School of Aviation Technology Zaria to
Move to Enugu?
By
Wada Nas
Let me start by making a statement of fact. The 1999 election, which ushered in the Obasanjo administration, was never a war that produced the victor and the vanquished. It was never a battle in which any section of this country was defeated. It was never one for the punishment of the North. It was a fair democratic game in which the North participated as an equal stakeholder.
Since the inception of the administration, however, the apparent reading has been that 1999 was the waterloo of the North in the hands of President Obasanjo. If we may recall, the first set of eight permanent secretaries he sacked were mostly Northerners. If my memory is right, five of them are sons of the region. Almost 70% of the 2400 NEPA staffers he also sacked were said to be Northerners. While he is punishing northern sons today, for alleged offence they committed during Abacha, he is freeing Oduduwa sons who killed thousand of Northerners in their midst. A section of the Nigerian media have privately been mobilized to heap insults on the people of the region. He is now on to the project of auctioning the only regional paper, the New Nigerian, he took from the North in the 1970s and is on to his pet project conceived in the 70s of killing FRCN Kaduna.
No sooner he came to power than he moved some departments from the North to the South. This done, some military formations were also removed down from the region to Lagos. His new project now is to move the School of Aviation Technology Zaria to Enugu in order to widen his standing in the area.
What are the reasons being given? Bad weather. For almost thirty years of the existence of the school, no one ever felt that the school was facing the problem of bad whether in Zaria except Obasanjo and some of his ministers.
For all the years the school has been producing pilots and aviation engineers in the supposed rough weathers of Zaria, no one ever complained, except now that President Obasanjo is in power to teach the North the lessons of its life.
Since weather is the sole hidden agenda for the movement of the school from Zaria to Enugu, we would soon perhaps be told that the airports in Kano, Maiduguri, Kaduna, Yola, Ilorin, Abuja and Jos all having the same weather as Zaria, and some indeed worse, may soon be moved to fair weather locations in the South. We are not unaware of the subtle attempts to reduce the Aminu Kano International Airport Kano, one of the oldest in the country, to a local airport. We do not know if the minister of aviation, Dr. Chikwe, is a plant to dismantle some aviation facilities in the North in line with some hidden agenda.
When Northerners complain bitterly that Obasanjo has some hidden agenda against them, they have their reasons, and the concluded plot to move the aviation school in Zaria to Enugu is a good example. When after winning the 1999 election, in which the North gave him the majority votes, that, he was going to step on big toes, we never imaged that he was going to deal deadly blows at the North below the belt. Now, we know better that he was indirectly telling us that this was exactly what he meant.
Going by his style and contempt for the North and its feelings, it may not be wrong to say that if he gets a second term, by the time he finishes it, it would have reduced the North to nothing. Let me say it frankly, President Obasanjo has provided enough reasons for Northerners to fear giving him their votes again. Without mincing words, let me add that it would be self-defeating for them to do so. Giving him a second chance may invariably reduce them to the status of second class citizens in their country. If this is what he is doing to us now, when he is seeking our second votes, God knows what he will do to us when he finally gets such votes and has nothing more at stake. This would be the time to teach us the lesson of our time.
Clearly, the decision to move the school to Enugu is provocative and a total contempt for the North. Is the President plotting something unknown to us. Is he for fortifying some portions in the event of eventuality? Is he trying to break the cordial political relationship between the North and the South East? These and more are questions begging for answers.
Whatever are his hidden agenda against the North, it is not unknown that his regard for the region, if any, is nill, totally negative. It is in the interest of Obasanjo not to do things that would cause disharmony among the various people of this country. Unfortunately, he has been creating tensions by some of his actions, too many to enumerate. The electoral law is just one of such. He has been leading the country from one crisis to another since his second coming and this has been one of his most visible achievement.
His contempt for the North was demonstrated more over the last massacre of Northerners by the OPC terrorists in Lagos. Inspite of pleading by some persons in his administration to act promptly by deploying the army, it took four days of massacre before he finally acted. Before then, the police were instructed to watch development when the massacre broke out. He told BBC TV that he was only joking when he gave the shoot-at-sight order to the police. That he was not serious.
It is the duty of all Northerners to use all democratic means, in a very lawful and civilized way to prevent President Obasanjo from reducing them to the status of second class citizens whose feelings and sentiments mean nothing to him. By now all must have recognised that a costly mistake was made in electing him and this must not be repeated in 2003.
Although President Obasanjo has no respect whatsoever for court decision, I will challenge, in the court of law, his dangerous plot to move the school of aviation technology Zaria to Enugu, the process of which has started according to information available to me. I call on others to join me in the lawful enterprise even if at the end he may not respect the decision of the court, as he always doesn’t. Let it, at least, be on record that Nigeria once had a president that had contempt for the rule of law when he was heading a democratic enterprise. It is important for citizens to challenge such matters in court and this I do with two others.
General Obasanjo is on his own building an opposition against himself and I think it is the duty of all patriots to assist him in doing so for the good of the country. His actions and inactions are enough grounds upon which a solid and strong opposition could be built against him. Personally, I will willingly join such an opposition without hesitation, when at a point I have to. Let me say it, I cannot hide that I have a lot against the policies of this administration but none whatever against any of its officers and officials.
Most of the policies are not intended for good, while some are to cause disaffection, disharmony and poor inter-ethnic relations. The issue at stake is one of such. The electoral law is another. The rest are no less so, and all are about the same character orientation. A lot about all of them are about the same intention.
It would be wrong of me to say that President Obasanjo does mean well for peace in this country but it would be fair to say that I am being unfair in saying so. The greater orientation of some of his public policies fear to associate with peace dividends while the rest collaborate with social antagonism. There is something that impresses upon me that a multi-ethnic society such as our is place incapable of management by quite a number of us. President Obasanjo may not be one of such people except that he enjoys in the indulgence of creating inter-ethnic hostilities.
Let men of good will prevail on the president to disembark on the project of moving the aviation school from Zaria to Enugu in the great interest of the society. Let the president himself see the minus in this gamble. It is in his greater interest to do so.