It is almost two weeks after the Dana Air crash and I can finally pull
myself together to blog about it. Call this post late, but I do feel the need
to share my thoughts.
Although I didn’t lose any relative or close friend thankfully, I was
quite shaken because unlike the Sosoliso and Bellview plane crashes of 2005,
the Dana Air crash had someone who was connected to someone who was either a
relative or a friend.
Here’s what I mean - we lost a corp member at my office, my
sister-in-law’s dad lost his business partner, one of my classmates lost a
friend, another classmate lost two colleagues, my friends lost friends and it
goes on and on and on. It is for this reason that I was therefore shaken.
The reality is that it could have been anyone. More so, I flew back from
Calabar to Lagos on 2 June while some of my colleagues who were Abuja bound had
hoped they had a Dana Air (which seemed to be on time) ticket as we waited at the
Calabar airport for the Arik Air aircraft to arrive from Lagos, take them to
Abuja and return to Calabar to pick up myself, other colleagues and passengers
to Lagos. To cut a long story short and not leave you confused, our 12.45pm
flight eventually became a 4.10pm flight. And so when I heard of the plane
crash the next day, I was thankful but also reminded that it could have been
anyone of us.
For three nights I couldn’t find sleep as my mind roamed in search of
answers to several speculations in the news about the crash. Amidst my
insomnia, it occurred to me that the reason why I probably didn’t feel the loss
from the Sosoliso and Bellview crashes was the fact that I wasn’t quite as
advanced as I am now in my career. As at that time, I traveled by air sparingly
and didn’t value human capital as much as I do today. Going by the
socio-economic situation in Nigeria, I believe it would be safe to guess that most
of the people onboard the Dana Air plane where young professionals and
entrepreneurs probably between the ages of 25 and 45 years; the implication -
shattered dreams and wasted lives of potential leaders of Nigeria. People who
would have provided solutions to some of our societal problems, and probably
even employers contributing to the GDP of our nation. A huge loss to a developing
country like Nigeria with an almost non-existent middle class I must say!
The second significant issue for me was the looting that took place at
the crash site. I still cannot fathom it. It just validated my sentiments in an
earlier post in 2010 titled: Corruption in High
Places. My position then was simple. I had stated
that corruption is in every one of us while we continue to point accusing
fingers at the government. We are largely about what we can rip-off the next
person but do it at varying degrees.
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I am saddened at our
degenerating values and keep wondering where we missed it. I know I will stir
up a huge debate with this issue of every Nigerian being corrupt but let all
who read the earlier post on corruption and are without sin cast the
first stone!
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