Shame of unfriendly Nigerian skies

Nigeria added more to its governance failure shame nearly two weeks ago. Victims of the shortcoming are still reeling with pain of inconvenience and losses in time, opportunity and substance. A cheeky news item on a foreign broadcasting station had given sound bite to an angry foreign airline pilot complaining that inclement weather and  unserviceable […]

Nigeria added more to its governance failure shame nearly two weeks ago. Victims of the shortcoming are still reeling with pain of inconvenience and losses in time, opportunity and substance. A cheeky news item on a foreign broadcasting station had given sound bite to an angry foreign airline pilot complaining that inclement weather and  unserviceable instrument landing systems had forced him to divert his flight with over 300 passengers on board to Accra Ghana. Yes, planes could not land at Lagos and the airlines affected included British Airways,  Delta, Emirates, Ethiopian, and Qatar Airways. Suddenly there was International controversy given the sensitive nature of air travel. With high parking, fueling and handling charges, rival Ghana made a business kill and must have wished the Nigerian governance failure continued. Yes Governance failure because if Ghana could get its act in installed instrument landing systems in order, why could not Nigeria, we struggling and courting foreign direct investment have ensured this system was working?

It was only after the incident had become a controversial international embarrassment that the Federal Ministry of Aviation announced regrets via a tweet – “we wish to let the public know that the authorities at the airport at the Airport were in the process of replacing the old Category 2 Instrument Landing Systems with newly procured  Category 3 system that allows for the lowest visibility landing.”

Is this rocket science? We had a whole six months of clear weather to install the systems. Why did we not? Is this normal that international airlines fly over 5 hours to an apology? With more than 3 international airports in Nigeria, is it not a shame that an anticipatory strategy to make available an alternative was not developed before embarking on working on Murtala Mohammed Airport Lagos? Why was there no notice to airmen much in advance since we have or are supposed to have working technology to predict the weather changes? Damn the untenable argument that weather is not man-made.

The impact of this failure was deplorable as it further dented our already battered image. It was a shame that Nigeria displayed incapability in dealing with a small but fundamental necessity as the standard category instrument landing system to our gateway Airport, when Ghana could offer that in Accra. International travelers and citizens suffered. Hundreds were stranded at Kotoka Airport in Ghana as according to reports, British Airways and other airlines abandoned passengers to save their schedules.

Nearly two weeks have gone. The situation of Murtala Mohammed Airport has remained without capacity to receive flights owing to inclement weather and lack of instrument landing systems. The Ministry of Aviation seems unmoved by this and today announced a partnership with EgyptAir (and not Ethiopian Airlines, the more successful world player). Malam Hadi Sirika at his desk is assuring Nigerians that the dream of Air Nigeria another National career is still in our sleep on top of an incapacity in providing simple vital infrastructure as instrument landing systems for not only Lagos Airport, but Port Harcourt, Kano, and Abuja. Shame. How can any Nigerian have walked with his head high?

REFLECTING ON PERSISTENT BOKO HARAM INSURGENCY

Now we must say it like it is. Boko Haram is a monumental Borno disaster. Ten years of senseless vandalism, waste of human lives and property, truncation of destinies, and destruction of legacies is all that we have recorded, with not one single act, Islamic, as professed by the terrorists. Longer than the crisis had lasted, it had become obvious that come one day, an upheaval not imagined in this proportion would arise. The gap between the rich and the poor was widening rapidly as the economy evolved depending on oil and patronage. Nowhere was this more pronounced that in Borno. You found the most lavish castles in Borno, surrounded by the lowest limits of squalor. Millionaires and billionaires flew private jets while the millions of common folk lived in thatch huts and trekked or rode donkeys. Nomadic herdsmen lived on bare land raising cattle in the forests making more millionaires and billionaires of town dwelling cattle rustlers and sellers. For years government response to this trend was unserious and indeed merely cosmetic. Borno State was one place where at every public place, you were greeted by a swarm of out of school children, whereas the enlightened lived in opulence, dressed in expensive flowing robes, embroidered dipcharima caps and shining silk and lace lappayas. A Borno wedding was the limit of vulgar display of lucre in gold silver diamonds and sleek wears.

As if motivated by guilty conscience, society became fundamentally religious with the high and mighty engaged in public display of faith – a mosque attached to every mansion, dependence on Malams who were indeed merchants of divination and spiritual power, the more this trend went, the more malams moved into Borno, profiteering from the sweat of the beggar children. Generosity elicited by guilt over this dichotomy however worsened the helplessness of the poor who became even more dependent. Any sociologist can tell you that the languid submission of the poor to this state of affairs was a quiet storm gathering.

Borno citizens especially leaders must indeed blame themselves, and begin to think of steps to attaining lasting peace in their State. They groomed the home-made monster by the social economy of contradictions of a minority filthy rich and a majority abject poor. It gave birth to alienation and resentment worsening each day by political domination, abuse of power and sustenance of cliques in power with gains from corruption. It is a sad shame that the leaders of Borno have mostly fled the state, seeking peace in other parts in Nigeria, and the rest of peaceful Africa. Leaders have ran away from the monster they created. How can parents flee from their wayward children? But it has happened in Borno.

Of course other narratives have come into play from the inevitable emergence of preachers with divergent interpretation of the religion leading to the deadly professing of the belief that modern education is Haram. From the Maitatsine uprising leading up to the Muhammad Yusuf Boko Haram and the hydra headed monster that Nigeria is challenged by today, there is a perfect symmetry. But it must be said, that Boko Haram is home grown and it therefore stands to reason that a home grown method will deal with it.

I am ashamed that with prominent sons of Borno playing fundamental roles in the Buhari government, all they can confess is their home state, battered by senseless strife, with all their mansions rented to NGOs in amazing long leases, while their people sleep in homelessness and utter despair. Yet they engage in crude power play. Boko Haram is not a civil war, but an insurgency against Nigeria and Nigeria must move to crush it. Its long sustenance is the reason tentacles have grown to other states, registering as armed herdsmen, bandits, and kidnappers. We must evolve a homegrown solution that enables every community assisted by the government to defend itself. No community will ever be subjugated against its will.