Usman Yerima

The investigation into that crash has barely yielded anything and now this. This time however, the dysfuntion in the Nigerian system is hitting close to home as more prominent members of the public like the Sultan, senators and deputy governors have fallen victims to the rot. Again, Obasanjo’s response has been to order a full-scale investigation. What the hell is he hoping to find when reports of the investigation (if any at all) are eventually delivered to him? It is no mystery that the planes flying in Nigerian skies do not meet international safety standards. That aside, there are no Federal mandates that compel the airlines to operate under certain guidelines. The ADC plane for instance that crashed was over 23 years old, and the airline had a history of safety violations.

I just read a Daily Champion news piece this morning where the Aviation Minister, Prof Borishade, in a news conference blamed the deceased Capt of the flight for "ignoring advice by the control". By "the control" I am assuming the minister means control tower. If that claim is indeed true, it further attests to the total breakdown of order in all sectors of the Nigerian society. But I find that claim difficult to understand, let alone believe. According to global aviation flight procedure, the tower has to clear a plane for Landing and take off because as air traffic controllers, they direct incoming and outbound traffic as well as manage activities on the tarmac. How a seasoned pilot will disregard the advice of the control tower regarding weather condition is suspect.

Now, the crash inciden aside, it is my understanding that the Minister does not have an aviation management background, and neither is he an Engineer in aeronatics. As a matter of fact, I am told his background is in psychology. I have tried to verify this information to no avail. I have used every imaginable search engine to search for Professor Borishade's profile, but there is no information on this dude. If it is infact true that Borishade is a professor of psychology, what then was the rationale for appointing him Minister of Aviation? What normal person appoints a psychologist to manage a country's deplorable aviation sector? What exactly will be the expectation really? Is he supposed to convince Nigerians that they are not crazy if they fly unsafe planes? At this point, I am convinced that President Obasanjo is not with his faculties intact. This lunacy is not limited to him alone. It actually includes the state governors, impeachment happy legislooters, and the totally confused Senators. I say this not as an insult but because they all fit the simplistic definition of insanity. That definition indicates that insanity is when one does the same thing over and over again and expects a different result. Obasanjo has been ordering investigations each time a plane goes down, but has done nothing to make flying safer for Nigerians.

I just got off the phone with Boeing Sales division. I asked them if they would offer significant discount if an airline were to order 15 news Boeing 737s to replace their entire old fleet, and they said yes. For $650 million dollars (which is pocket change to some rogues in government) Nigerian government can purchase 15 brand new planes and begin a new fleet of Nigeria airways operations. Even if the government decides it wants no part of commercial aviation enterprise, they can proceed with the purchase, but force commercial airline operators to lease the new aircrafts from the government till they are paid off. This way, there is a level of assurance that flying conditions are safer. What does it take to implement a simple initiative like this? There are indications from the Nigerian government that an 8 man team of National Transportation and Safety board officials is en route to Nigeria from the US to assist in identifying the cause of the ADC plane crash. How pitiful! The NTSB's primary function is to investigate all air accidents in the US. That is their charter. They investigate all plane crashes by recovering the pieces and parts of the plane, glueing the parts back together, reviewing black box recordings prior to the crash, and much more. This is a highly painstaken and detail oriented job that requires very skilled manpower with aviation background. The question is why don’t we have a transportation safety department whose task it is to investigate and help prevent transportation accidents on land, sea, and in the air by not just regulating the industry but by setting strict safety guideliness and requiring commercial transportation operators to pass quaterly inspection and safety tests? Why not proactively establish institutions and policies that deal with problems before they become national disasters and an embarrassment to the country? Why always wait for a tragic event before reacting, and even the reaction often makes little sense. Why don’t we have at least a World class well equipped and well staffed hospital in each state of the Federation so that in the event of a crisis situation, we don’t end up scratching our heads and looking to South Africa to bail us out? All of a sudden, impeachment is in vogue in Nigeria. We have impeachment drunk legislooters spoiling for showdowns with their state governors because somehow, they suddenly realize that the State executive had been embezzling public funds from public treasury all the along. After seven years they’ve all suddenly come to this realization. These are the very people that once defended the same governors and reminding Nigerians that immunity protects governors from prosecution. So what has changed? What happened to the immunity? I do not recall any recent constitutional amendment that abrogated the immunity clause protection, so why are these governors fair game now? The incident in Ekiti state is another one of Obasanjo’s gimmicks. I was surprised as most Nigerians were when he sacked the governor and declared a state of emergency when nothing warranted that action. There was no threat of any large or medium scale violence.

However, before the impeachment process proceeded further, the otta farmer sacked the governor and appointed Gen. Tunji Olurin as Sole Administrator of the State. Hell, I had no idea Gen. Olurin was still in the Nigerian Army. I thought he was freaking dead already. But what really amazes me is how Obasanjo handled a more dangerous and volatile situation in Anambra state when the then governor Ngige was kidnapped on the orders of that aggravating homegrown terrorist, Chris Uba. For days, a state governor was in captivitiy on the orders of a hoodlum, while the state remained in disarray. The police IG then, another mighty crook in his own right, Tafacious Balogun, withdrew the ex-governor’s security personnel for no apparent reason other than to aid a terrorist in abducting the governor. Forget the fact for a second that Ngige’s election may have been rigged (a conspiracy which Obasanjo and his PDP chieftains were all part of), but for a sitting state governor to be abducted without any concern from the Presidency sets a very dangerous and irresponsible precendent. Such flagrant disregard for law should have been dealt with severely in order to set an example. Rather than treat Ngige’s abdution with the seriousness it deserved, the Presidency discarded it as an internal party affair. How is criminal misconduct a party affair? Does Obasanjo not understand that kidnapping is a crime? How is kidnapping a governor an internal party affair when the incident clearly impacts the citizens of the state and puts their lives at risk. Is putting the lives of Anambra state residents also a PDP affair? The entire ugly Ngige/Uba incident has cast a dark shadow on the state since then. It never ended with the expulsion of Ngige. Now the current governor Peter Obi is fighing battles of his own as impeachment looms over his head. In such a chaotic political atmosphere, how is one expected to accomplish anything even if he/she has the best of intentions? But despite the confusion and mayham in Anambra, Obasanjo never declared a state of emergency. Never did he have the SSS arrest that Vagabond, Chris Uba. In fact, to the disgust of many Nigerians, the so called caricature reconciliation committees set up to resolve the Ngige/Uba fiasco were openly bending over backwards to pacify Uba, a common public criminal. This is how sick the nation has become. When one tries to point out these anomalies, some Nigerians become very offended. I did an assessment of Govenor Duke’s resort initiave recently and a certain Mrs. Omotosho, who claims to be a media consultant to the Cross River State government, took out a paid advert/editorial in the Punch Newspaper to rebuff my article. I found this rather interesting because my purpose in that Duke article was mainly to show how meaningful and community impacting initiatives are formulated and implemented in other more successful societies. Rather than counter my argument along those lines, Mrs. Omotosho began pointing out the cracks in the US society and hopping on other irrelevant rhetotic. This kind of denial attitude prevents us from seeing the truth about our country.

The truth is Nigeria is a failed state, pure and simple. Nothing works, and it begins with leadership. Despite the number of educated Nigerians within and beyond its shores, we have the most substandard leaders of all countries in the World. If they were only substandard, it would have been better, but they are substandard as well as corrupt, and that’s a dangerous combination. Many Nigerians loyal to their state governors for instance, confuse development with the building of superficial structures. Any idiot can build structures but that has nothing to do with development. Evidence of a leader’s competence can be seen in his/her carefully thought out initiatives that directly and immediately impacts the lives of the citizens. For instance, the vision to create programs that empowers people with ownership, which ultimately uplifts them out of poverty and places them on a footing of sound economic freedom and self-reliance, is a strong testimony of one’s leadership prowess. But we see endemic poverty in Nigeria from coast to coast, yet ignorant people attribute good leadership to one’s ability to build meaningless structures.

Some of my very close in-laws are from Akwa-Ibom state. I visited them in Uyo sometime last year, and the level of poverty I witnessed in Akwa-Ibom was scary. I saw some secondary school buildings in commnunities just south of Uyo where the entire classrooms had been overtaken by tress and shrubs. The roads were awful, there are no social services, and hospitals look like huts. As a matter of fact, I was shown a newly built health facility that the state government had recently commissioned and I was gravely dissappointed. There is also this embarrassing dark- age building used as a national Museum in Uyo. It is an insult to Nigerians that such an eyesore of a structure is called National Museum. I kept wondering if it’s all a joke. Despite the fact that Akwa-Ibom recieves several billions of naira each month in Federal allocation, there is absoulutely nothing to show for it. The state reportedly leads the nation in the Aids epidemic incident. Overseeing this entire mismanagement project is that ignorant and grossly underachieving character named Victor Attah. He has no clue whatsoever. Like his counterpart in Cross River state, this character is quite sold on tourism as well. How any right thinking person can imagine Akwa Ibom state to be a tourist destination is beyond me. None of the roads are paved, bicycles and motorcycles annoyingly constitute an absolute nuisance on the roads, and then there is that totally pointless piece of crap called Ibom monument. Prior to seeing the structure, so much had been said about it. Some unexposed entities even had enough audacity to compare it to some famed European monument. Then I saw the damn thing, and it was pointless, cheap, and quite depressing. Around the corner, some low class beer parlour operators littered the sorrounding blocks, as people sat in their dingy beer parlous to gulp down alcohol and engage in beer parlour gist. All the while, I am wondering what part of that depressing picture is supposed to attract tourists.

When one looks at Governor Victor Attah and what he represents, one cannot figure this guy out. He wakes up everyday with different but strange ideas in his head. All of a sudden he decides to build a five star hotel, and hands out construction contracts to some foreign firm. Then out of nowhere, he decides to build a plane hanger where aircrafts are parked during maintenance. I still have not figured out the logic behind that idea. First off, where are the planes? Secondly how does building a hanger in a city that has no aviation traffic improve the lives of the poverty stricken Akwa-Ibom people? Let us even assume he is thinking in terms of employment. Well, how many Aviation and Aeronautic Engineers do Akwa-Ibom state produce each year to fill vacancies once the hanger is complete and becomes operational? He should not be surprised that non-state indegenes like Yorubas and Igbos will be the only qualified Engineering candidates employed at his facility while Akwa-Ibom indegenes would fill the gardening, cleaning, houseboy, cook, and messenger positions. I wonder how this will then be seen as a wise initiative on Victor Attah’s part. Hopefully, Nuhu Ribadu who already indicted him on corruption charges can have him expelled so that Akwa-Ibom citizens can be rescued from Attah’s dirty clutches.