This first article appeared in the Daily Sun of Thursday 6 March 2014
Many years ago, one Onitsha
based minstrel musician who went by the trade name Show Promoter produced a
musical album with one of the tracks which he titled “James and John”.
Stella Oduah: probably wondering why those who do good have to die in Nigeria
Photo Credit: Sahara Reporters
In that track, he told the
story of twin brothers named James and John.
One of them was a good man and the other one was a bad man. He related the sad story of James who was a
good man and how his life was wickedly snuffed out by his wicked brother John. While James suffered pain and early death, John
the wicked man continued to live his life and enjoy himself.
The refrain of the track
went this way:
“If you do good, you die
He narrated how John worked
hard all his life. He achieved success
through his hard work and went about doing good to people, helping them to
achieve personal success without claiming personal glory. He even helped his twin brother John.
But John was jealous of his
brother’s successes and the public acclaim which he has achieved in his life by
his personal efforts and good works.
John, therefore, plotted and killed James by poisoning his food. On killing James, John took over all his
brother Jame’s property and estates and started enjoying himself out of the
sweat of his brother whose blood is in his palms.
The case of Stella Oduah,
the immediate past Minister of Aviation is a lot like the story of James and
John in the musical track quoted above.
If you do good, you die and if you do bad, you stay alive and continue
to enjoy your life in the world.
Otherwise, how else can you
explain the fact that we have had a Ministry of Aviation for more than four decades
and until Stella Oduah became Minister of Aviation, our airports were merely
glorified luxury bus stations with such luxury bus stations as ABC Transport
being far more organized with cleaner environment, better infrastructure and
audible public address system. The size
of our airport buildings was suitable for hundred years ago. The buildings and premises were filthy,
leaking, cobwebs everywhere and broken seats and in some places with no seats
at all to accommodate even ten percent of the passengers.
Before Stella Oduah, our
airports were rated the most dangerous in the world and for many seasons, the
United States officially barred its airlines from coming to Nigeria and barred
Nigerian airlines from flying the American route because of poor regulation.
Stella Oduah is one Minister
in the Jonathan administration who immediately caught a vision of the
transformation agenda of President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. She understood clearly that there would be no
claim of transformation if each Minister and Ministry did not personally use
their good offices, agencies and budgets to transform the services provided by
their ministries, departments and agencies to Nigerians.
She embarked on the
herculean task of transforming all our airports.
Those of us who have the
opportunity to carry out our businesses by flying in and out of airports around
Africa long discovered that the only airport comparable to Nigerian airports
before Stella Oduah became Minister of Aviation is the Central African Republic
Airport.
Now what do we have,
simultaneously, all the airports are being renovated to world standards. More airports have been conceived and are
being built.
After doing all these, we
have chosen to kill Stella Oduah just like John killed James out of
jealousy. Among those who are acting
John here include Femi Fanikayode who was Minister of Aviation before
Stella. He has been one of the most
vocal “kill Stella Oduah” groups. Like
John in the musical quoted above, Femi Fanikayode is green with envy for Stella
Oduah’s achievements which exposes the fact that in his days as Aviation
Minister, they budgeted and stole the total budget without doing any single
thing with the funds allocated to the Ministry of Aviation.
Stella Oduah’s achievements
are certainly intimidating. It would
take real men – those types of men that Femi Fanikayode and his irk cannot
measure up to - to face the moral challenge posed by her success to those who
were Aviation Ministers before her.
When Femi Fanikayode and
other previous Aviation Ministers marauded our Aviation budget, Nigerian
airlines were dying daily like flowers plucked out of the flowering plant. The industry was in a comatose. However, since Stella Oduah became Aviation
Minister, what Nigerian airlines had done had been to wax strong. Arik Air has since become a regional
leader. Aero in spite of all its
political and financial challenges caused by the Obasanjo administration had
continued to fly and keep jobs and help ease the backlog in the Aviation
industry. Dana Airlines, against our
well known theory during people like Fanikayode of ‘crash and crash out’, has
continued to fly, having recovered their licences after due diligence.
After the Dana crash, the
airline passed through the process and regained their licence. When they showed sign of inconsistency with
certain laws and policies of the industry, they were suspended again. As soon as they proved themselves worthy to
fly, they are back in the air. During
Fanikayode and before him, once you crash or face other regulatory issues, you
are gone under the mud. No Minister bothered
to ensure that due diligence is done on the airlines until it is into total
decay and would not be able to rise again like Air Nigeria, etc.
It may also be instructive
to consider from the standpoint of what people like General Obasanjo are doing
presently, that there is the possibility that when he set up the
Yar’Adua/Jonathan presidency, he had not meant that they would succeed. It seems that the success of Jonathan has
rubbished the eight years of brigandage on Nigeria of Obasanjo’s administration;
hence the man who is doing some good at all must die like James for doing good.
During the Obasanjo regime,
The Speaker of the House Representatives, Mr. Dimeji Bankole was accused of
collecting a total of fifty billion Naira loan from banks with ten billion
Naira of the total being collected during the last two weeks of his
tenure. This money was shared and
stolen. Mr. Bankole told the world press
that no court of law can convict him.
Today, he walks a free man and no mention is made of this monumental
corruption. Another good case of doing
evil and living to enjoy your loot against the backdrop of doing good and dying
as in the case of Stella Oduah.
Some of Jonathan’s Ministers
are NOT performing optimally or at least, not anywhere near Stella Oduah. Is there a chance that to ensure that
Jonathan fails and suffers the fate of James, his best team players such as
Stella Oduah should be given the red card and thrown off the pitch of play to
ensure that the team is defeated?
Stella Oduah, like the proverbial
James, was removed following allegations of fraud in the purchase of two
necessary bulletproof cars for official use in spite of the overwhelming
evidence of achievements and incomparable top rate performance. Femi Fanikayode who did nothing with the
entire budget that the Aviation Ministry received in the years he was Aviation
Minister left office at a normal termination of his tenure.
Interestingly, this is the
case with everything Nigerian. It is a
bad way to run a country. When integrity
and performance is vilified and failure, indecency and non-performance in
public office are secured, it is a dangerous call to chaos and anarchy.
May be, President Jonathan
need to watch it. The question he should
always ask is “is there a chance that the Minister being vilified is my hand
that is being cut off to ensure that I am incapacitated? In military axiom, “you do not fight powerful
foe directly. You start by destroying
their key loyalists and allies through subversion, blackmail and
assassinations”.
I am personally worried that
my children may grow up to learn that if they do good, they die and if someone
else does evil, such a person would live in the world and enjoy their lives.
Francis Nmeribe is an author
and blogger and writes out of Lagos.
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