Things ain’t looking good in the news for Nigeria, it’s another tragic date.  The newspapers of 15th March 2012 report the crash of a Chopper belonging to the Nigerian Police and causing the death of four (4) top policemen, amongst others. While we mourn this tragic loss, it behoves us to investigate the circumstance in which the Chopper came down.

A good friend of mine, a couple of years ago, pointed out clearly the difference between maintenance for these flying machines and those for road vehicles. For flying machines, you maintain and repair before something breaks while for road vehicle you have the luxury of waiting until something breaks before you fix it.

It is good to know that the Inspector General of Police has requested an investigation into the cause of the accident but I won’t be surprised if this has to do with the chopper not being maintained as prescribed by the manufacturers. It has happened before and if our habits is anything to go by, I believe it will happen again. We just don’t have that maintenance culture in us, either from the wide prevalent corruption or just our sheer inability to focus on doing the right thing at the right time.

In any case, the nation is at a loss again, a loss of another one of its finest brains (DIG Haruna John was described as such by the IGP. we also loss the massive state investment in training and bringing these policemen to the levels they were holding prior to their death. Our reputation as a nation also suffered another dent. I hope we’ve learnt a lesson and someone who has the responsibility for the maintenance of these aircraft is up and doing right now asking what could go wrong next with our military fleet.