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Vanguard – Of Nigeria’s 30 Planes

They that don’t learn from history are bound to repeat its mistakes.

Stella Odua is embarking on a journey, she is taking a familiar route and how I wish someone will draw her attention to the fact that we have taken this same route before. Someone once said that doing the same thing, the same way, over and over again and expecting a different result is the height of foolishness. Will someone tell her that the solution to the problems with the nigerian Airline Industry is not in the Federal Government setting up a new carrier or even buying planes.

Sometimes ago, she was sending out the right signals and it seems she has recently been bewitched by the high and mighty. We need strong airlines and not a multiplicity of weak ones. Mergers in the aviation industry will achieve this.

Attitude, not corruption, is Nigeria’s problem –Jonathan

The recent pronouncement of our dear President, at the burial of the late General Andrew Owoyi Azazi, makes my stomach stir violently. According to Jonathan, “Corruption is not the cause of our problem, Nigeria has more institutions that fight corruption.Most of the issues we talk about are not corruption.If we do things properly, if we change our attitudes of doing things most of the thing we thinks are caused by corruption are not.”
When I read this, I thought maybe the newspaper erred and that a refutal will soon follow. However, since neither the President nor his very vibrant mouth piece, Reuben Abati, has come out to refute the newspaper article then I believe the President actually made the statement.

Given Jonathan’s unhindered access to the daily security reports, we do expect that the President should be atop of the going ons in the country that he governs. Also, we do know where Nigeria stands on the Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index. Just in case we have forgotten, we are 139th out of 176 countries surveyed in 2012. According to this report, Nigeria is said to have remained entrenched in corruption without making much progress to fight the menace!

Now we have two reports – Our dear Jonathan’s and that of TI. At home, the experiences of our common citizens tend to support the fact that corruption is endemic in our society. Have you tried to apply for a Nigerian Passport? What of filing an application for installation of meter in your home, admission to universities for your kids and getting a police report, amongst many other things that Nigerians do on a day to day basis? If God were a man, Nigerians will device all manner of ways to cause him to be corrupt but thank God, he is God and not man.

Given the pronouncement of GEJ, I tried to fathom why someone expected to have so much information will know so little about what is happening in the nation. So I arrived at the conclusion that it is either he is getting a whole lot of doctored and false information about the country or he is just a little less gifted in the area of understanding. Even where any of these two options were to be true, I am still ridiculed that he is not lacking as to the gift of sight – he sees. When he saw the corpse of Azazi, should he not demand to know why a military helicopter came crashing despite the massive budgetary provisions for defence?

My dear Mr. Jonathan, the beginning of recovery is to know what really is our problem. It is only when we have fully identified what our problems are that we can actually start a true journey at solving them. Since you do not even know what problems besiege our nation, I doubt if you will ever be able to set this nation on the path of recovery.

My fellow Nigerians, we are in a deep trench and unfortunately we will be there until this administration packs up. Don’t look up to GEJ for a solution, apparently there is much more confusion in Aso Rock than anywhere else in the nation.