Usman Abubakar
Sun Tzu says ‘Once is chance. Twice is coincidence. Thrice is enemy action.’ But
when an individual or institution receives continued bashing even when it
deserves praise, then this can only be translated as the tell-tale signs of a
grand conspiracy.
For if not the hatching of a
conspiracy, what else could be the root cause of a clearly coordinated and
sequential series of attacks beginning with the Ministry of Petroleum, the Ministry
of Finance and now the Ministry of Aviation? What other conclusion could be
more firm than the assessment that these attacks go beyond the ministries, to
undermine President Goodluck Jonathan himself.
Before President Goodluck
Jonathan appointed Princess Stella Oduah as the Minister of Aviation, the
aviation sector had sunk completely. Prior to her appointment, the state of Nigerian
airports was described by the Minister of Information, Labaran Maku as ‘poultry
sheds’. Aviation stakeholders had been forced into a dangerous relationship of
inertia kept in check by a complex and interwoven network of corruption. Three
decades of decadence had created an array of benefactors such as the cabals of
the oil sector leading to a neglect of its core mandate to the people. Airplanes
had become as
a writer described ‘Molues in the sky’.
Those who understand the pains that
have been taken to make our airports what they are today will surely understand
that it would take more than a N225million scam to end the transformation
agenda. Actions to sweep aside such great achievement as carried out by the
Aviation Minister in such a short while, achievements which earned
recommendations from ordinary air-travellers to the Senate Committee on
Aviation of a job well done simply hints at nothing else but downplaying the
office of the President and its commitment to transformation.
It is therefore of no surprise that the call for
Stella Oduah’s head is in line with the dictates of the Abubakar Baraje-led
faction of the PDP, who had earlier also demanded for the sack of Ngozi
Okonjo-Iweala, the Finance Minister; and Diezani Alison-Madueke, the Petroleum
Minister.
The achievements so far accomplished
by the Aviation Ministry guided and firmly supported by President Goodluck
Jonathan has been ground breaking.
Beginning with a Bilateral Air
Service Agreement, followed by a simultaneous reconstruction and re-modelling of 22 airports (passengers/Hajj/Pilgrims camps) and
crowned with issue of NCAP, the pace had been established from the onset as one
which was set to terrify corrupt bureaucratic systems.
Clearly this wave
of attacks like a hydra with many heads is among the several attempts to
undermine efforts by the President Jonathan Administration. These attacks come
in several forms; first as direct attacks towards the ministry of Aviation and
the person of Princess Stella Oduah by blames for air mishaps, Aviation Union
strike actions, and the Rotimi Amaechi saga, and secondly directs attacks at
the presidents transformation agenda through the machinations of insecurity, the
organs of corruption, acts of insubordination, springing of political parties
and political factions, action groups, ASUU and a long list of unions, groups
and cabals who endure because their very existence
benefits some state elites who face no significant incentive toward
capacity-building, good governance, or development.
It is clear in the
face of all these that the cries which echo are not those of the needy masses,
not those of a people clamouring for positive change, not the voice of reason
and truth, but that of conspiracy, of confusion and intent to throw the country
into chaos. The attack on the aviation ministry is one of such false cries that
must not be given ear. The opponents of transformation should not be granted
such audience.
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