It all dawned on most of us on October 3, when an Embraer 120 aircraft with registration number 5N-BIT operated by Associated Airlines on a flight to Akure, Ondo State, crashed at the domestic wing of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, minutes after take-off. The aircraft, carrying the remains of the former Ondo State governor, Dr Olusegun Agagu, had 20 people, including its crew members, on board. At least 14 of the victims have so far died.
This was a sobering experience which Nigerians were still trying to grapple with when aviation minister, Stella Oduah, fouled the air with her comment that the crash was an‘inevitable act of God’.
Minister Oduah seemed to forget that she is in charge of such a sensitive ministry tosolve problems and not to pontificate; bringing God into a crash that she said its cause was yet to be ascertained: “Though, we do not speculate on the cause of accidents, until that happens, you cannot say this is the cause or that is not the cause”.
Isn’t she speculating already? If truly it was an act of God, why bother to do any further investigation as to what could have caused the crash?
Why purchase a N225 Million bullet proof car? Why not just leave your car security totally in the hands of God?
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| The arrival and departure halls of the international airport in Lagos are leaking |
Be that as it may, is it possible that the minister was caught unawares when she spoke to reporters? We do not think so. As aviation minister, she ought to have been prepared, knowing full well that her ministry was on the front burner of national discourse, considering the October 3 crash, and the averted one in Sokoto two days after, then another IRS emergency landing, all in the space of 2 weeks.
Perhaps the minister was carried away by the International Civil Aviation Organisation’s (ICAO) recent ranking of Nigeria airspace as the 12th most-safe aviation airspace globally.
We do not know the basis of this ranking; but it is clear that it does not reflect the situation on ground. Just a few weeks ago, the media in the country were awash with the story of a 13 year-old stowaway who followed a plane from Benin to Lagos undetected, until the plane landed in Lagos, and yet no security official at the airport saw the boy get in the plane (What if he had bombs with him?).
The fact is that the minister has been satisfied with renovation of structures to the detriment of safety in the sector. Yes, airports should be aesthetically pleasing, but safety first. That is the point many people have been emphasizing but, rather than the minister accepting this criticism in good faith, she sees the critics as ignoramuses. Even the ‘white-washing’ of our airports is not that perfect.
Pictured above, is the indoor hall of the Lagos international airport, where both the roofs in both the arrival and departure halls of the international airport in Lagos are leaking, after all the so-called airport renovations
Yet, this is the first point of contact the country has with the outside world. If we cannot fix a simple matter as leaking roofs even in cosmopolitan Lagos, how can we not tackle even more technical matters? are they not attended to in similar lackadaisical and incompetent manner?
Imagine a foreign tourist or investor coming into Nigeria for the first time, then heavy rainfall starts, so he decided to chill at the airport for a while. This is the first impression that tourists or investors get of the country, a leaking roof, with dirty buckets to the rescue. Is it really too much to ask that one not need an umbrella inside a building, at the rate of these leakages.
Yet a certain aviation minister wants so much comfort and ‘Protection’ that she could spend N225 Million on a bullet proof car, a little fraction of that will stop the embarrassing roof leakages at the Lagos International airport.
Daramola Babalola