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| Aircrash near Lagos airport. MAY THE SOULS OF THE DEAD REST IN PEACE - sky.com |
I met two separate families who had recently
returned to England from Nigeria. The first family had travelled with four
children ranging in age from 6 to 16, while the second family included a mother
and male twins aged 12. I met up with them on different occasions, they had
both travelled to different parts of the country but their story was the
similar.
The Onuohas had landed in Lagos on a plane
from London and proceeded to hire a mini bus that took the family of six by road
to Abuja, then on to Onitsha. I was told by members of this family that the
roads were good and relatively safe. Somewhere near Ondo town, however, the bus
driver was told to turn off the road by local people because there were armed robbers
on the road ahead. However, they arrived at Onitsha safely with no further mishap.
The Anis too had a relatively happy trip when
they travelled by road from Lagos to Ilorin to visit relatives.
This brings me to the conclusion that travelling
by road in Nigerian is not as dangerous as travelling by air.
Some believe otherwise and many people prefer
to travel by air because they say it is safer.
Safer? Not in Nigeria…but faster maybe, if you
travel in a well maintained plane flown by a competent pilot.
So why are there so many crashes in the
country famed to be the giant of Africa? Here are some of the reasons I have
discovered:
The planes are old and disused rejects from countries like Europe, India and China.
The aerospace engineers are not well qualified. If they are trained in Nigeria, they study the theorectical aspects of maintaining and flying a plane and hardly any practical work. Plus, Nigeria does not have adequate aeroplane manufacturers and world class service engineers. So, most engineers have no idea of how to manufacture parts or put them together.
Space parts may have to be ordered and in most cases are no longer manufactured because the planes are out-dated. Imagine looking for the spare parts of a 1960s Citroen car…
The engineers trained abroad, therefore, have no parts to replace old ones, so, they watch, pray and hope no one dies if the plane pack up.
Can That part of Lagos be likned to the Bermuda Trainagle Is there aa forece in the are pulling planes down? Or as one of the children I coach said, is it a case of magic?
Have you seen Nigeria’s largest airport
recently?
The airport is old and frozen in the 1950s. I was in the Murtala
Mohammed airport last year, and the airport lobby looked like somewhere out of
the last century. Only one plane can land at a time. So, you can never get lost
or confused about where to go or what plane to board. There were no signs for directions, no
escalators, no lifts, no phone booths; no lights in some section of the
hallway, no air conditioning even the tiles of the floor were missing in some
places. When you finally get to the immigration points, all you will see are a
few old tables and a mad queue to get passports checked. There was no public
announcement sysytem just people shouting all over the place. To get from one
place to another you have to ask other people or just follow the crowd.
When you finally get past this immigration
point, you will have to beg other experienced travellers for money to ‘hire’ a
trolley just like to you do at Sainsbury’s. You look around and see this dingy
place called an airport. It is worse than an abandoned outpost in the middle of
a desert. Dingy lights, dingy tables, dingy immigration officers in funny dingy
uniforms. When you finally get your baggage on to the trolley and head for the
door, you will be stopped by another set of immigration officers who ‘beg’ you
for money or something. The whole place is so tiny when you compare it to
Heathrow or Gatwick Airport yet the whole of UK is only a third of Nigeria. I
was almost waiting for the electricity to fail.
Nigerians often blame slavery, colonisation, and
corruption and so on for this messed called Nigeria but let’s just leave these
ills aside for once. I know they have contributed to the way things are in Nigeria,
but at 53, is it not time for Nigerians to sing another tune.
How to keep safe...
Travel on well serviced and maintained planes.
- Ask to see authentic credentials and service documents of the pilots and of the aircraft.
- Is the plane new and shiny? It's probably newly bought and still in good shape.
- Look around the aircraft. Does it look and smell alright? If not, get off.
- What about theplane's engine, does it sound loud and jerky or sqeeky? If it does run for your life.
A solution that can safe lives
How about our so called billionaires building
our airports and controlling them? The government does not have to build
everything for the country. A good example of this type of privatisation is education.
Wealthy Nigerian can do the same with airports, hospitals, roads, factories and
so on. If all wealthy Nigerians were invited to make a difference and given a
chance, maybe Nigeria will gradually become a better place. There would also be
more transparency and accountability in service. And, these philanthropists can create better airports with new
well serviced planes and well trained pilots, engineer and technicians.
What do
you think?
