Bala Halilu: The Unaccounted Flight B210 Passenger

By 

Abdullahi Usman

usmanabd@yahoo.com

“Phew! Made it under somebody’s name. De Plane’s full, so I had to buy from a tout. But hey, who cares? The aim is 2 get there, right? Anyway, I will call you later when we arrive. The Capt. said the weather is bad, so it will be a rough ride but hey, if he can fly, so can I”....Bala Halilu, one of the Bellview B3210 passengers

The above SMS text message represents, perhaps, the last recorded written words of the late Bala Halilu, a former NNPC and National Maritime Authority employee, whose name would sadly not be found on the released passenger manifest of the ill-fated Abuja-bound Bellview flight B3210 that crashed in the forests of Lisa Village, in Ifo Local Government Area of Ogun State on Saturday, October 22, 2005. Apart from any other verbal discussion he may have had with his fellow passengers onboard, this text he sent to his bosom friends, Faruku Maishanu of NNPC and Jigawa State’s Accountant General, Nuhu Turaki (just after forwarding another text to his dear wife to confirm that he was coming home on that flight), was the last form of communication he may have had with anyone still alive today.

When my elder sister, who was a colleague to one of Bala’s sisters at the Federal Ministry of Health, forwarded this moving text message to me from Abuja on the first working day after that unfortunate air crash, she never knew that I was also acquainted with the originator of that message. Even before I was able to establish the actual author of that heartrending piece, the evident unmistakable tinge of excitement and satisfaction as he finally boarded what, unknown to him, was to be his last journey on earth, brought drops of tears to my eyes. On getting to the end of the text, the name Bala Halilu, which appeared to be the only addition to the original message he sent to his friends, quickly jolted me into a complete state of both shock and denial. At that point, I kept struggling to remove the slightest notion of the possibility of the victim being the same Bala I had met over 15 years ago in Lagos. A call I reluctantly made to my senior friend, Buhari Shamaki of the NPA, would eventually confirm my worst fears.

I first met the late Bala way back in 1990 through Buhari, whom I used to visit at his D418 flat at the 1004 Housing Estate in Victoria Island, which they shared with another friend in their days as bachelors. I would typically walk down from Block F, where I lived with my sister at the time, to visit their flat and would often be welcomed by the unsmiling face of this stern looking individual who always appeared so inhospitable. As a fresh young graduate, I could not understand why this older flat mate of my senior friend would appear so unfriendly, and would often complain about what I wrongly perceived as his unwelcoming attitude each time I visited. To be fair, Bala had this misleading demeanour that often led people to dislike him on first contact; a fate I would also suffer later in life as a number of my friends have often accused me of displaying the same unsmiling attitude when we first met. Once you got to know him, however, he often left a long lasting impression on you, as his teeming number of grieving friends would testify.

Hearing Buhari recount his last encounter with his late friend on his way to Kano to commiserate with the family was one of the most moving accounts I have had to listen to in a long while. Bala, in his words, was a very loyal friend who had a nickname for virtually every single member of his immediate circle of associates. He was so close to the families of his friends that he would often help relay messages that his buddies would ordinarily not be able to deliver directly to their own spouses; a task he seamlessly accomplished with the utmost of tact. In Buhari’s recollection, Bala broke his Ramadan fast with him in Lagos on Thursday, October 20^th, following which his host left him in the house with the rest of the family to attend the late evening prayer at the nearby mosque. For some reason, Bala could not travel back to Abuja on Friday as he had planned and, in fact, told their common friend, Salisu, not to let Buhari know that he was still in town, since he would not be able to check on him again during that particular visit. It was his failure to travel on Friday that resulted in that fateful encounter he had with the faceless tout who sold him the ticket he used to board the ill-fated Bellview flight a day after, to enable him get to Abuja to finalise his planned trip to Saudi for the lesser Hajj on October 25, 2005.

Sadly, there are many such cases of people traveling with the wrong identity on virtually every single domestic flight in the country. This situation often arises when those who cannot travel on their scheduled flights for one reason or the other deliberately give out their tickets to their colleagues, friends and relations to travel for free. One of such examples is the case of passenger No. 30 on flight B210 manifest, Senator Sanusi Daggash, whose ticket was used by an aide to the late Waziri Mohammed, following his fortuitous decision to travel on an earlier flight. In more common instances, the touts that usually buy these tickets on behalf of intending travelers may decide to sell them whenever the real owners fail to show up at the airport. Other cases of ticket racketeering also reportedly abound, whereby touts invest their own funds by using fictitious names to mop up as many tickets as they can afford. These tickets, often bought with the active connivance of unscrupulous accomplices among some airline employees, are then offered for resale to the highest bidder in the open market just moments before the flight takes off.

Unfortunately, this objectionable daily practice only comes to light in times of disaster, when you often hear of people, already presumed dead by virtue of their names featuring on the released manifest, suddenly appearing elsewhere to denounce the death rumours hanging over their own heads. This is usually followed by elaborate thanksgivings, during which these lucky individuals demonstrate their appreciation to God for facilitating their ‘miraculous escape’ from the unfortunate incident. The tragic irony of it all, however, is that for each of those reported cases of lucky escapes, other Nigerian souls remain officially unaccounted for, owing to the fact that they were traveling on a different identity at the time of their unfortunate death. Prior to the advent of mobile telephones with which people can now make calls and send text messages, the only possible ways of ascertaining that such people were onboard the crashed airliner were either from people that may have dropped them off at the airport or those they may have notified of their travel plans.

However, even where such confirmation becomes readily available, it comes with its own peculiar problems, especially when the issue of insurance compensation for the victims’ families comes up following the conclusion of the usual crash investigations. One of such incidents was the September 26, 1992 Nigerian Air Force Hercules C-130 air crash in which the families of a number of unaccounted civilians that were reportedly offered a free ride on the plane could not receive compensation. As difficult as it may seem, I strongly believe that the time has now come for airlines and all the relevant aviation authorities to join hands together with a view to eradicating this unwholesome practice.

I received my first hint on the missing Bellview aircraft around 11:45 pm on Saturday through my, Aliyu, who drew my attention to a newsreel on NTA, requesting people with useful information to call any of the numbers displayed on the news bar. My immediate reaction at that moment was to call some of my journalist friends, who have often come in handy during such unconfirmed situations. On second thought, I simply decided to send a text message to them, with the hope that one of them would still be awake to give me the necessary confirmation I sought. The text, which I sent at 23:59 hours, reads as follows: “NTA is reporting that an 8:45 pm Bellview flight to Abuja has still not reached its destination and there is no news on the plane’s whereabouts. I pray it’s NOT as bad as it seems”. Being the typical selfish creature that we all are, my primary concern was for members of my immediate family, especially those of them that fly the Lagos - Abuja route on a regular basis. Incidentally, while I was making frantic efforts to reach them and ensure that each one of them was safe, they were also desperately trying to make contact, knowing fully well that I used to be a frequent traveler on that route on my previous duty call at my place of work. The ultimate satisfaction of knowing that everyone of us was safe gave me some degree of reassurance that we would always be there for one another through the good and bad times.

That done, the next major area of concern for me was the possibility of someone dear to me being a passenger of the missing aircraft. A terse text message I had received around 12:30 am, indicating that a non-executive director in my company, Oando Plc, Alhaji Waziri Mohammed, might have been on that flight, provided a new source of worry and I immediately tried to call his line with the hope that I would hear the sound of his familiar voice at the other end. At that point, I called another brother of mine, Ahmed, who confirmed that he was together with Waziri at Alhaji Aliko Dangote’s house up to the time he left them at 6.00 pm that Saturday. He also added that the man was meant to travel back to Abuja later that night after breaking his fast. Following unsuccessful attempts to reach him, I decided to put a call through to my Managing Director at 5:15 am, during which he disclosed that our late director had called him around 7:45 pm to inform him that he was on his way to the airport to catch the last Bellview flight for the day. The fact that Waziri’s name did not feature on the manifest in the form that would be easily identifiable prompted another of my sisters to call and congratulate me on the strong possibility that he may not have been onboard after all. However, this could provide any consolation once my MD had given me that final confirmation I was hoping he would not substantiate.  

To borrow the words of my good friend, Segun Adeniyi of ThisDay, the late Uncle Waz, as many people preferred to call him, might have been “so many things to so many people”, but to me, he would forever remain that easy going and unassuming director of my company, who would always stop by my former office on his way to the MD’s office just to say hello and confirm that everything was okay with me. I still recall a particular occasion a little over two years ago when he came over to apologise for his lateness in offering his condolences over my father’s death, which happened while he was out of the country. When he stood there to discuss a tribute I had written for my late dad, which he confessed he had enjoyed reading, I never imagined I would be here writing his own tribute so soon afterwards; a situation that is made all the more saddening by the painful circumstances of his death at such a relatively young and promising age.

Another beautiful and gentle soul on that ill-fated flight was the late Engr. George Enenmoh, the hardworking Managing Director of Ascon Oil Limited, who had only recently commissioned his Ascon Oil and Everest Oil depots in Lagos. The beauty of his glaring success within the downstream sub-sector of the nation’s oil industry, which has contributed in no small measure to the image and prestige currently being enjoyed by the Independent marketers, becomes even better appreciated when one takes into consideration the nature of his humble background. It also serves as further proof that with clear vision, focus and perseverance, there is just about nothing that cannot be accomplished. Hard work was, for him, second nature, and during the construction stages of the Everest depot in the run-up to its eventual commissioning, the late Engr. Enonmoh drove his workers so hard that they nicknamed him Mr. Neverest (or never rest), a name they ingeniously coined to describe his untiring disposition in getting the job done. Another commendable virtue one could not fail to notice and admire about him was his modest posture; an attribute that was so pronounced that many people could very easily have missed him out in a crowd. I must also recall his significant contributions as a representative of the Depot and Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (DAPMAN), during the numerous PPPRA sessions leading up to the current liberalisation efforts in the downstream sub-sector, as well as at the various meetings with the NLC and other oil workers unions following the protests that followed the introduction of the policy.

Just as I was putting finishing touches to this piece, I was again jolted by the sad realisation that my very good friend, Dr. Lanre Babalola of the BPE, also lost his beloved wife and mother of his two kids, Bimbo (nee Ojora) in that unfortunate incident. The late Bimbo had only just come to town from Abuja that fateful Saturday morning, with the hope of catching the last flight to be reunited with her family. My heart goes to my dear friend in this dark hour, just as I pray that God grants him the strength and fortitude to bear this painful loss. My heart also goes to all my colleagues at work and my neighbour, Frank, who also lost someone dear to him, as well as to the families of all the dead, even as I pray for the repose of the souls of all the victims.

As we all mourn and take stock of the unfortunate manner in which the entire situation was handled, we must rededicate ourselves by collectively resolving that never again shall we treat our identified inadequacies as a nation like that of the proverbial problem with the weather, in which everybody talks about it but nobody does anything to improve it. It is not just enough to trade blame as to who did or failed to do what, without making concerted efforts to improve the situation going forward. Any useful lessons learned during the inquest that is certain to follow this sad event in the life of our nation must be applied towards improving our emergency management capabilities, with a view to eliminating the likelihood of a repeat of the collective national embarrassment we brought upon ourselves. May the gentle souls of all the 117 passengers and crew on Bellview flight B210 rest in perfect peace, Amen.

Abdullahi Usman