Mass hysteria is spreading like a virus among air travellers and operators. This follows a series of incidents in the country’s aviation. From Akure to Port Harcourt and Lagos to Abuja, these mishaps are becoming frequent, creating a sense of panic among travellers. Although none of the incidents was fatal, it is crucial to put additional measures in place to avert a terrible disaster.

Having boasted an era of relative safety in the past few years, the alarm bells started pealing in November 2017, when a Medview Airlines flight could not land in Abuja following an outage. The aircraft hovered for about 10 minutes overhead. The spate of near misses continued in January when a chartered Nestoil aircraft with nine persons aboard lost its landing gear and two tyres during landing at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja. It later skidded off the runway. It is a case of when it rains, it pours. Around 24 hours later, a Dana Air plane hit the fence of the NAIA with its left wing. Media reports stated that the aircraft damaged its wing as it tried to park after landing. These are scary incidents.

Air travel is endangered without the rigorous adherence to standards. Bewilderingly, these near-escapes did not generate much sanction by the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, the Nigerian Airspace Management Authority or the Ministry of Transportation. Thus, other incidents swiftly ensued. On February 8, the emergency door of a Dana Air plane fell off on landing at the NAIA, resulting in a cloud of tension. The airline lightly explained it away, saying that a passenger must have tampered with the door. This is ridiculous. Were there no airline officials around to prevent such?

The biggest scare was, however, at the Port Harcourt International Airport on February 20. It involved a Dana Air plane, which overshot the runway upon touching down. With no tough remedial action taken by the authorities, the affected airlines continue to fly. This is dangerous, considering the history of disasters in the Nigerian airspace in the not-too-distant past. On March 6, an Arik Air plane on the Lagos-Accra route declared an emergency after the pilot noticed smoke filling the cabin. The plane, however, landed safely at the Kotoka Airport, after which the airline said it was being examined by experts.

However, in the past few days, the Federal Executive Council, the House of Representatives and the Senate have intervened in the fiasco. The National Assembly has summoned FAAN, NAMA, NCAA and FAAN officials to come and explain their lethargic response to these incidents. The invitations will resonate if they compel these agencies to enforce global industry standards.

The public is apprehensive principally because air crashes occurred at a frightening sequence a few years ago. Dana’s Flight 992 crashed into the Iju-Ishaga neighbourhood in Lagos in June 2012, killing 153 people aboard. In reaction, the Federal Government banned the McDonnell MD-83 aircraft from the Nigerian airspace and suspended Dana’s licence, though it was restored that September.

Other horrific accidents included the one in December 2005, in which 108 passengers – mostly pupils of Loyola Jesuit College, Abuja – died when a Sosoliso Airlines flight from Abuja to Port Harcourt crashed on landing. It was a McDonnell Douglas plane. An ADC Airlines flight, which had a stopover, after taking off from Lagos, also crashed shortly after taking off in Abuja, killing 97 passengers aboard. Coincidentally, these crashes occurred at weekends. As expected, the accidents led to the winding up of some of these airlines.

The recurring mishaps recently suggest that the aviation authorities are weak in the enforcement of standards. Elsewhere, safety-conscious regulators would have suspended the operations of these airlines and conducted detailed investigations. To send out a strong message on violations, British aviation authorities fined commercial operators Ryanair and Easyjet £20,000 apiece for repeated slot offending, in which an airline intentionally operates flights at times significantly different from its allocated slots. Similarly, in December 2016, the European Commission banned Iran’s third largest carrier – Aseman – from the continent over safety concerns.

Therefore, the Minister of State for Aviation, Hadi Sirika, and the aviation agencies should save the country from a possible air disaster. It is time to make special efforts: comprehensive checks on all aircraft types are critical at these trying periods. This should include recertification of all airlines, if need be. The derelict infrastructure at the airports has to be fixed, starting with the perimeter fencing. Animals, touts and bandits exploit its absence to infiltrate the airports.

To achieve the minister’s goal of boosting the GDP through aviation, administrative restructuring, in which 21 senior FAAN officials were booted out last October, has to be done systematically and every department strengthened with competent hands. The approval to build airports that are not up to standard should be discontinued.

Senator Shehu Sani’s exposé of the jumbo remunerations Nigerian senators award themselves is supposed to be a big thing but, honestly, it is nothing new. We have been through this before. In 2009, the defunct NEXT newspaper reported that lawmakers were not only being overpaid, they were also — and to use the mildest of language — thieves as well. In the same year, Prof. Olusola Adeyeye, (now a Senator but then a House of Representatives’ member) also gave a ground-shattering interview where he revealed that not only were lawmakers given an official licence to rob, they had virtually institutionalised means by which the money they parcelled out to themselves would evade accountability. Lawmakers’ mindless thieving from the public is, in short, legally sanctioned and constitutionally protected.

Two years later, the current Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, who was the then Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, raked muck about lawmakers’ emoluments when he stated that 25 per cent of the overhead in the Nigerian budget was expended on the National Assembly alone. The issue was very controversial then; it generated fierce reactions from Nigerians across different party affiliations. The lawmakers threw a fit and asked Sanusi to appear before their Committee on Appropriation and Finance, to take back his claim and apologise to Nigerians for painting the lawmakers in their true colours. Sanusi remained adamant and continued to back his claims with more facts until they let him be. Aside from all those episodes, the lawmakers have also been taken up on their furniture allowance, wardrobe allowance, expensive car purchases, and all the inordinate amounts of money they rake into their bottomless pockets.

In summary, Nigerians are already fully aware that lawmakers earn humongous pay. The lawmakers, ashamed of the sizes of their package, will change the subject if you ask them what they earn. Sani disclosed that the members of the upper chamber of the National Assembly each get a running cost of N13.1m, in addition to a consolidated salary of N750,000 per month, and are also offered another N200m per annum to execute constituency projects. Senate spokesperson, Senator Aliyu Sabi Abdullah, confirmed what Sani said and then added that the news was not “new.” Abdullahi accepted their faults, but he did not commit to reforms. Merely mouthing all the right things suggests that the Senate thinks Sani is just stirring the pot for his benefit and that any reaction that accompanies his revelation is just another storm in the Nigerian glass cup. The cup is unlikely to break, but the breaking of the storm within the cup makes for a good distraction while it lasts.

The issue might not be novel, but that should not mean it should be allowed to recur in the same unevolved manner perpetually. Between the legislature, the executive, and the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission, reforms are quite possible if only they would take the initiative. Instead, each side points to the other and asks them to go first. In the end, almost nobody moves except for those who want to use the controversy for public posturing and to demonstrate their hypocrisy. At some point, something has to give. Nigeria is haemorrhaging, and the poorer people should not be the only one making sacrifices; our leaders have to make as many sacrifices as possible too. Challenging themselves to reduce their emoluments should not be mere showboating but creating fiscal responsibility and the institution of accountability in our social and political life. In another one year or so, many candidates who are currently governors in their home states will be angling to make it to the National Assembly, and particularly to the upper chambers where the pay is higher. (The Governor of Imo State, Rochas Okorocha, has already accorded himself that fantasy long before he leaves office next year). They will carry over the undemocratic habits they have turned into a culture in their home states to Abuja thus maintaining the cycle of corruption, incompetence, and irresponsibility. If we do not institute better democratic practices, we will circle this mountain forever.

Although Abdullahi claimed that it was becoming harder to steal constituency project allowance these days since there are NGOs and civil society groups that track every allocation to ensure they are being used appropriately, the fact remains that the legislature is found wanting in its duty of instituting better democratic practices for itself and other Nigerians. They are reluctant to challenge Nigeria on our culture of accountability because doing so means they will have to come to terms with their own private habits. They will have to confront the questions that have been put to them gazillion times: Does Nigeria need lawmakers that supposedly work full time? Can we afford a bicameral legislature? In 2012, Senegal voted to do away with their Senate so they could save up to $15m in government spending. Until Nigerian leaders get to the stage where they would rather do a lot of good for the people than pay supposed servant leaders whose appetites remain insatiable, these topics will be coming and going every season like an abiku. The blurring of ideological lines between political parties in Nigeria makes it harder to deal with issues from the standpoint of what is ideal. Once upon a time, a party called Action Congress of Nigeria made us believe that they were the “progressives.” Today, they and their non-progressive counterparts are ruled by a singular ideology: Money.

Senator Sani said he chose to speak up because his conscience was pricked. What suddenly activated his conscience after he has been paid the sum for almost three years? The same Sani who bragged that he gave bigger alms to the poor during 2015 Ramadan than his opponents did? Sani boasted that some gave out rams and goats, but he went further to distribute camels. A man who is allocated N200m as the allowance for constituency projects and turns around to give out camels to the impoverished folks in his district is hardly a Robin Hood. He is still a privileged landowner who is merely buying fealty through the paths of his people’s greedy and hungry throats. Nevertheless, I agree with those who have said that Sani should be supported for daring to speak out and at such a crucial time too. Yet, it is hard to shake off cynicism about Sani and his intentions.

Where was his voice in November when Senator Adeyeye was shouted down in their so-called hallowed chambers for his recommendation that lawmakers and other politicians should slash their allowances in the face of the reality of dwindling national revenues? If Sani and the “common-sense Senator,” Ben Murray-Bruce, had stood up with Adeyeye and the three had challenged their colleagues, maybe, it would have encouraged one more person to stand up, and another, and then another. Murray-Bruce is another critic whose status as an internal rebel in the Senate is not easily classifiable. In 2015, when the issue of wardrobe allowance arose, and he was shamed for not bringing the change he promised to the National Assembly, he jumped on another issue in Osun State to deflect from his own contradictions. He promised to donate his share of wardrobe allowance to Osun State workers who were going through hard times because their salaries had not been paid. After that peacocky show, has he been rejecting other payments? In 2016, there was an outrage over the lawmakers buying Toyota Land Cruiser as official cars and at grossly inflated prices, where was he?

The mass outrage that accompanied the Sanusi debacle should have been the decisive factor in this issue, but once it began to peter out and the focus on the lawmakers slackened, they relaxed their reforms. By a few days’ time, if this current episode blows away and Nigerians move on to other things they consider more pressing, the lawmakers would have scored another victory at the collective expense.

Elections in our country, according to the All Progressives Congress (APC) National Leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, in a remark made on 30th June 2014, have become a perverse form of modern coronation.

“Instead of choosing public servants, elections in Nigeria have been basically to select a new aristocracy, an elected royalty,” he said in an apt summation that the desperation for power, at practically all levels in our country, is too often not to advance public good but rather in pursuit of private interest.

That perhaps best explains the decision by President Muhammadu Buhari to withhold assent to the Electoral Amendment Bill 2018 recently passed by the National Assembly and the muscle-flexing it is already generating.

With the Senate—now largely dominated by former governors most of who are adept at gaming elections—in a milieu in which the ruling APC is just a party in name rather than in shared ideals, it is no surprise that what used to be an administrative function of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is the issue that now preoccupies the leadership of both the executive and the legislature at a period many Nigerians are facing huge challenges on practically all fronts.

Although reasons were canvassed by the president for his decision to decline assent to the Bill, most Nigerians are aware that the major contention is the order of elections. Both the presidency and the National Assembly are in a battle over which of the polls should come first and stripped of all pretension, it is not about the imperative of popular participation but rather about securing electoral advantage.

While the essence of this intervention is to interrogate why there is such a fierce contestation over the order of 2019 elections, and the implications for the survival of our democracy, it is important for readers to also understand that it is not an isolated issue.

Even when democracy is ordinarily a never-ending process of inquiry which requires the validation of voters, in Nigeria, such phrases as “the will of the people” and “the people have spoken” have, over the years, become no more than false constructs. Nothing better depicts this sorry state of affairs than the so-called local government elections that may be useful as a starting point for this series, especially in the light of the yet-to-be resolved issue of underage voting in Kano.

From May 2015 to date, 23 states have conducted local government elections. Fourteen of those states are controlled by the All Progressives Congress (APC), the party of ‘Change’ at the centre; eight by the displaced Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and one by the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA).

Let us start with the states controlled by the APC. In January this year in Osun State, the APC swept all the chairmanship positions and 389 councillorship seats. In February this year in Kano State, the ruling APC won all the 44 chairmanship positions and 484 councillorship seats. And in March this year, APC won all the 18 chairmanship positions in Edo State. In March 2016, the APC won all 22 chairmanship and 234 councillorship seats in Sokoto State.

In July 2017, the APC swept the chairmanship seats in all the 21 local government areas in Kebbi State. In October 2016, the APC won the chairmanship positions in all the 20 local governments and 37 Development Authorities IN Ogun State.

In January 2016, the APC won the chairmanship seats in all the 14 local governments and 147 councillorship seats in Zamfara State. A month earlier, the same party won all the 23 chairmanship seats and the councillorship positions in the 276 wards in Benue state. In August 2016, the APC won chairmanship seats in all the 18 local governments in Adamawa State. In January 2016 in Niger State, the APC won all the 24 Chairmanship positions. In July 2017, the APC won the chairmanship positions in all the 27 Local Government Areas of Jigawa State. Same month in Lagos State, APC won all the 57 chairmanship seats. In November 2017 in my state, Kwara State, the ruling APC cleared all the 16 local governments while in February 2017, the APC also won all the chairmanship and councillorship positions in Yobe State.

What the foregoing suggests is that the APC is so popular in all these 14 states that the party secured a hundred percent victory at the local government polls. But now let us also look at what transpired in the eight states controlled by the PDP. In December 2016, the PDP won the chairmanship seats in all the 17 councils in Abia State.

The party also won 346 councillorship seats out of the 349 wards in the state so it was ‘magnanimous’ enough to concede three councillorship positions to candidates of some fringe political parties!

In February 2017, PDP won all the local governments in Taraba State and in December of same year, the party also won all the 16 chairmanship and 177 councillorship positions contested in Ekiti state. In February 2017, PDP won all the chairman and councillorship seats contested in Gombe State. In April 2017, PDP won the chairmanship seats of all the 13 local governments and 171 wards in Ebonyi state. In December 2017, PDP won in all the 31 local government areas and all 325 councillorship seats in Akwa Ibom State while in January this year, PDP won the chairmanship in all the 25 councils in Delta State. In November 2017, PDP won in all the 17 local governments and the 260 councillorship seats in Enugu State.

From the foregoing, the PDP also secured a hundred percent victory in all the nine states it controls where local government elections were held.

The only other party controlling a state is APGA and in the council poll conducted in November last year in Anambra, the party also did not disappoint: It swept the entire 21 Local governments!

Now to properly situate this perversion, let me cite examples from each of the two leading parties. In a controversial local government election conducted on 25th May 2015, four days to his hand-over by then Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi (in a state where the PDP candidate had only two months earlier secured victory at the governorship election conducted by INEC), the APC won 22 out of the 23 chairmanship seats where elections were held as well as 297 councillorship seats in the 302 wards.

Meanwhile, in Ondo State where the local government elections were held on 24th April 2016, the PDP won all the 18 chairmanship seats and 202 of the 203 councillorship seats. Instructively, when the gubernatorial election held in November of same year, candidate of the APC, (a party that could not win a single ward in the so-called local government election held seven months earlier), defeated the ruling PDP in the state!

NOTE: To be concluded next week

Before Booking a Visa to Wakanda!
Aside the release in 1997 of ‘Titanic’ and the 2003 concluding part of ‘The Lord of the Rings’ trilogy titled ‘Return of the King’, I doubt if any other movie has captured as much global attention and imagination as ‘The Black Panther’.

In Nigeria particularly, both the ‘Twitter generation’ and the middle class have done a lot to hype the movie and the feel-good factor it has engendered. Today, it is almost a taboo for anyone to admit that he has not watched what has been given sundry interpretations, including the half-digested tales of it being about the ancient glory of some country called Africa!

As make-belief—which even the best of movies are—goes, ‘Black Panther’ is very entertaining. But if we must draw lessons, the most instructive scene in the movie, for me, was in the confrontation between W’Kabi and the ‘Black Panther’, following the first military expedition that ended in catastrophic failure.

As head of security for Wakanda’s Border Tribe, W’Kabi had been happy when T’Challa, his childhood friend ascended the throne, believing he would help to avenge the death of his parents who were killed by Ulysses Klaue, a foreign mercenary who had been stealing from Wakanda their much-treasured Vibranium.

So, when the new ‘Black Panther’ also failed to capture the notorious arms dealer in his first raid, W’Kabi parted ways with his friend but not before rubbing it in: “For 30 years your father was in power and did nothing. With you I thought it would be different. But it is more of the same.”

While the reaction of W’Kabi depicts that of citizens of most African countries whose hopes had been raised and dashed by a succession of leaders, it is in the response of the ‘Black Panther’ that I want to make my point. In Africa, when politicians ascend power, their old friends dare not challenge them as W’Kabi did. But the ‘Black Panther’ did not take the insult personal. He considered it a public duty to capture the notorious armed robber and was ready to pay the supreme price in the process. Therefore, the message from Wakanda cannot be in some ‘borrowed technology’ but in the commitment to a leadership ethos anchored on the welfare of the people.

To come back home, the lesson is simple: We can recreate the good society if those we put in charge of our affairs care and it would not take too much. Right now, we can see a glimpse of such commitment in Edo State. Rather than live in denial about the global prostitution stigma, both the Edo political and traditional leaderships have decided to confront the menace. Even before the Omo N’Oba N’Edo Uku Akpolokpolo, Oba Ewuare II publicly placed a curse on the traffickers and their collaborators, including native doctors and priests who administer oath of secrecy on victims, Governor Godwin Obaseki had already instituted the Edo Taskforce Against Human Trafficking (EHTAT).

Chaired by Prof. Yinka Omorogie, the committee has not only been meticulous in handling the assignment, its findings are quite chilling. According to the taskforce report, “each migrant that has returned experienced an average of 151 deaths mostly caused by hunger, dehydration, sickness, childbirth, beating, gunshot wounds and drowning” in a journey that takes between 20 to 40 days and costs an average N250,000 across both the Sahara Desert and the Mediterranean Sea.

That is very telling of the growing desperation to leave the country by many of our young people because of the dwindling opportunities arising from the mismanagement of our affairs. If each migrant witnessed an average of 151 deaths in the course of their desperate journey, we can only imagine the number of lives that are being lost to the perilous adventure. What that suggests is that in as much as we can feel good about the product of the imagination of some American script writers, we must also be honest with ourselves: the reality of our existence as a nation is far from what obtains in the fictional Republic of Wakanda.

Of ‘Oniyangi’ and ‘Elepo’
Let me state from the outset that I am not the writer of this story as it is one of those interesting offerings being circulated on WhatsApp. Since I found the message rather instructive, I am posting it with minor editing because, in a way, it fits into Mark Twain’s warning that we should never argue with “stupid people” who could easily “drag you to their level and then beat you with experience”.

It is a story of two men: One, called ‘Elepo’ because of the nature of his merchandise, which was palm oil; and the other, ‘Oniyangi’ also because of the nature of his own merchandise, which was sharp sand. One day, a long, long time ago which no one living can actually define, Elepo and Oniyangi set out from opposite directions to market their merchandise. After travelling many days by foot, which was the only means of transportation in those days, they met at a narrow intersection. It was such a narrow path that only one person could go through at a time. Elepo insisted on the right of way. Oniyangi would have none of it.

Both argued until other travellers met them at the spot and a large crowd soon gathered. Having failed to pacify both men, some wise travellers suggested a way out – they should slug it out; and that whoever won the contest should have the right of way. Quickly, each man set down his merchandise by the roadside and they squared up one to the other. The battle was ferocious and long; in the end, Elepo had the better of Oniyangi, lifted him off his feet and landed him on the floor. The crowd roared!

However, as Oniyangi hit the floor, one of his outstretched legs caught Elepo’s merchandise and tilted it. Immediately, the content, which was palm oil, gushed out on the bush path. Furious, Elepo reached out for the merchandise of Oniyangi and flung it upside down on the road and its contents, which were sharp sand, also poured out. But Oniyangi got up from the floor, dusted himself up, ignored the jeers of the crowd who had started hailing Elepo for winning the bragging rights, as football fans call it these days, and began to pack his merchandise (sharp sand) into its container. Thereafter, he respected the agreement by stepping out of the narrow path for Elepo to have his right of way. But Elepo stood transfixed on a spot. His own merchandise had been irretrievably wasted and could not be salvaged like Oniyangi’s.

It was then that lesson dawned on Elepo. Were he to keep throwing out Oniyangi’s merchandise, all Oniyangi would lose was the trouble he would take packing his sharp sand back into the container. Yes, Elepo won the contest, but his victory was pyrrhic. Whereas he won the right of way, he had no more trips to make since his wares had been wasted.

This was the origin of the Yoruba song, “Oniyangi ma ba t’emi je, epo ni mo ru” which warns anyone carrying palm oil to beware of the man carrying sharp sand. The lesson is simple: If you are in the public arena and you must engage, beware of those who have little or nothing to lose!

Ife IRSA Alumni
Former students of the Department of International Relations, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, under the aegis of International Relations Alumni Association (IRAA) are set for their inaugural session in Lagos on Wednesday 4th April. To mark the occasion, a foremost Nigerian scholar and diplomat, Professor Ibrahim Gambari, will be the Special Guest of Honour and will give a keynote address on how major global changes are impacting on Nigeria in particular and Africa in general. Professor Amadu Sesay and other former and current lecturers will also be in attendance. Former students of the department who are yet to be enlisted can contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and WhatsApp link: https://chat.whatsapp.com/EYsykvDbve1ExyZWaiW9MY . They can also reach these numbers: 08099996776; 08037304700.

• You can follow me on my Twitter handle, @Olusegunverdict and on www.olusegunadeniyi.com

Ex-Abia State Governor Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu has challenged President Muhammadu Buhari to convince Nigerians of his anti- corruption war by probing former President Olusegun Obasanjo on the multi-million naira he allegedly wasted on power projects.

He said Buhari should arrest Obasanjo for Nigerians to believe he is fighting corruption.

Kalu said: “Unless Buhari arrests Obasanjo, anti-corruption war has not started.”

He spoke yesterday in Abuja while delivering a paper on the topic: ‘Culture, Economy and Good Governance: The Nigerian Experience’, at a quarterly public lecture organised by the National Institute for Cultural Orientation (NICO).

Kalu dismissed his trial by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) as political, saying it was one of the consequences of his fight against Obasanjo’s third term agenda.

Said he: “I was the first governor to make his account public. That EFCC is trying me is political and it is because I fought the third time agenda of Obasanjo. If there is opportunity tomorrow to fight third term, I will fight it. If President Buhari wants to be president for life, I will never support him again. The people knew my account in Abia is open and transparent. The US, UK and China know and they give me red carpet each time I am in those countries. That is a statement of fact.

“In fact, I am stronger to fight corruption than President Buhari because he is not fighting it well. I am stronger to recoup people’s money and return it to them. I am a creator of wealth at any level from when I was in the university. If any court pronounces that I am corrupt, I should be jailed. A corrupt politician or a judge is like an armed robber.”

Kalu said restructuring had become a terminology by politicians, instead of advocating true fiscal federalism, which involved transferring responsibilities from Exclusive List to Concurrent List for effective governance and in the true spirit of a federation.

“I have lost my airline, oil block, commercial bank to the government. So, I don’t have anything to lose again. I am an activist now because I’m not afraid to say anything, as I have nothing to lose again,” he added

“Has the herdsmen/farmers conflict helped to grow investment in agriculture? Has it attracted any foreign investor to the sector? Will it attract any? How does our attitude towards settler ethnic communities help us to grow our local economy?”

The Nation