Rumours of sacrifice, Agagu and Oduah
The crash of the Associated
Airlines flight 361 on Thursday, October 3, 2013 in which about 14 persons died
is quite tragic and regrettable. Coming at a time when the Federal Government
and the aviation authorities have done so much to build on the nation’s enviable
safety record is very ironic and paradoxical.
The
facts on ground do not, however, lend credence to suggestions that Nigeria’s
airspace is unsafe. In fact, the Nigerian airspace has never been safer than it
is presently, given the quantum and quality of the safety-critical equipment
and infrastructure, as well as certified manpower that the present
administration has put in place in the past two years. A quick take:
Apart from the remodelling of airport terminals across the
country- a critical component of aviation safety and security which everyone
can see; a lot has been done in the area of safety infrastructure. Particular
note must be taken of NAMA’s Total Radar Coverage of Nigeria, TRACON, which
even the greatest critics of the Aviation Ministry concede is working
excellently well; instrument landing systems, airfield lighting and
multi-lateration equipment, NIMET’s Doppler Weather Radars, Wind Shear Alert
Systems, and Accident Investigation and Prevention, AIPB’s Scientific
Laboratory, amongst several others.
There is also NCAT’S state-of-the-art training equipment and
simulators as well as NCAA’S Revised Civil Aviation Policy which places high
premium on safety. It is therefore absolutely false, incorrect and
misleading to suggest, as some commentators are doing in the wake of the
Associated Airlines crash that it is all about terminal rehabilitation and
nothing else.
While we take every constructive criticism in good faith, we are
totally averse to the ones that are self-serving, false, mischievous and
ill-motivated. Femi Fani-Kayode’s latest vituperations against the Aviation
Minister, Princess Stella Adaeze Oduah, fall squarely into this category. Femi
Fani-Kayode had a woefully failed career as Aviation Minister. Now, he is
trying his hand as a social critic and public commentator. Tragically, he is
failing again, very woefully at that.
For the records, Fani-Kayode served as Aviation Minister for six
months (November 2006-May 2007), during which period he is gloating that the
nation did not record any plane crash. That no plane crash occurred during
these short six months cannot be a laurel worthy of any mention for anyone with
higher goals, standards and expectations. But since Fani-Kayode lacks any sense
of high achievement, we cannot blame him for living up to his understandably
low expectations.
If we were to take six months as the average, I doubt if Oduah
whom he is vilifying today would be a culprit. But this is beside the point.
The real question to interrogate is what exactly, in terms of projects,
policies, institutional reforms or safety infrastructure Fani-Kayode put in
place as Minister that ensured that no plane came down from the skies during
his watch? Absolutely nothing!
As far as records show, he was clueless, frightened to take any
initiative whatsoever and eventually exited without any garlands.
Regrettably, he left a trail of retrogressive missteps still haunting the
aviation sector today by the scandalous recruitment of hundreds of misfits into
managerial positions in the aviation parastatals! The bulk of the crisis of
institutional bankruptcy suffered in the agencies today, and for which Oduah
has been busy cleaning up, is directly traceable to this policy of nepotism and
ethnic empowerment enthroned by Fani-Kayode during his short sojourn as
Minister.
It is therefore very fraudulent for Fani-Kayode to claim credit
for what he contributed absolutely nothing to achieve. The 2006 Civil Aviation
Act, the closest ‘achievement’ he could have stretched his hands to lay claim
to, was already completed and awaiting passage in the National Assembly when he
was redeployed to the Aviation Ministry. He did not make a single input to that
document.
Far from any positive contribution to the growth and development
of the aviation sector, Fani-Kayode left a catalogue of very inglorious
imprints on the aviation landscape in his short sojourn in the sector. If
anything, what we saw, and still see of him is sheer display of ignorance,
arrogance and impunity.
For instance, as Special Assistant to President Olusegun
Obasanjo, long before he was appointed Minister of Culture and Tourism,
Fani-Kayode displayed what later emerged as a cultivated culture of impunity
when he refused that his Police Orderly be disarmed or drop his arms and
ammunition while trying to board a plane at the Murtala Mohammed International
Airport, Lagos in accordance with international best practice.
When all effort by security operatives to stop the Orderly from
carrying the weapons on board failed, then FAAN Airport Manager, one Mr Okuyiga
telephoned the pilot to report the danger posed by Kayode and his Police
Orderly to other passengers with their dangerous weapons.
Again, when the pilot’s entreaties to Kayode to see reason why
Aviation rules and regulations disallowing weapons on board should be obeyed
failed, the pilot put off the engine of the aircraft and ordered every
passenger out of the plane.
It was only the outrage that other frightened passengers
expressed, and their insistence that Kayode and his men cannot be allowed on
board with dangerous weapons that saved the day. The Orderly, left with no
other choice, surrendered the weapons and the plane departed.
Fani-Kayode never forgave the airport manager and waited
patiently for his day of vengeance. Providence would give him the day of
reckoning he had been waiting for when he was redeployed, months later to the
Aviation Ministry. Expectedly, his very first assignment as Minister was to
transfer the very experienced, professional Manager who insisted that global
best practice in the Aviation industry be upheld, to a nondescript airport in
the Northern part of the country.
It is very instructive that in the entire diatribe against
Oduah, Fani-Kayode never claimed any other ‘achievement’ beyond the puerile
claim that no plane crashed under his watch! If anyone were to claim credit for
the safety record attained during that period, it should in fact be the
immediate past Director-General of the NCAA, Dr. Harold Demuren, and not Femi
Fani-Kayode.
We cannot therefore hazard comparism between Oduah and Femi
Fani-Kayode because there is absolutely no basis for comparism. What the
present aviation Minister has achieved is so glaring and substantive that
attempting to put her side by side with the loquacious Fani-Kayode is a huge
disservice and insult to the psyche of Nigerians who know where we are coming
from as far as aviation in Nigeria is concerned.
Fortunately, Oduah has rolled up her sleeves and is currently
cleaning up the mess left by Fani-Kayode and his ilk.
Fani-Kayode would do more scandalous things in his very short
stint in the ministry. As Minister of Aviation, he not only rejected a report
professionally carried out by the then Accident Investigation Bureau into the
Bellview air crash of 2005-a very serious and unacceptable interference by all
aviation standards, but more so, orchestrated the doctoring of that report into
a new one which expectedly exonerated all the stakeholders indicted in the
original report.
At the end of the day, the doctored Report turned a no-guilty
verdict on the NCAA and Bellview and concocted the fallacy of the existence of
a bomb which allegedly exploded and caused the fatal crash. Don’t forget that
by making Oduselu to preside over a case for which he was previously indicted,
he was acting both as the Jury and the Judge! We are also aware of the several
Aviation Correspondents and Newspaper Editors whom Fani-Kayode attempted to
compromise to sell the bomb-in-the-aircraft voodoo.
Fortunately, no one fell to the devilish bait. The ghost of the
bomb-in-the-aircraft scare was finally laid to rest when the US National
Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) commissioned the FBI to carry out
ballistic investigation into the tragic crash which categorically dismissed the
probable suggestion of a bomb explosion mid-air. The nation is yet to fully
recover from this scary contraption ingeniously manufactured by Fani-Kayode
just to protect his friends and business partners!
Now, a man with such high moral depravity and scant regard for
basic rules and regulations in the aviation sector certainly lacks the moral
and professional credentials to stand as judge in a case where Princess Stella
Adaeze Oduah, a Minister who, within a very short span of two years, has beaten
all the odds and re-written the chequered history of the Nigeria Aviation
Sector, may be standing trial. If anything, the likes of Fani-Kayode ought to
be eternally grateful to Oduah for cleaning up a sector that he and his ilk had
desecrated and raped in the past.
It is very instructive that in the entire diatribe against
Oduah, Fani-Kayode never claimed any other ‘achievement’ beyond the puerile
claim that no plane crashed under his watch! If anyone were to claim credit for
the safety record attained during that period, it should in fact be the
immediate past Director-General of the NCAA, Dr. Harold Demuren, and not Femi
Fani-Kayode.
We cannot therefore hazard comparism between Oduah and Femi
Fani-Kayode because there is absolutely no basis for comparism. What the
present aviation Minister has achieved is so glaring and substantive that
attempting to put her side by side with the loquacious Fani-Kayode is a huge
disservice and insult to the psyche of Nigerians who know where we are coming
from as far as aviation in Nigeria is concerned.
Thus lacking in any substance as far as the aviation sector is concerned,
it is therefore understandable why Fani-Kayode would go superstitious, alluding
to some unknown spirits operating in 10-year cycles and bringing down planes
from the skies! This is the highest display of ignorance by an otherwise
lettered individual. But such is the tragedy of Nigeria, that people with
little knowledge of a field, and a rabid disdain to learn, are thrust into
positions of responsibility.
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