and started to lose strength. I saw children being taken out of the terminal building (the checking in area) for ventilation and the whole fanfare of having a remodelled terminal no longer make sense to me again.
It all boils down to this: The life span of the remodelled airport seems to have come to an end the moment Oduah packed her bags out of the office as a minister on February 12. And to think it’s been less than a month since Oduah was ousted and everything stopped working in the Aviation Ministry, particularly the reform she started is worrisome. Is something really wrong with us as a country?
Do you remember this also, that the moment Bart Nnaji left the Ministry of Power in that controversial circumstance, the ministry has never remain the same till today. The progress made was reversed and we are no longer talking about increased megawatts, but decreased megawatts in power supply throughout the country. It has been a battle between the current Minister of Power, Professor Chinedu Nebo and the demons as he once openly professed.
I can cite another example. Since Mallam Nuhu Ribadu left No.5 Fomella Street, where Economic and Financial Crimes Commission’s (EFCC) office is located in Abuja, over four years ago, the EFCC has never been the same. We have all seemed to have reached a consensus on a new name for this once vibrant organisation. We now call it a lame duck.
It is difficult to understand that four days after Oduah left office, we started hearing reports of power failure at different airports, even with newly installed generating sets.
At least, I am aware that the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos had new generating sets installed before the former minister resigned her appointment. Now, it is disturbing to know that on February 18 the Airport experienced a blackout that lasted for more than one hour.
It was such a bad case that it happened in the night and everywhere was truly dark and deadly. Those who passed through the airport in the last one month said the airport has been experiencing epileptic power supply on a daily basis.
I am sure there are stories that are not soothing from other projects in the Aviation Ministry since Oduah moved on to continue with her life elsewhere. What is really wrong with our system? Government all over the world is a continuum, but my knowledge of government in our dear country is just otherwise. Once a man who has been on the driver seat decides to leave, everything crumbles and collapse.
The problem with our government parastatals is the same with our indigenous companies. Everything is built around one man. So when the man dies, the company follows him to the grave and that is why we cannot boast of many century-old indigenous companies. We can name global firms such as Unilever, Guinness, Coca Cola and Cadbury operating in Nigeria and have survived over the years, but where are our own that used to dominate the Nigerian business landscape? The answer is this: They simply disappeared with their founders.
The idea of building super-individual should change to building super institutions whether in government circle or in the private sector. There should be no reason why the progress made so far in the aviation sector should be reversed. The institution must begin to work. The wastes in abandoned projects should stop and those bitter politics must stop too.
If anything, I know there are still issues in the aviation sector such as the ones that have been headlined by the media in the last two years. The concessions of various kinds that pitched the ousted minister against some ‘powerful interests’ and of course, those issues of airlines tendering fake documents to get clearance at the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority(NCAA).
Her shortcomings notwithstanding, the house that stella Oduah built as characterised by her reform has been in the interest of Nigerians and we must not watch it collapsed. It has taken us well over 30 years to revamp our airports, especially the Lagos airport and if we allow it to go down, it will take another 30 years to get it up.
That is my permutation about how Nigeria works. We get someone at a certain period to make a change, after that it takes several years or another season of life for another ‘changemaker’ to show up.
And this! At the Lagos airport, the immigration officers were stamping 2013 in people’s passport as they were departing last month. You’ll want to know how I found out. I went through the immigration officers without having my passport stamped on Sunday. They took my passport from me and returned it. When I returned to them after the officials of Virgin Atlantic I boarded to London discovered that I didn’t have my passport stamped, they called it human error. Isn’t that embarrassing enough?
Na una sack am, na una still dey complain??
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