I’m sure by now a lot of you have heard that Dana Air has
been given permission to fly again. Just a few months after the crash that took
the lives of so many men, women and children.
It is extremely
shocking and unbelievable that after everything that happened, after everything
that was said and promised we have come back to square one, as usual, were
things would happen and the government would go ahead and plan things, make
decisions and then unleash it on us then we get angry. we protest and we talk but
after everything the steam goes down, everything goes cold and what they have
planned to do still happens, and then we finally accept it and say; Nigeria, when will it be good?
But I insist that the leaders of this country can never outnumber
the people in this country, the people that they are ruling, the people that
are being oppressed, the people that are being maltreated. They can never out
number these same people. We are complaining that their country is being
destroyed by greedy men but we sit down and lament, say the same things to our
friends, our family, our neighbors. We write about it, just as I am doing but
is it really enough?
A lot of us don’t really feel that much pain because we do
not know the full effect of that crash. It is painful because I’m trying to put
myself in the shoes of the families that lost their loved ones in that crash,
that up until now there is still no reasonable answer to the questions that we
have been asking. Truth is it was an
avoidable situation; that crash could have been averted.
I’m hurting because I was supposed to be on that same flight
to Lagos because contrary to what you might think; Dana was my favorite when it
came to local flights. I have friends in Dana Airline so please don’t get me
wrong I have nothing against the airline, but my question is how can they start
to operate just a few months after taking the lives of so many people without
proper explanation, without proper reasons, without proper solutions to the
issues that they claimed they were facing and with no regard for human
feelings, human lives, no regard for anything or anyone? They are resuming
operations, were we told? No! The decision was already made, people have
discussed, people have had private meetings, monies have been paid, their license
has been given back and now life goes on, and trust me; after the first flight
takes off and its successful, all of us
Nigerians will continue like nothing ever happened and life goes on. Especially for us that didn’t loose any close
family relative.
We will start to build our confidence back on Dana, we will
get on the flight and start flying again and all will be forgotten. We will
leave those who are mourning to mourn and we will move on with our lives,
right? Well it’s a pity because this is what we all do. So why am I even talking
about it? I really can’t answer that question because I cannot even explain my state of mind, I
don’t even know why I am talking about this, but something tells me that I
should talk about it, something tells me that I shouldn’t stop talking about
it, something tells me that whenever I see things going wrong with the little
voice that I have, I should continue to remind people that something can still
be done, that we cannot loose hope totally because if we do then we are hopeless
here in this country. We can’t live like people without hope but we cannot just
fold our hands and continue to keep quiet and lament in our homes.
What the solution is, I might not be able to tell you that
right now but the truth of the matter is these people have no right to let
those people fly now. I’m not saying they should never fly, please by all
means; because they provide employment and I’m happy about that but Haba! Not
now.
It is a slap on our
faces because what it means is that if anyone of us reading this now had lost
someone on that flight, this is the same way we would have been treated. It
means that God forbid if anyone reading this now had died in that crash, life would go on like nothing ever happened
and as usual, everybody goes about their business; isn’t that how life is?
Then you wonder, what’s the point? You wonder why you should
even bother to stay here where they don’t care about me, my family, my
children, they don’t care about my welfare, whether something happens to me or
not. After a few weeks of mourning, that’s it; life goes on because your
country doesn’t care even when the cause of death could have been avoided, even
when an agency was supposed to handle it but here we are.
We came out to fight for our rights as regards the fuel
subsidy. We were all shouting, making
our voices heard, talking to legislators, doing the best that we could but
after a while, what happened? We went back to our homes, the figure we were
fighting for still didn’t work and eventually we were given the figure that
they wanted to give us. What did we do? Didn’t we continue to pay? As Nigerians
of course we would accept it.
Now I have just been informed that over 40 billion has been
spent on printing 5000 naira notes. I was so hysterical! Still hoping its just a joke. You spend so
much money to print notes that we know deep down might end up devaluing our
currency. I can’t remember the last time I saw 10 naira note, 20 or 50 naira
note. I can see 100, 200, 500 and 1000 Naira notes; by the time 5000 Naira
notes come in, trust me even those 100 Naira, 200 Naira notes that we’ve been
seeing, will not be seen anymore. It will become an antique that you
will keep and show your children.
But truth is, we will
talk again, fight again, argue again from now till tomorrow but what will
happen? They will continue to do what they want to do and all of us will have
to change our money and start to use the 5000 Naira notes, right?
After a while we get
tired of shouting and play along.
I will not keep my
mouth shut when things like this happen because it could have been me.
When they started passing the link around for us to sign a
petition against this Dana Air resumption, I signed and put my name there
boldly. I know the attacks and insults I got. People just told me off, what’s
the point in signing Stella? Why should they not fly? “Its business, they have to move on with
their lives”? “Oh, Stella why would you put your name behind that?” I said why not? What if it was my father that
was on that plane? Or God forbid my sister or my mum? What if it was me? Are
you saying that something would happen to me and nobody would fight for me? No!
I would fight for people because we are all one. As far as I am concerned,
whether I had relatives there or not, there are people that we know, Nigerians
that died in that crash. I would fight for them because I know that if anything
happens to anyone around me, God knows I would ask people to fight for me. If
you cannot support and put your weight behind things that would speak up, then
what’s the point?
I have thought about a lot of things and realized that no
matter what I say now, they will all still go ahead and do what they want. But
I will not stop speaking the truth that I know regardless of the outcome. I
believe that someday because of persistence someone will hear my voice and
yours too.
Let us intensify prayers for our families because we need
God's intervention now more than ever before. We are scared of bomb blasts,
kidnapping, armed robbery, child molestation, domestic violence, dehumanizing
practices in some churches and so many other things that you cannot even
imagine. Who do we think will solve all of it? The Government? I am sorry to
announce to you that this has gone beyond them by far.
My people please let us beg God to raise his people that
will clean out the dirt that has been heaped on our country.
It was a shock to me when i heard about the resumption. MONEY! GREED! Was the first thought that came to me.
ReplyDeleteI was happy when Levi Ajunoma son came out and asked people to join him and protest, and our corrupt, shameless leader withdrew their statement stating it on a flimsy excuse..ha! 9JA I HAIL THEE!
Thank you for BOLDLY putting your signature on the petition, and sorry to hear about the insults again...this is the payment for always speaking the truth...many don't want to hear it.
I always tell people that there is a difference between MY OWN, YOUR OWN & OUR OWN.....but they disagree, this DANA crash is a perfect example to show it...IF any of the govt officials were affected directly, they would have made the punishment longer, than this slap on the wrist gesture. IT IS SO ANNOYING!
Yes, prayer is the only weapon of defense we have as Christians. GOD is our fortress and protector.
A heart-felt post, weldone.
http://thenitty-grittytalesofahousewife.blogspot.com/2012/06/sighjune-4th.html {this was the post i wrote on it when the dana crash happened.}
This is just unbelievable, but like u said we with our little voices will not stop crying out for truth and justice!!!!!!!!!!!!. permission to reshare on my blog ma'am?
ReplyDeleteYour write-up is a very serious reflection for every learned Nigerian,the cry for justice should be everybodys concern and am so happy with your step and position in which you have taken so far. Please keep it up!
ReplyDeleteThe only thing i could just say is that somebody had 'greased' somebody's hands somewhere.
ReplyDeleteI know what happened to other aircraft companies that experienced a crash incident - where are they today? Even the one that decided to come back re-branded and gave itself another name entirely so that the memory of the tragedy is no longer related to them...but even that did not happen immediately...it took time.
I felt so bad about this crash that I did a post on my blog in honor of the victims; I put myself in their families shoes and did that post - (http://thekushchronicles.blogspot.com/2012/06/rip-beautiful-faces-of-dana-air-crash.html)
The post hit thousands of views because of the way I did it - people related to the dead sent in their pictures and I kept uploading and updating...at a point I was moved to tears and had to stop for a while.
Now you can imagine the rage in me when I heard that news of Dana resuming flights...
All we can do like you said is to keep praying for this country.