appeared safe until the late 80s and 90s when the crash surged due to the liberalization of the sector”. As if to corroborate this trend, a friend of mine on Tuesday night sent me a text, which reads that “ In 46 years of Nigeria’s independence, there have been 96 air crashes and 1,233 deaths: Of these, OBJ accts for six air crashes and 406 deaths, In space of 4 years beginning) from 2002″. These figures are very frightening, especially because it really didn’t seem to be much that the government can or is willing to do, to reign in this unacceptable trend of tragedies.
President Obasanjo went to Sokoto, exploiting religious feelings about total submission to the Almighty Allah, and asking Nigerians to be “subdued in their grief and not behave like unbelievers”. THE GUARDIAN of Tuesday, October 31st, 2006, quoted religious leaders in Kwara State as advocating prayers to stop mishaps. Reading those lines, it occurred to me that perhaps some of these religious leaders have not heard of that admonishment from Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), that we must believe in Allah, but we must also tie our camels! The way to tie a crimel in the context we are describing here is for leaders/to take responsibility for their actions, to lead in the search for solutions, provide enlightened leadership and sharply administer sanctions; the invocation of religious sensibilities has become a substitute for responsibility in Nigeria’s setting. Our leaders are past masters in the art of obfuscating issues and deepening mysticism, as we have seen in the four days since the tragic events of last Sunday.
When the BELLVIEW crash occurred last year, President Obasanjo bussed in people from all over the country into Aso Villa to examine the state of the aviation industry. It was agreed that there was comer-cutting and deep-seated corruption. A lot of positive noise was made about doing things in a different way. If Nigerians felt like giving the president and the political leadership in the country a benefit of the doubt, the SOSOLISO crash of late 2005, several forms of close calls and the crash of the military aircraft a couple of weeks ago, have all come together to show that not much really has changed for the better despite the threats hurled at faceless enemies, the huffing and puffing and the show of bravado in front of live television by President Obasanjo. There is a fundamental crisis with the head-on plunge into a liberalisation of the aviation sector, especially in the context of the intensified atmosphere of privatisation of the last few years. While we can accept that there is variety and choice in the sector, the main drawback has been the terrible weakness of the regulatory mechanism. It is terribly weak; there seems to be a level of corruption which is still exploited to bring into the skies aircraft of dubious qualities and safety levels. We are still saddled with situations where we have airlines that operate just an aeroplane.
The ADC Airline was alleged to be using just one plane, the one which crashed on Sunday, to service all destinations from Calabar to Lagos to Yola to Sokoto. It’s frightening that ADC alone (one of the babies of a liberalised aviation sector), had a crash on November 7, 1996, when its Boeing 727, Flight 086, plunged into the waters around Lagos with the loss of 142 lives. The same airline suffered a crash on July 29, 1997 at Calabar with the loss of 55 persons.
For me, the most intriguing aspect of the tragic story of Nigerian aviation is the place of the Aviation Minister, Babalola Borisade. The civilized conduct around the world is for political leaders to take responsibility in moments of national calamities, accidents or crises; but in Nigeria, the political elite finds excuses and sacrifices scapegoats. Last year in the wake of the BELLVIEW crash, President Obasanjo saved the career of his minister, but many technical experts lost their jobs and in the process the position of Babalola Borisad e was even strengthened.
If people thought that the SOSOLISO crash was one accident too many, which ordinarily would Hose the minister his job, they were wrong. So much a matter of life and death in a manner of speaking is the ministerial appointment that Babalola Borisade did not find the moral compunction to resign. ‘No, he did not; he is staying pretty presiding over the death of hundreds of Nigerians, while he unconscionably continues to attend Federal Executive Council meetings with the blood of innocent people literally dropping from his ministerial robes.
That Babalola Borisade would do anything to retain his position without a thought for the decency and decorum that voluntarily resigning might earn him came from the hurriedly arranged press conference of barely twenty-four hours after the air crash. Borisade explained away the cause of the crash as being the refusal of the pilot to heed the weather warning that had been issued by the relevant authorities. Of course, the pilot is dead and he cannot therefore give us the benefit of his own side of the story anymore.
But the minister was being clever by half by thinking Nigerians will not see through his effort to pass the buck. Babalola Borisade is a liability to Nigeria’s aviation sector, and if he is not honourable enough to resign his appointment after four major crashes and the loss of hundreds of lives under his watch, we must then pressurize President Obasanjo to respect the sensitivities of Nigerians by sacking his aviation minister. The man is too accident prone for comfort, and he seems to be one of those that must be chased out, because he seems unable to find the honour to do the right thing; ministerial seat is too juicy to abandon no matter the number of people who die, apparently.
Of course, there is no illusion that the sack or resignation of a minister can be the answer to the problems o f the aviation sector. I think it is very vital to rethink the liberalisation of the sector by tightening the baseline below which the aviation sector must not operate. The regulatory authority must be sharply purged of rot, corruption, comer-cutting and all those negative acts which translate to a total lack of respect for the passengers whose lives are constantly endangered.
Last week’s accident is one tragedy too many, which must spur a renewed resolve on the part of those responsible to find very innovative ways to begin to solve our aviation problems. We have lost far too many lives already and Nigerians are angry and sad and worried that there does not seem to be a lot of options remaining to calm their fears about the insecurity of flying in the country today, so it is the duty of those who rule to inspire the people’s confidence in their efforts to try to do the right.
Hand-wringing, mouthing of platitudes and pretentious piety will not earn President Obasanjo the confidence of a badly traumatised citizenry. The air crash of last weekend has only deepened the atmosphere of uncertainty in the country. I lost very many friends and brothers in that ill-fated flight; Razaq Maciver was a childhood friend from Ilorin, and he died with his younger brother. Alhaji Abdullahi Bayero was like an uncle that we shall sorely miss, not to talk of Senator Gandi, Dr Junaidu, Waisu Yaro and so many other on that flight, including the beloved Sultan of Sokoto. I will like to express heartfelt sympathy to members of the families that lost loved ones and Nigerians in general. May Allah forgive their sins.
It is also important to rise beyond our sorrow and pains to challenge the Nigerian government to take the right steps to fix our aviation industry. It is too vital to the nation’s wellbeing to be so rotten, corrupt and unreliable. There have been too many lives lost, and it should not continue that way. But the first thing is that Babalola Borisade MUST BE SACKED! PLS:
Have you registered to vote? What difficulties have you encountered in the process? Please let us share your experience. But let us also resolve that no matter what, Obasanjo MUST GO ‘ 1 May 29th, 2007.
