Yet another plane crash in Nigeria

By Funmi Iyanda

Almost a year to date, we killed over 60 children in the Sosoliso crash, months after the Bellview crash... Once again, Nigeria mourns in her spectacular, head grabbing, chest clutching, God outsourcing way, then she will return to status quo until the next major disaster.

My friend Bose is screaming down the phone…no no, no not Dr. Ola, God he is one of the good ones no no. My mentee Tayo and l are dejectedly channel surfing searching for something, anything. NTA has dark, blurry shaky pictures of the Sultan of Sokoto, leader of Nigeria’s huge Muslim population being buried. He, his son and grandson died in the crash.

They have been at that for an hour, Channels TV has some pictures of disbelieving relatives. We flick to CNN, Enugu State’s expensive untruthful paid infomercial is running and then top news comes on and finally a clean clear, non committal report on the plane crash, the third of such magnitude in 12months.

Almost a year to date, we killed over 60 children in the Sosoliso crash, months after the Bellview crash. We go back to NTA; the dark pictures are still on. Nothing on the full manifest, in fact even frantic relatives are getting no information. The president has declared 3 days of national mourning, he has not sacked Borisade the aviation minister his friend. Once again, Nigeria mourn in her spectacular, head grabbing, chest clutching, God outsourcing way, then she will return to status quo until the next major disaster.

Once on my show l pointed out how the systemic decay is finally catching up with everyone lowly and mighty. Did the former minister of works Gen Adisa not die on the roads he didn’t fix, flying to an emergency country (we have no ERs) because his colleagues did not fix the hospitals and unable to get qualified help from schools they have not fixed. Worse still, we let them. Not only do we let them but in many ways we either in our disconnect from Nigeria’s true reality, or ostrich in sand denial, or our complicity in the way we conduct our own affairs or just sheer refusal to speak out, match out or fight. Whatever it will take to stop the madness.

When people die on the roads or collapsed building, some thank God they do not have to go by road or bus and live in such homes. When planes crash some thank God that they cant afford to fly anyway. Elites are content to live in glorified slums, swimming into their homes, which will not last 50 years due to the poor construction. They are fine as long as they can carry the channel bag, hang out at boat club, travel on holiday twice a year and never cross the 3rd mainland bridge, the poor are fine as long as there is a brother who can be counted to help once in a while.

When will we see that ours is a collective tragedy?

Back to Bose, NTA is showing some survivors being attended to in open wards, which Bose as a senior consultant can see is makeshift. She is numbly calling her other colleagues to confirm the story and confirmation comes that yes Dr Ola a senior consultant at LUTH, genial hardworking lecturer with a polio induced limp, the probably reason he chose medicine as a profession and who was flying to Sokoto to invigilate at the university was indeed dead leaving his wife and four kid, dependants and hundreds of patients who come to his Mushin hospital for care. Bose had recommended him for the position in place of herself, so it could actually have been my brilliant beautiful loyal friend Bose on that plane as indeed it could have been me or any of us living out this macabre drama.

Funmi Iyanda hosts one of the most popular morning talk shows in Nigeria called "New Dawn with Funmi". Click here to visit her blog where this story initially appeared.

Comments

[Braarchitect]

I'm angry. Very angry. You know why? Because this is the same thing that happened in December last year when 60 students from my school, including my best friend died in the Sosoliso plane crash. Last year, when we got together to protest the policies of Nigerian Airlines, we were silenced, even by people we thought were our friends. People wwould come up to us and say "Why are you bothered about this; did anyone related to you die in the crash? If they didn't, then why are you bothering yourself?"

Excuse me???????????????? Why am I bothered???? I am BOTHERED because last year when that Sosoliso flight crashed in RIVERS state, people's children were trapped in a burning plane for over five hours. Help never came. Port Harcourt Airport didn't have a single fire truck. They didn't have a single ambulance. They WATCHED those children die!!! They heard them screaming, and they couldn't do a thing. Only Shell Oil/Petroleum made any move to help, but before they could get their fire engines to the airport, which was on the outskirts of the town, it was too late. Sixty children had died a useless death because Nigeria wasn't ready.

Now, almost a year later, I thought we'd had time to prepare. I thought it would be different. The exact, same, thing happened on Sunday morning. The plane took off, burst into flames, fell out of the sky, and crashed into Tudun Wada village just a short distance from the end of the runway. This happened at about 11:30 a.m. By 2:00p.m., the Nigerian Televison Authority was showing a soccer match. The plane had been burning for over two hours, and all they could show was a soccer match?!!! To make matters worse, no Nigerian television station was carrying any news about the crash. I had to find out about it on CNN. What I couldn't understand was how a CNN correspondent in SOUTH AFRICA could know about a plane crash in ABUJA, and the people that were in Abuja themselves didn't know about it. An hour later, my Grandma called from America. She had seen it on local news. NTA was still showing Soccer.

I am deeply ashamed of the attitude of my countrymen. The ADC plane burned for seven hours before help came, and even when it did, it did not include fire engines, or water of any kind. Now all over Abuja, there are people waiting. They mourn, and they wait, and they pray. The Sultan of Sokoto, his son, and his grandson were all lost in this terrible crash. They will be greatly missed.

When Sosoliso crashed, they were grounded for a week. Hopefully ADC will be banned for life. I think the government should go back and ban Sosoliso and Bellview for life as well. In fact, it is widely known that most Nigerian airlines use second-hand planes, and use them long past their retiry date. All second-hand planes in Nigeria should be sent to the scrap-heap as far as I'm concerned. Isn't that waht happened with Sosoliso? The plane was obviously faulty, but the airline decided to "manage" the plane until it got to port harcourt. Only two people got to port harcourt alive.

And what I can't understand is the fact that Nigerians enter these planes, pray and cry as the planes shake and tilt until they reach their destinations, then they rush out of the plane and kiss the ground in releef. Glory be to God. Instead of making a formal complaint to the airlines management, they put the flight out of their minds as a bad memory, and go about their business as usual. Then on the way back, they still pay money to entoer that same plane that almost killed them, and pray they make it through.

We need to stand up and protest. We can't keep putting our lives in danger just for the sake of not seeming troublesome. If trouble is what will shut these bad airlines down, then let's have a lion's helping.

[olatola yousuph]

it is sad to see this deplorable state in our country's aviation sector very terrible it is also that heads did not roll and he who was at the helm couldnt be held accountable what kind of democracy is this?