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Babalola Borishade Should Resign Now

Jide Ayobolu

jideayobolu@yahoo.co.uk

November 1, 2006

The fact that Dr. Babalola Borishade the Minster of Aviation, should come to terms with, is that, he should resign regardless of all investigations, this is the normal thing that should happen in the more advanced societies; this is the most honourable thing for him to do. This was a man that was rejected four times by the senate, before he was eventually imposed on the people by president Olusegun Obasanjo, who wants him to be minister at all cost. It took about a year for the confirmation to sail through the senate. When he was in the education ministry, the whole place was in very serious crisis, lecturers throughout the length and breadth of the country went on strike for over six months, and their demands were never answered, the education ministry and sector was in a shambles, and Borishade left education in a mess. What ever he touches fails to work, this time for him to go and spear the country all these misfortunes.

He was quick to inform the Nigerian people that the pilot of the ill-fated airplane ignored warnings about the weather condition, heeded by other airlines, when he chose to take off, but the dead is not around to defend himself, up till today, we don’t know what caused the Bellview airplane mishap in Lisa village, in Ogun State, we don’t know what caused the Sosoliso crash, the air mishap in Zaria, the military air crash in Vandekiya and now this very recent one. So, how many Nigerian lives must be tragically lost in air crashes before the minister finds the moral push to bow out from a job that he does not seem to be doing competently? Why has president Obasanjo chosen to retain his accident-prone aviation minister in the federal cabinet even when he has become so unpopular and has given his regime a bad name? It is time to take a decision and the decision that must be taken is that Borishade must be sacked now.

It is only in a country like Nigeria that Borisade would still keep his job after five horrendous air disasters that have claimed the lives of hundreds of men, women and children within a period of roughly one year. The aviation minister has not told us if it was a pilot’s mistake that would have caused another accident involving another ADC aircraft which departed Calabar en route Lagos on this same Sunday, when the landing gear first failed to operate. Or what has the weather got to do with three loud explosions from the engine of the ill-fated Sokoto- bound aircraft, which eyewitnesses heard before it crashed?

The reason why this problems have persisted in the aviation sector is that corruption still works on four legs, and the minister who is the head of the sector cannot curb this worrisome trend because, he is a beneficiary of the cesspool of graft in the sector. Life is so cheap in Nigeria; the government does not care a hoot about what happens to anybody, hence, life is nasty, short and brutish. The poor keep dying on the road, because the N320billion that it meant for road construction and maintenance was diverted for campaigns and party activities, and in the aviation sector today, there are square pegs in round holes.

Many countries on the African continent have taken very good care of there aviation crisis, now they are doing very well, for example, the following countries like Ethopia, Kenya, Ghana and South-Africa. Even Ethopia that is very poor, now its national carrier is the highest revenue earner for the country, and Nigeria as big as it is, with all the money and resources, it has not been able to fix the problems in the Nigeria just because of corruption.

However, the National President of the National Association of Aircraft Pilots and Engineers (NAAPE), Engineer Haliru Mustapha requested that the minister of aviation refrains from making further comments of blame to allow for an unbiased investigation into the crash. He called for a proper constituted accident investigation panel that should include seasoned professionals to assist in conducting a comprehensive investigation. He stated that this is inconsonance with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) annex 13 on aircraft accident investigation. Also, various political and interest groups have all called on the aviation minister to resign, they say he is a bad luck person. He should therefore not allow his bad luck to continue to bring further tragedy to people of the country by way of incessant air mishaps.

The pertinent question now is, since the minister has already identified the cause of the crash, what role is left for the investigator? He has failed in his responsibility as the supervisory minister overseeing the aviation sector and therefore lacks moral capacity to oversee a disaster-stricken ministry and should resign from office. And, if he cannot resign, he should be asked to resign in the overall interest of the country.

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This page was last updated on 10/27/07.