15 September 2008
Six months after a 19-seater chartered aircraft went missing on a trip to Bebi airstrip, hunters in Obanliku Local Government Area of Cross River State have finally resolved the puzzle about the aircraft, at least some of it.
We hope the state government remembers to pay them the N5 million it promised for information that would lead to the aircraft.
This becomes the third successive air crash that people with neither the technology, nor the expertise located the aircraft. When a Bellview plane crashed in October 2005, government officials, including the then Minister of Aviation, Babalola Aborishade, made a road trip from Abuja to locations in Oyo State, where the Aviation Ministry claimed the wreckage was.
AIT told Nigerians the crash site was in Lisa, Ogun State . The government in embarrassment shut the station, charging that it made a broadcast that could create fear and panic in the minds of the public.
Almost a year later, a military aircraft crashed in the hills of Vandeikya Local Government Area of Benue State . Thirteen-year-old Detimbir Chia mobilised villagers for the rescue operations that preserved the bodies of 10 generals and helped three survivors. Again, nothing in the operations depended on the technological abilities of the aviation authorities.
Not much has changed - for good - in Nigerian aviation. After the simulated presidential interest that followed the major air crashes from 2004, the Federal Government set up a N19.5 billion aviation fund to tackle identified challenges to safe air transportation.
Chief of Defence Staff Air Marshal Paul Dike then led a team that went round the country. It found abundance of antiquated facilities at airports and non-existent rescue measures. The aviation fund that resulted from this effort is the source of altercations between aviation officials and the Minister of Finance. While the bickering is going on, air transportation facilities continue to decay without any attempts to arrest the slide.
The money was hardly used for anything linked to improvement in aviation facilities. The interest the Senate flaunted on the missing aircraft last March died within days as it moved on to other matters in Nigeria's enthralling politics.
Nigerian authorities would soon pan their concerns to the next photo opportunities. It has finished with the crash in Obanliku. There is obviously a link between the scant interest of the government in the aviation fund and the progressive stagnation of aviation facilities.
Another disturbing issue that the hunters' discovery has brought to attention again is the neglect of our rural dwellers. We treat them as if they are not part of this country. If Obanliku was more developed with telephone services, there were chances that the crew, that appeared to have been alive after the crash, to have called for assistance.
The hunters of Obanliku make the point that all Nigerians are important and should be in the calculations of the government, since nobody knows who would rescue Nigeria from its next round of shame.
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