I
almost fainted, when the news was broke to me last
Sunday that a plane belonging to ADC crashed
with
passengers on board in Abuja and among the
passengers
was the Sultan of Sokoto Alh. Muhammadu
Maccido the 19
Sultan who perished with his own son,
Senator Badamasi
and Senator Sule Gandi together with other
prominent
citizens of Sokoto, Kebbi and Nigerians.
In less than a year, this plane crash is the
third one
that claimed the lives of prominent citizens
if, one
recalled the Bellview, the Nigeria Army
plane crash
just forty days before the recent one in
Abuja a
couple of weeks ago.
I find it incomprehensible, how an important
personality likes the Sultan of Sokoto who
doubles as
the spiritual leader of the Muslim faithful
in Nigeria
could be in a commercial airplane. Why the
government
can provides him with an aircraft from among
the ones
in the Presidential fleet? Is the Sultan not
so
important for the government to provide an
aircraft to
take him back to his base after answering a
call of
the government on an issue that affects the
educational sector?
I am not sounding sectional by these
questions but it
is the real fact. If the government think
that the
Sultan is so important, it could have
provide him with
an aircraft to take him and members of his
entourage
back to Sokoto.
Honestly speaking, it has show that the
Nigerian
Aviation industry is no so good and the
government
need to rise up to the occasion to seriously
tackle
and arrest the ugly situation by ensuring
that those
in the industry had to abide by regulations
and rules
in the aviation industry that is applicable
the world
over. The government needs to make it a
point of duty,
that any airplane that would fly either
domestically
or internationally should be a brand new
aircraft and
not the tokunbos that are flying our
airspace.
It is only in Nigeria, the country of
uncertainties,
that aircrafts whose life span have expired
could be
seen flying and most of the proprietors of
the
commercial airlines in Nigeria go for
outdated
aircrafts in the name of making money to the
detriment
of the lives of the people that patronize
them-what a
pity!
It is also curious for a government that
hold people
as so important to continue keeping a
Minister in
whose tenure the country witnessed the
unprecedented
air mishaps that have claimed several lives.
It is a
well-known fact that if the Minister is from
another
part of this country, the President could
have fired
him. But, as far as the Minister is from the
same part
the President comes from, it is a must that
he
continues as Minister in charge of the
aviation
industry no matter whose ox s gored and let
people go
to ashes.
The remote causes of this intermittent plane
crashes,
since the inception of the present political
dispensation with President Obasanjo as
President is
that the government bother less about the
aviation
industry by not imposing stringent
guidelines for the
simple fact, that the industry is controlled
by people
from a particular part and doesn’t want to
offend the
people.
My experience of how bad most of the
aircrafts are was
in 2003 when I went on pilgrimage to
Saudi-Arabia. One
aircraft among their fleet was the one
called ADO
BAYERO that from all indication is rickety
because on
return journey back, it is only the wish of
almighty
Allah that it landed safely in Yola. I was
in a fix,
on how this kind of airplane could be
allowed by the
authorities concerned to airlift almost Five
hundred
(500) people. If, it is in Saudi-Arabia,
this plane
would not be allow to be in the airspace
talk-less to
airlift people of this magnitude.
The government needs to institute a
committee with
experts in the aviation industry to look
objectively
all aspect of the aviation industry and made
a
comprehensive recommendation on the type of
planes
that would be in the airspace, the life span
and the
number of years that such airplane could fly
in
Nigeria.
Quite recently, in the United States of
America a
certain brand of aircraft was totally banned
for the
simple fact, that it was detected that there
is a
defect by the manufacturers of the aircraft
and it has
since being phased out.
Corruption is another bane that is
associated with the
Nigerian aviation industry. It is quite
common in the
Airports across the country for one to see
how the
endemic has creep deep in the aviation
industry with
personnel of the airliners colliding with
Nigeria
Airport Authority officials reneging on
certain
payment that the airliners ought to pay like
parking
fee on tarmac, landing and other sundry
payments that
at the end, goes to the pockets of the
official.
Finally, at this age, our royal fathers are
not
accorded the desire respect that they ought
to receive
especially from government because the death
of the
Sultan of Sokoto could have been averted if
he was
provided with a plane by the government to
ferry him
and his entourage. But, we have to accept
what Allah
destined as that was how he decreed that
Sultan
Muhammadu Maccido would die. May Allah bless
his soul
and that of those perished with him. AMIN.
BY
USMAN GARBA SANTURAKI
WROTE THIS PIECE FROM NO 74, TAFIDA STR,
P.O.BOX 747,
JIMETA-YOLA.
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