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THE NATION WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2012
COMMENTS
No to N5,000; N65b Benin-Sagamu Rd in 6 months Pls; NGOs; MMA Arrivals a disgrace; Zamfara lead poisoning
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IGERIA is a strange place politically and economically. Prices go up not by one or five percent but by 20 or 50 or 100%. No matter the Tony politics of faces and Marinho names on the proposed new currency note, the economics of the proposed introduction of the N5,000 note is wrong. Who will benefit from this contract? Why does CBN not suggest a N2,000 note! We go to 500% increase. Is it to devalue the naira to toilet roll? With all the real money flying around in Nigeria, there is no requirement to devalue the naira. In fact it should appreciate. Now N1,000 is $6 or £4 when it should be $60-600 or £40-400. FEC approves N65,223,000,000 or N65b for the 300km or so Benin-Sagamu Expressway for a contract to last a very long 36 months. Far too much and far too long a time frame. Why cannot anyone agree to do some important things urgently for long suffering Nigerians who were not responsible for that destruction of the road? Does no one love Nigerians enough to give them a completed Benin- Sagamu Expressway in six months? This can easily be done by employing 20 more gangs of engineers and men each taking short five kilometre segments of the road in a blitzkrieg of massive work. This is also employment generation. Nigerians deserve better. When will the Nigerian leadership realise that the only urgent matters are not political matters but people matters. The Benin-Sagamu former Expressway is a Matter of Urgent National Importance-MUNU and should be treated as such. In the Nigerian upper political class can we ever find the politicians who will accelerate this process if the Federal Executive Council filled with ministers supposedly in a hurry to make a name does not care sufficiently to accelerate simple contracts? A time frame of 36 months is three years and maybe 500 needless deaths away. We are told that 5,000 sq metres of potholes have been filled by FERMA. Hurray but what about all the other potholes nationwide? Speed up pothole filling throughout Nigeria. The suggestion that ‘NGOs are conduits for money laun-
dering’ announced by EFCC is worrisome for the majority of NGOs who are merely trying to do good and fill in the government gaps in social delivery and also make ends meet by paying their staff and also office services. People often view NGOs as those who milk them for the personal greed of the NGO leadership. The first lady NGOs have not helped this image. The public must distinguish between the NGOs identified as bad by the EFCC and the rest or else many beneficiaries will suffer. We are told that government seeks to spend N109b on nine airports. The Lagos Murtala Mohammed Airport (MMA) still has major construction and passenger comfort problems? The airport officials and politicians always use ‘VIP’ entrances and exits and therefore are unaware of these problems. A caring government and airport authority should please first widen the arrival hall area and the stairs where Nigerians and foreigners are forced into a tiny ‘arrival hall’ space to be inspected by customs and immigration. The MMA is a laughing stock. Passengers deserve better and more space and have been waiting for this expansion. Have you tried parking in the disaster area and pothole filled ‘temporary car park’ where the airport authority has the effrontery to abuse the nation and charge a fee for use of a mass of potholes as a parking lot? It has been disgraceful since the day it was opened while the engineering works took place on the original site to make a hotel. The hotel, with its foundations already in place, remains unfinished with government refusing further building for imaginary safety reasons. Do those putting the hotel on hold visit airports around the world where hotels inside airports are essential for tourism and business growth? Have you ever seen the mayhem in the arrival hall at the luggage collection area, with everyone crowding around the luggage delivery area instead of standing back so all can see their luggage coming? Do not mention the poor power supply which denies the air-conditioner of power and plunges 300 arriving passengers into torture from heat. In short someone should be doing ‘Time and Motion’ studies during passenger arrival especially when two loads of passengers arrive at the same time. NNPC has announced the long overdue and happily
awaited discovery of crude oil in the Lake Chad area. Hurray for all Nigerians. There are three ways this could have happened. Nigeria may have been geographically tilted to allow oil to flow from South to North, someone may have buried a petrol tanker full of crude for ‘discovery’ or there may actually be oil in the Lake Chad area. Most Nigerians have prayed for this moment for 30 years. Congratulations Nigeria. Hurray! You are truly blessed by God but cursed by man. As the story unfolds and more and more oil is discovered, will Nigeria remain one? Zamfara state is in the news again for the wrong reasons. Gold mining and lead poisoning released from the stones crushed and also used for their housing which has killed 400 children with 2,500 under treatment. Dr Ivan Gayton and others have worked with these children but was all this necessary? Why were they not protected from childhood? The Boko Haram instability will provide the excuse for the return of polio which was almost eliminated.
‘Zamfara state is in the news again for the wrong reasons. Gold mining and lead poisoning released from the stones crushed and also used for their housing which has killed 400 children with 2,500 under treatment. Dr Ivan Gayton and others have worked with these children but was all this necessary? Why were they not protected from childhood? The Boko Haram instability will provide the excuse for the return of polio which was almost eliminated’
Dana Air and its victims
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O doubt, emotions are running high to effervescent level over the recent decision by the Ministry of Aviation to lift the suspension imposed on Dana Air. The airline was suspended in the aftermath of the crash involving its aircraft at Iju-Ishaga, a Lagos suburb, on Sunday, June 3. Since the crash that claimed about 163 lives, the aviation industry has not been the same again. Quite a lot has happened ever since as passengers on domestic flights have been finding it hectic travelling with the few operating airlines. By the last count, only three airlines—Arik, Aero, IRS—were operating. It is obvious that they have been trying their best to cope with the volume of passengers but their efforts have not satisfied demand. Departure times are in several instances, not kept while there have been frequent cancellations of flights. All these point to the fact that the existing airlines have been spread thin to the limit of their elasticity. So, ordinarily, it is a great relief that Dana Air is coming back once again. But the wounds are still fresh. Very fresh. Some people might want to say that the timing of their re-entry is bad enough. Not exactly so. For those who lost loved ones, there is no better time even if the suspension is lifted in another five or 10 years’ time. The memory of the dead will continue to be everlastingly fresh. My major concern here is the disdain with which the airline has been treating the victims’ families and other victims whose property and
means of livelihood were destroyed in the crash. So much has been written about the plight of the bereaved families, some of who are even yet to take possession of the corpse of their relatives for a befitting burial. We are told that some of them have received $30,000 each as compensation, awaiting the balance of $70,000 each as stipulated by International Law. Last Friday, one of the victims, Daniel Omowunmi, the owner of the storey building, the warehouse and the factory destroyed by the illfated aircraft, granted an interview in one of the national dailies. Going through the interview, one could see ‘man’s inhumanity to man’ in its raw form. Unfortunately, but quite expectedly, some Nigerians, including lawyers and one or two Lagos State government officials, were fingered as collaborators. If three months after the crash, the owner of the building on which the aircraft landed before bursting into flames had not received a kobo as compensation, one wonders what type of a country is ours. According to Omowunmi, who said he had written the management of Dana Air, claiming about N500 million as damages for the destruction of his property and business, what the airline offered him was a miserable and ridiculous N500,000. The N500,000, he said, was referred to as “a temporary settlement”. What is more, the airline’s management brought some forms that suggested that anybody that took the money actually applied for it. The letter, he said, was such that it was
“If Nigerians are up in arms against Dana Air today, it is because of the notoriety Indians have acquired by their predilection for cutting corners and not playing by the rules”
addressed to Dana, looking as if it was Omowunmi who originated the form or letter to Dana’s management. Not only this. Dana’s management has not had the courtesy of acknowledging Omowunmi’s letter of claims in writing. All he has got was a casual, verbal acknowledgement. In a country that has a functional government, Omowunmi’s case and that of other bereaved families of the victims of the Dana Air crash should have been speedily pursued. I am not a lawyer, but even if Omowunmi’s house or property had been destroyed, say by earthquake, which is a natural disaster, it is incumbent on the government to provide respite. But this is not a natural disaster. An aircraft lost its twin engines and instead of landing at an airport designated for such, it landed on somebody’s house and destroyed his livelihood in the process. If Nigerians are up in arms against Dana Air today, it is because of the notoriety Indians have acquired by their predilection for cutting corners and not playing by the rules. I am sure if we have to visit all the bereaved families and listen to their stories, they all have sad tales to recollect about their encounter with Dana Air officials. This is why I believe that it is the responsibility of the government whether Lagos State government or the Aviation Ministry to ensure that the right thing is done for the families of the victims of the crash. Precious lives have been lost and there can never be any replacement or compensation that will be adequate. But then, both Dana Air and the government can minimise the agony of the bereaved through prompt and adequate payment of compensation. The recourse to paying any ridiculous amount, as is being alleged, smacks of indifference and outright
wickedness on the part of the airline. It stands condemnable by all right-thinking human beings. I am not against Dana Air reentering Nigeria’s airspace but the right thing must be done. Otherwise, no amount of public relations or propaganda will douse the tense situation now prevalent among the bereaved families. And the government officials and other Nigerians who are colluding with these Indians to short-change their fellowmen must all bear in mind that the incident could have claimed the life of anybody. That we are still living today is by the grace of Almighty God. Nobody knows tomorrow. I can give countless examples of people who inflicted unimaginable pains on people and ended up miserably and tragically themselves. That is where the law of karma or retribution comes in. Whatever you do in life, good or bad, there is a reward for it. The only thing is that when the time to reap the reward comes, no one would remember what had happened in the past. Surely, we need Dana to resume its services, although, as for me, I am still skeptical about its safety records. There is need for more players in the airline Industry, especially now that two others—Air Nigeria and Nation Airlines - have suddenly gone asleep. In the case of Nation, we were told that the aircraft in its fleet had gone for routine maintenance ostensibly to stave off any danger in the nearest future. As for Air Nigeria, the airline had been “wobbling and fumbling”, to use Coach Fanny Amu’s words, for quite some time until its management decided to do the needful - take a break and reorganise. While Nation airline had only operated for a couple of months before it disappeared from the skies, the case of Air Nigeria is quite pa-
Dele Agekameh thetic. The airline had been around for some time. When it operated as Virgin Nigeria under the aviation wizard, Richard Branson, it was the toast of many a traveller both within and outside the country. Then came the bang: for one reason or another, Branson decided to pull out his investment. The airline was later renamed Air Nigeria. Since then, things have somehow gone awry. Many stories about the airline have been bandied but most of them border on uncouth management practices. A situation where the airline takes money in cash in ‘Ghana Must Go’ bags to purchase aviation fuel and all that cannot be said to be smooth administration after all. Now that the airline has been wheeled to the hanger for what its management termed “Corporate Surgical Operation”, Nigerians are waiting to see whether a truly improved airline will emerge at the end of the exercise. Until then, all hands must be on deck to ensure safety in the skies. We cannot afford another disaster after all we have experienced in this country. Not anymore. Our philosophy, for now and forever, should be: “No more air disasters”. Send reactions to: 08058354382 (SMS only)