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Ethiopian Airline Crash…and the
stars went down at sunrise
NIGERIAN intellectual star,
Pius Adesanmi, shone
brightly across the globe. The
author of Naija No Dey Carry Last,
a collection of essays and winner
of the Penguin Prize for African
Non-Fiction Writing in 2010, was
in high demand. He was Director
of the Institute of African Studies,
Carleton University in Ottawa,
Canada when on Sunday, March
10, in Addis Ababa, he boarded the
Ethiopian Airline Flight ET 302, a
new Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft
for Nairobi.
Our mother continent had
sought his expertise at the
conference of the African Union’s
Economic, Social and Cultural
Council, ECOSOCC, in Nairobi.
The 15-year-old body is one of
AU’s attempts to transform itself
from a union of Heads of State, to
a union of the African people.
ECOSOCC is structured to
mainstream civil societies and
labour unions into the AU system.
The body is charged with
transforming AU’s principles and
policies into concrete
programmes. It is also charged
with contributing to the promotion
of human rights, the rule of law,
good governance, democratic
principles, gender equality and
child rights in the continent. Which
other tribe of people will the AU
seek, but committed people of
intellect like our dear Professor
Adesanmi? But tragically, he never
made it to Nairobi.
The aircraft conveying him and
156 earthly souls, took off at 8:38
a.m. faltered, and in six minutes
returned to land, a bowl of fire.
Initially, we did not realise that
Nigeria had lost one of its brightest
because Canada, in realising his
huge intellectual capacity and
potentials, had made Adesanmi its
citizen; so he was flying on a
Canadian passport. His death is
as devastating as that of another
very brilliant Nigerian intellectual,
Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem, who in
2009, was based in Nairobi as
Deputy Director, Africa Office of
the UN Millennium Campaign.
He was to catch an early morning
flight at the Jomo Kenyatta
International Airport when we lost
him in a road accident on the
Mombasa Highway, Nairobi.
In this air crash, we also did not
realise that we lost our bright
Ambassador Abiodun Oluremi
Bashua, a 1976 Foreign Service
intake who had served in our
embassies around the world,
including Vienna, Abidjan and
Tehran. He also served as
Secretary to the Conference of the
Parties to the United Nations, UN,
Framework Convention on
Climate Change. The UN had
realised his potentials and
retained him. So he was flying on
a UN passport.
The UN lost some two score
persons in this crash not just
because the dependable Ethiopian
Airlines is one of the best and is
known as “UN Shuttle” on that
route, but also for the fact that its
environment arm, the
Environment Programme, UNEP,
was holding a conference in
Nairobi next day.
The aircraft lifted an assemblage
that looked like the UN itself as it
had passengers of more than 35
nationalities. They included 32
Kenyans, 18 Canadians, nine
Ethiopians and nine Britons. Italy,
This tragedy is global
and the issue now is
not who to blame, but
to understand why and
how the crash occurred
and how to get past
what at first glance,
seems a failed wrestle
between man and
computer
United States and China had eight
citizens each and France, seven. As
it turned out, Nigeria had two.
Adesanmi was not the only
bright African headed for the AU
ECOSOCC Conference. Karim
Saafi, 38, French-Tunisian civil
society activist and Co-Chair of
the African Diaspora Youth
Forum, was also headed for the
conference. He travelled on a
French passport.
So how do we mourn so many?
People with bright future whose
expertise the world needs? How do
we console their loved
ones…except in some cases, some
of those loved ones were with them
when the aircraft went down.
Vanguard, FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2019—31
Six members of the Canadian
Dixit-Vaidya family were on a
family holiday to Kenya, where one
of them, Kosha Vaidya, 37, was
born. She was travelling with her
husband, Prerit Dixit, 45, two
daughters, Ashka, 14 and Anushka,
13, and parents Pannagesh
Vaidya, 71, and Hansini Vaidya,
63. They all died in the crash.
Anton Hrnko, a Slovak
lawmaker is left to mourn his wife,
Blanka; daughter, Michala, and
son, Martin. Sahra Hassan Said
and her son Nasrudin Abdulkadir,
both dual Somali-British
nationals went down with the
plane as did a Russian couple,
Ekaterina Polyakova and her
husband, Alexander Polyakov.
Another couple, Jared Mwazo
Babu, who founded a Nairobibased
marketing agency, and his
wife, Mercy Ndivo, left behind a
15-month-old daughter.
The Group president of the
Italy-based humanitarian
organisation, Africa Tremila,
Carlo Spini and his wife,
Gabriella Viggiani, and its
Treasurer, Matteo Ravasio also
died.
Tamirat Mulu Demessie who
served as Child Protection in
Emergencies Technical Adviser of
Save the Children was on board.
So also was Sam Pegram, 25, a
British aid worker and intern with
the Norwegian Refugee Council,
based in Geneva.
Hussein Swaleh, a former
Secretary-General of the Kenya
Football Federation was the
Match Commissioner in the
African Champions League game
between Ismaili and TP Mazembe
Englebert, in Egypt on Friday. He
never made it back to Nairobi.
Anthony Ngare, 49, a journalist
who was Deputy Director of
Communications at United
Nations Education, Scientific and
Cultural organisation, UNESCO,
in Nairobi. He was returning from
a UN conference in Paris. He died,
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as did, Sebastiano Tusa, 66, an
Italian underwater archaeologist
who was flying to Kenya to work
on a project with UNESCO.
Kenyan law student at
Georgetown University,
Washington DC, Cedric
Asiavugwa, who had worked with
groups helping refugees in
Zimbabwe, Kenya, Uganda and
Tanzania, was on his way to
Nairobi after the death of his
fiancee’s mother. He became one
more person to mourn.
Joanna Toole, 36-year-old
British environmental
campaigner working for the
fisheries and aquaculture
department of the UN Food and
Agriculture Organisation, FAO,
was travelling to attend the UN
Environment Assembly. Also
travelling for the same conference,
was Danielle Moore, 24, a
member of the clean ocean
advocacy group, Ocean Wise. Both
did not make it to the conference.
Joseph Waithaka, 55, a Kenyan
and British who had relocated to
Kenya, on Saturday, went to see his
son, Ben Kuria in Croydon, South
London, before heading to Addis
Ababa for his connecting flight to
Nairobi. Of course, he never saw
Kenya again. Kuria recalled: “I
gave him a hug and shook his hand,
because in my culture it’s more
about the handshake than it is
about the hug”.
Sara Gebre Michael, the Lead
Cabin Attendant, left for work,
leaving behind her husband and
three children who are left to
mourn her. Senior Captain Yared
Mulugeta Gatechew, the main
pilot had joined the Ethiopian
Airline in November 2007.This
turned out to be his last flight.
This tragedy is global and the
issue now is not who to blame, but
to understand why and how the
crash occurred and how to get past
what at first glance, seems a failed
wrestle between man and
computer.
Thank you Ochendo
By Godwin Adindu
If you are incapable of gratitude, you
are incapable of noble sentiments.
Even animals are grateful
— Sir George Bernard Shaw.
IN that famous romantic comedy,
Arms and the Man, Sir George
Bernard Shaw, the English dramatist
and playwright observed that ‘if any
man (by extension a community,
society, country or even group) is
incapable of gratitude, the man must
also be incapable of noble sentiments.”
Sir Bernard Shaw added: “Even
animals are grateful.”
Since the Sunday, March 9, 2019 reelection
of Governor Okezie Ikpeazu,
it has been celebration galore in the
entire Ukwa Ngwa land. The people
are celebrating what they see as a long
walk to freedom. They are celebrating
a triumph of their capacity. They are
celebrating a victory from old
stereotypes and stigma. They are
celebrating a victory that will give them
a new dignity and a new status in the
political equation of Abia State.
They are celebrating a re-discovery
of themselves – their strength and their
power. They are celebrating their final
emancipation. Indeed, in this season
of celebration, it is easy to forget. The
Ukwa Ngwa must continue to celebrate
Ochendo, Papa Ukwu, the man who
agreed that what is good for the goose
is also good for the gander. The Ukwa
Ngwa have a covenant with Ochendo
which must remain unfettered.
Paraphrasing Shakespeare, we must
honour the “base degrees upon which
we did ascend’
Why must the Ukwa Ngwa celebrate
Ochendo? We must do so because of
our peculiar history and
our existential reality. Remember that
right from the First Republic when the
Aba Division in the Old Eastern
Region was shortchanged and their
position given to an Efik woman,
Margaret Ekpo, who represented them
in the old Eastern Region House of
Assembly, successive regimes have
always short-changed the Ukwa Ngwa
and reneged on whatever promise or
agreement entered into with the
people.
Thus, the struggle for the
emancipation of the Ukwa Ngwa
became a long-drawn battle that
spanned over six decades, climaxing
with the OTUONU Mass Movement
led by Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe. The
movement raised the momentum of the
Ukwa Ngwa agenda and brought
many issues about the people to the
front burner of national discourse.
From the Old Imo State, it appeared
as if the Ukwa Ngwa was consigned
to the position of Deputy Governor,
only good to play the second
fiddle. From Isaac Uzoigwe,
Enyinnaya Abaribe, Chima Nwafor,
Acho Nwakanma to Col. Ananaba, the
tradition endured. At different times
and on different scenarios, many Ukwa
Ngwa men of repute led heated
struggles to break the jinx but to no
avail. The iron hand of oligarchy
continued to strangulate them.
But, significantly, the reality of the
fate that confronted the Ukwa Ngwa
The Ukwa Ngwa
must continue to
show gratitude to
Ochendo for
setting this
standard of equity
came in 2001, at the hallowed ground
of Okpuala Ngwa, the ancestral cradle
of the people, when the former
Governor, Orji Uzor Kalu, looked at
them eye-ball to eye-ball and
announced that his daughter (who was
three years then) will grow up to
govern them if they did not give him
support for his second term bid. The
Ukwa Ngwa took it as the height of
insult against the collective sensibilities
of a people.
Based on the rotational principle in
the Abia Charter of Equity, power was
to rotate between the Old Bende and
the Old Aba Zone. Kalu, from
inception, promised to adhere to this
ordinance. But, out of his deep-seated
hatred for the Ukwa Ngwa, he
reneged at last and handed over power
to his fellow old Bende man from Abia
Central in 2007.
In the twilight of his administration
in 2015, Ochendo came under intense
pressure by his people of old Bende to
shortchange the Ukwa Ngwa again.
Thus, the Ukwa Ngwa must at all times
recognise that, except for the firm and
unwavering decision of Ochendo who,
against all pressure and odds, stood
his ground on power rotation and kept
his word as his bond on handing over
to an Ukwa Ngwa, the people could
not have attained the current
milestone.
Thus, the Ukwa Ngwa must continue
to show gratitude to Ochendo for
setting this standard of equity. They
must continue to celebrate him for
being the only leader who
demonstrated that balance of power is
critical and crucial for our common
existence as one common humanity.
Thus, as we celebrate our final
political triumph as a people, we must
not forget where we are coming from
and the man who mounted the ladder
on which we ascended through the
base degrees to the topmost height.
•Adindu is the President-general of
the Abia Renaissance Movement, ARM.