Street fighting should not happen in some places. The corridor of power is one of them. Nigeria’s  number one citizen is conscious of this rule, otherwise he would have been the nation’s  foremost fighter. It means he knows Nigerians must talk, so he’s wisely learnt to let them have their say while he goes about his duties as best as he can. And that brings to mind one of his cabinet ministers. The woman in charge of aviation spoke to Nigerians the other day: “Nigeria’s airspace is safe. So when you hear bad comments that drunks and addicts are making that are not the reality, it is very annoying.” That was what Princess Stella Oduah said on the network of an independent television station. It was in the aftermath of a recent air crash and the criticisms that had followed it. Oduah went on to give reasons why Nigeria’s airspace is safe, contrary to what critics said. Such reasons include aviation’s international certifications, the best of which she said Nigeria has. She mentioned the various projects undertaken by her ministry to improve the aviation sector. And truly, travellers have corroborated what they see in places like the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos. They mention structures, refer to better facilities and gave kudos to the minister. When this latest air mishap happened though, Nigerians on the other side of the table also said it the way they saw it. Then the minister reacted. She didn’t pretend she had no particular person in mind when she had name-called. But as this piece will argue, the best of reasons the minister gave as to why the Nigerian airspace is safe was lost in the name-calling adventure which, for this writer, didn’t cast her in the best of light; and if she means to react to every critic this way, she may have close to 160 million Nigerians to name-call, one by one.

Take the lawmakers in Abuja for instance. They sat in their dome and said Nigeria witnessed a record of seven fatal air mishaps with two averted within the last two and a half years under the watch of the minister, and it has to stop. That means the aviation minister will have to name-call the entire National Assembly. And there’re individual heavyweights to contend with. Senator Smart Adeyemi said the latest crashed aircraft was on a “test flight” which meant “somebody might have thought of making quick money”. So, he concluded that “corruption is responsible for the air crashes in Nigeria.”

The minister will have to contend with him. And she has to take on the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, who said, “In sane places, when things happen, people take responsibility and resign. Others commit suicide for the failure of their subordinates.” The minister also has to take care of Senator Jibrilla Mohammed Bindo who said it was embarrassing for the aviation minister to say that air mishaps are inevitable because “she doesn’t know what it takes to be a minister, she should resign”. The minister won’t leave out a female senator, Oluremi Tinubu, who forgot about gender and had said Oduah should stop frightening Nigerians by saying that accidents are inevitable. “Why should she say so?…Does that mean that each time we travel we will be afraid? This should be investigated and we should stop playing politics with the lives of people and address the issues.” And Senator Olu Adetumbi must be on the minister’s list of people to combat because he had said, “We are tired of this obscene media propaganda about achievements in the sector just to promote the government and the minister while we keep having crashes every day.” The list of critics is longer. Point is, if the minister got so angry as to publicly abuse a Nigerian, it means she has much to borrow from President Goodluck Jonathan because people will yet say worse.

Oduah is one of this writer’s favourite ministers in the current cabinet. One should state why: There was a boy who once asked his elder brother for an item. The elder brother didn’t want to give him because he too needed the same item. The boy was already on his way out, but his elder brother called him back and gave him the item. That was years ago. The boy formed an  impression of his elder brother from that singular act, and years later if anyone lays complaints about his elder brother he never bothers with such complaints. To him, his elder had once done good, so he can’t ever do any wrong. The aviation minister did something not long ago. Authorities in the United Kingdom had maltreated Nigeria’s Arik Airline. Oduah didn’t engage in street fighting with any foreign authorities over the matter. She had simply looked at the books of air travel agreements between both countries and gave to the British Airways what the UK authorities gave to Arik, pound for pound. Many Nigerians had felt good about the princess who gave them a sense of pride. For many who are in the silent majority, not the vociferous few who are active in all forms of media, Oduah can’t do any wrong. This writer is one of them.

It’s unfortunate air mishaps happen this much. Truth is, this sector, like other sectors in the county, has several issues plaguing it, many of them far down in the rubble that it would take a careful step-by-step clearing for any aviation minister to get to see them and deal with them effectively. Knowledgeable people in aviation know that aviation safety encompasses theory, investigation, categorisation of flight failures, and the prevention of such failures through regulation, education, and training. Safety also has aspects such as institutions that deal with matters of civil aviation regulations which require pilots and aircraft to be examined and licensed, for accidents to be properly investigated, and for the establishment of safety rules and navigation aids. Yet, there are unforeseen aviation safety hazards. These include solids encountered in flight that can damage engines and other parts of an aircraft. There are also misleading information, engine failure, lightning, structural failure of the aircraft, stalling in which the wings of an aircraft fail to produce enough lift, fire, ground damage caused by ground support equipment to the fuselage and wings, runway accidents, acts of terrorism, military action, as well as airport design and location. Add to these hazards the Nigerian factor, the type reportedly responsible for the fatal crash of Associated Airlines plane. The airplane had been out of action for about a month. But because of the lure of money, the pilot ignored all the danger signs and turned a “test flight” to a commercial flight. The consequence is what Nigerians now mourn.

Apart from the fact that the aviation minister can’t afford to respond to every critic, if she allows herself to be dragged into this type of street fight, it won’t make her come out looking good. She would be doing harm, not to her critics who will yet say whatever they want to say, but to her own image and in the process disappoint many whose goodwill she has earned. Here’s a reason: A man in an organisation got involved in an online argument with a colleague. The matter dragged for days and heated up to a point where a younger man commented that he was shocked a person he respected so much was involved in the bout of words. Now, there are Nigerians, as pointed out earlier, who have tremendous goodwill for Oduah, especially many who never met her but saw evidence of her efforts at the airports. Leaving her duty to engage critics may be a let-down for such people as it had been for the young man referred to above. The young man’s comment did chasten one of the combatants, made him to voluntarily tender an unconditional apology to his opponent and from that moment learnt to keep his peace when he comes against disagreeable comments; it was because he decided never again to disappoint reasonable but silent observers by refusing to be drawn into avoidable encounters, verbal or written.

Oduah may have to change tactic, by presenting her facts of performance in a more proactive, strategic manner rather than do the same by way of reacting to critics. Now, princesses have a cultured  manner of going about their business, and some things are sure beneath them. Meanwhile, Oduah can do with an active mouthpiece who takes her fight to critics. Also, she needs to be supported to succeed in the turnaround process she has begun, rather than be haunted for the rot in this sector that didn’t start today, and will take time to fix. And by the way, the boy who doesn’t ever think his elder brother is wrong, and the man who chose to opt out of street fights in the said online encounter are one and the same person – this writer
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