23022018 - Confusion over Yobe girls; angry parents stone gov

36—Vanguard, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2018
IHAD almost overcome my fear
of flying when the news broke
that the door of a Dana Airline flight
from Lagos to Abuja fell off on
touchdown.
In a pathetic back-and-forth with
passengers who had shared their
experiences on social media, the
airline’s management did not deny
that the door fell off. Instead, it
absolved its crew of responsibility
and put the blame on imaginary
suicidal passengers fiddling with the
exit door.
As a regular traveller on the Lagos-
Abuja route, I’m weighing my
options. I’m asking myself if it would
not be better to travel by road.
Before I’ve had time to answer the
question, another Dana Airline plane
overshot the runway in Port
Harcourt.
Since the Nigeria Civil Aviation
Authority (NCAA) has been
irresponsibly silent, it’s only a matter
of time before Dana issues another
statement, claiming that unruly
passengers distracted the pilot on
landing in Port Harcourt.
I was still trying to make sense of
this nonsense when it was reported
that an Air Peace flight to Akure was
forced to delay landing as cows,
perhaps in search of grazing colony,
had strayed into the airfield; and that
was days after an alleged heist by
suspected thieves said to have
attacked the hold of one of its aircraft
at the Lagos airport shortly before
departure.
Forward to the past?
Memories of the tragic air crashes
of the mid-2000s flooded my mind
once again. After years of dodging,
I’m thinking it’s time to travel to
Abuja from Lagos by road.
I’m not crazy to think about road.
That was how we travelled before
government created a cottage
Dana by road to Abuja
industry of private jets, almost
completely neglecting the roads – the
same poor regulatory habit that now
appears to be putting air travel in
danger.
Stories of kidnappings, highway
robberies and rickety, unmarked
trailers driven by burnout drivers are
common road hazards. But,
strangely, you’ll hardly hear road
safety being discussed as seriously
as we’ve been discussing Dana. There
are many who would swear that road
travel is a suicide mission. But,
believe me, it was worse.
When Wole Soyinka took on the
dangerous task of serving as the
country’s first Road-Marshal-In-
Chief, over 40,000 people were dying
every year from road accidents.
That figure has gone down over
the years to fewer than 6,000 road
traffic deaths two years ago and
under 4,500 by last year.
The current Corps Marshal,
Boboye Oyeyemi, also said during
the Corps’ 30th anniversary on
Monday that emergency response
time has been reduced by roughly
one-third from 50 minutes and that
the corps, voted by the World Bank
as Africa’s lead agency in road safety,
are putting their best foot forward to
meet the target of the UN decade of
action for road safety.
So, why should planning a trip
from Lagos to Abuja by road – a
distance of about 750 kilometres –
be a thing of misery?
Blood of Jesus
Thousands of passengers, mostly
ordinary folks trying to eke out a
living, make this trip everyday. Many
of them travel by night, and in spite
of warnings, they just fill the potholes
with prayers and cover whatever
other dangers may be lurking with
the blood of Jesus.
But big men and women have
something to be afraid of because,
in spite of the improving safety
statistics, they have done – and
appear to continue to do – their
utmost to undermine road safety.
Former President Goodluck
Jonathan said that at the time he took
office in 2010 only 5,000 kilometres
out of the 35,000 kilometres of
federal roads were motorable; and
that he had improved quality road
access by five-folds at the time he was
campaigning for re-election in 2014.
Yet, just one year before he started
campaigning a Gallup-NOI poll
said that seven out of 10 Nigerians
felt the roads were still dangerous
and unsafe. And that was after an
estimated N1.75 trilion had been
poured out on road construction,
repairs and maintenance.
It was possible that part of the funds
were swallowed up by snakes in the
Ministry responsible for fixing the
roads, or that portions of the roads
were washed away by the
hypocritical tears once shed by
Diezani Allison-Madueke when she
was Minister of Transport. Whatever
the case, the elite have maliciously
neglected road maintenance
because they have other travel
options, especially flying.
With concerns about air safety
rising yet again, we might as well
ask ourselves what needs to be done
to make the roads safer.
Big men as risk factor
Big men and women often create
peculiar problems for regular road
users. They travel in bulletproof
vehicles in long convoys that have
no respect for traffic signs, speed
limits or traffic officers. Often,
commercial drivers who drink at
motor parks, smoke and overload
their vehicles are the poster-boys for
bad driving.
Yet some of the bitterest battles for
safer roads have been fought against
politicians – big men and women –
who will not use seatbelts or obey
traffic signs and regulations.
Our big men and women have
made our roads so unsafe that when
their sirens cannot fetch them a right
of passage, their armed escorts ride
roughshod over other road users for
right of way.
The other day, the Speaker of the
Abia State House of Assembly,
Chikwendu Kalu, ordered
policemen attached to him to shoot
road marshals for stopping his wife’s
car, that was apparently over
speeding. Not satisfied with her
husband’s order, the Speaker’s wife
came down from her car to
personally supervise the assault on
the road marshals.
Of course poor driving habits by
many ordinary road users have also
contributed to make road travel a
nightmare but the collective
attention and discipline that should
make our roads safer are often taken
for granted by the elite who somehow
think they’re above the law.
Since our railways may not be
ready for mass transit until perhaps
the next five to ten years and the
NCAA is sleeping on duty, it’s in our
enlightened self-interest to take our
fate in our own hands and make the
roads safer.
It’s a measure of how bad things
have become that travelling from
Point A to Point B within the country
can leave you with more than a few
grey hairs.
Ishiekwene is the Managing
Director/Editor-In-Chief of The
Interview and member of the board
of the Global Editors Network.
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