My December this year it would be exactly one year that a ladder was used to bring down passengers from an Aero Contractors Airlines Boeing 737 aircraft at the conclusion of a charter flight to Bauchi State. The Minister of State for Aviation, HadiSirika directed an immediate investigation into the use of unauthorised equipment (a ladder).
The minister said the act was inconsistent with Nigeria Civil Aviation Regulations (NCARs) and International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPS).
The investigation will determine the immediate and remote causes of the incident with a view to developing and implementing measures that will prevent a recurrence of the unsafe and unacceptable procedure that exposed passengers to high risk of serious injury. “He reiterated that if the airline is found culpable, the full weight of sanctions within extant laws and regulations would be applied on it.”
That incident came and went, and I stand to be corrected no one was punished.
Beyond the current mantra of kwaruption or corruption of Mr. Buhari’s administration the fact remains that like the administration before it. No one is ready or willing to take responsibility. We blame PDP, blame APC, blame IBB, castigate Abacha (even though we are still collecting his savings), we blame Jonathan, blame the Niger Delta Avengers, blame drop in oil prices, we blame Adeboye (for asking that only women who can cook and pray be considered marriage materials).
Fayose blames Aisha, we blame the clothes (Aisha wore)…no one wants to take responsibility. Even the positives, like the Abj-Kaduna railroad we fight over who is responsible…
So, it is not strange that speaking with Journalists after a meeting with Mr. Buhari at the Villa, Hon. Dogara, the Speaker of the lower chamber of the Nigerian legislature said as a lawyer and old hand in the legislative affairs, padding was not an offence under the law. Asked if the peddling of his name in the allegation perturbed him, Dogara said he was not in any way worried, saying that the onus of proof rested with Jibrin, the person who accused him. No one is responsible!
In other words, like many things Nigerian, when it comes to gross indiscipline, and, corrupt practices what we get at most is an…Investigation that will determine the immediate and remote causes of the incident with a view to developing and implementing measures that will prevent a recurrence. We just love to speak all these sweet sounding grammar and finito. No one is held responsible!
Every governor has accused his predecessor, of looting, of corruption, infact a governor somewhere in the East doing his second and last term accused himself of leaving an empty treasury, and no treasury looter has gotten the Chinese treatment. Is it possible by remote chance that our leaders, both in business, political and personal life get to the point where just the sense of guilt and sense of shame is enough to even push them towards suicide?
You are arrested, two or three days in detention, and few more days in court, bail is set in millions, and the rest becomes tales by moonlight, if we are quick to forget that passengers in an inter-state flight disembarked from the plane via a ladder and no one was held responsible or got punished, then what are the odds that by 2019 there would be a Dasuki conviction or any at all, will anyone give a hoot about what happens to the ants, in a padded nation, will anyone take responsibility—Only time will tell
- Prince Charles Dickson PhD.