WASHINGTON (CodeWit) – The facts are the focus as part of a trend in journalism spreading from the United States to many places around the world.
Journalists have always faced up to facts, but a new wave of fact-checking journalism has gained prominence in the past decade to counter misleading or outrageous claims of political figures.
Notable among these are FactCheck.org, and PolitiFact, which won a Pulitzer Prize in 2009. Following the notoriety in the United States, similar fact-checking news organizations have sprung up on every continent, gaining attention in places ranging from Egypt to Australia, Chile and France, according to a Duke University study.
The study led by Bill Adair, a Duke faculty member who was a founder of PolitiFact at the Tampa Bay Times, identified 59 fact-checking groups globally, of which more than 15 are in the United States.
“It really surprised me how much fact-checking is going on around the world,” Adair told AFP. “I had no idea there was this much, particularly in places such as Eastern Europe. These sites are using fact-checking and are holding politicians accountable for their promises. It’s really become a strong movement in journalism.”
Recognizing the growth, the Poynter Institute journalism school has organized the first global fact-checking summit, to be held in June in London. “Fact-checking is quickly becoming an important new form of accountability journalism,” said Poynter president Tim Franklin.
“Poynter will play a leading role to help journalists do their best work and foster the growth of fact-checking, which is vital to democracies around the world.”
A watershed moment for fact-checking was the 2009 Pulitzer awarded to PolitiFact, which closely monitored claims made during the 2008 presidential race with Barack Obama and John McCain.
– Truth-O-Meter – PolitiFact used its “Truth-O-Meter,” which sought to assess the veracity of claims by both candidates and others. For example, the site labeled as false claims that Obama was born outside the United States, but also took him to task for misstating facts such as declaring that the US government spends less on energy research than the pet industry on its products.
Other fact-checkers use their own symbols — The Washington Post assigns up to four “Pinocchios” for false or misleading statements. FactCheckEU assigns ratings such as “rather daft” and “insane whopper,” such as one from Italian activist Beppe Grillo that a third of the EU budget was for translations.
AfricaCheck, a regional service supported by the AFP Foundation and the Omidyar Network, has assessed claims of land reform in South Africa and economic data from Nigeria, as well as pointed to a lack of evidence in claims that some cities were the “rape capital of the world.”
Fact-checking websites often emerge from projects and newspapers or other media organizations, and in most cases are subsidized either by the news organization or outside funding.
“It is a vital public service but it is not profitable,” Adair said. Fact-checking is not immune from the controversies surrounding all kinds of journalism.
Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman, who has seen some of his claims questioned by fact-checkers like PolitiFact, has been a vocal critic. “The people at PolitiFact are terrified of being considered partisan if they acknowledge the clear fact that there’s a lot more lying on one side of the political divide than on the other,” Krugman wrote in 2011.
“So they’ve bent over backwards to appear ‘balanced’ — and in the process made themselves useless and irrelevant.” MSNBC commentator Rachel Maddow has also vented her ire at PolitiFact for rating as “half true” a statement about gays facing the possibility of being fired.
“Fact-checking has to count for something and PolitiFact, you are ruining it for everyone,” she said last year. And PolitiFact drew ire when it said the 2011 “Lie of the Year” was a claim by Democrats that Republicans “voted to end Medicaid,” the health program for the needy.
“PolitiFact Has Decided That A Totally True Thing Is The ‘Lie Of The Year,’ For Some Reason,” said a Huffington Post headline. – More art than science –
Lucas Graves, a University of Wisconsin journalism professor who studies fact-checking, says criticism does not diminish the value of fact-checking. “It’s hard to establish something in a way that no one can disagree with,” Graves told AFP.
“It is especially true when it comes to the kinds of facts that politicians traffic. All the fact checkers I’ve talked to are open about this, they say it is as much art as science.”
Graves, who is working on a second phase of the study and will present findings at the London summit, maintained that “while it is impossible to nail down facts in a way to convince everyone, it is even worse to leave things in a way for politicians to spin any way they want.”
Graves said that the current wave of fact-checking is about a decade old, fueled by the Internet, the notion is a long tradition in journalism. “What will be interesting to watch is how much this becomes a regular part of political reporting,” Graves said.
So far, he observed that even though fact checking has had an impact, “it hasn’t stopped politicians from lying.”
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
In 2003, Femi-Kevin’s headmaster sent me an email forecasting that he would fail his GCSE exams because he had done so badly in his mock exams. I wrote an angry response and asked him: “Are you God? How are you so sure he would fail? Is it because he is black?†After he took the exams, God did something strange. Before his results came out officially, he showed them to me in a dream; subject-by-subject and grade-by-grade. The results were excellent: Femi-Kevin got so many “A†grades.
The next day at the dinner-table, I announced to everyone that I had seen Femi-Kevin’s GCSE results. They thought the results had come out. But I told them they had not; nevertheless, had God revealed them to me. Then I gave them the details. Six weeks later, Femi-Kevin’s results were officially released. Guess what? They were exactly as it had been shown to me.
Revelation knowledge
God reveals things of his choosing to us in dreams. This is part of the privilege of walking with him. Job says God uses dreams to “open the ears of men.†(Job 33:16). He also uses them to give us invaluable understanding of his works. What we learn from dreams enable us to pray constructively in order to prevent imminent evil. Alternatively, it enables us to pray in order to ensure that God’s will is done in our lives.
Dreams can give us valuable insight of what is happening in the realms of the spirit. Indeed, we can pray to God for such revelations because the spiritual state is the true state of everything. You may want to know spiritually the man who is proposing marriage to you. You may want to know the spiritual character of the house you just moved into. You may want to know the reason why there is a big mountain in your path. God often answers such prayers through dreams.
Remember this: God is the one who tells us what we need to know but cannot know naturally. Thus, Jesus said to Peter: “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.†(Matthew 16:17).
Frightening dreams
Some will tell you if the dream is frightening, it is not from God. This is not necessarily true. God occasionally terrifies us with warnings in dreams. (Job 33:16). He uses them to wake us up when we are complacent, too relaxed and are not paying enough attention to him. He uses them to make us face disturbing truths about ourselves. Accordingly, Job laments: “When I say, ‘my bed will comfort me, my couch will ease my complaint,’ then you scare me with dreams and terrify me with visions, so that my soul chooses strangling and death rather than my body.†(Job 7:13-15).
The fact that you saw someone in a dream does not mean the dream is about him.
God also scared Nebuchadnezzar in dreams. He said: “I saw a dream which made me afraid, and the thoughts on my bed and the visions of my head troubled me.†(Daniel 4:5). This did not happen because Nebuchadnezzar was demon-possessed. It happened because God wanted to impress an urgent message on him. Similarly, God troubled Pilate’s wife in a dream in order to warn Pilate not to participate in the persecution of Jesus. She said to her husband: “Don’t have anything to do with that innocent man, for I have suffered a great deal today in a dream because of him.†(Matthew 27:19).
However, most scary dreams are not from God. Hidden areas of our subconscious mind; things we see, watch or hear; areas of anxiety; these can all produce frightening dreams. Some dreams provide avenues for tormenting demonic spirits to harass us and rob us of our inner peace and joy. The antidote for this is prayerfulness and spiritual fervency. God says: “Awake, awake, O Zion, clothe yourself with strength. Put on your garments of splendor, O Jerusalem, the holy city. The uncircumcised and defiled will not enter you again.†(Isaiah 52:1).
Busybody dreams
Soulful dreams are produced by the natural processes of our mind, will and emotions. When we think, not all our thoughts originate from the Holy Spirit. Therefore, when we sleep, the natural mind continues to process our natural thoughts. As a matter of fact, when we are preoccupied with something or someone, it shows up in our dreams: “For a dream comes through much activity.†(Ecclesiastes 5:3). King James calls this a “multitude of business.†Accordingly, God warns: “(Don’t) listen to your dreams which you cause to be dreamed.†(Jeremiah 29:8).
Since our spirits never sleeps, if you sleep in front of a television, you are likely to dream what is showing in it. Dreams are often the product of our subconscious mind revealing to us our deepest, innermost thoughts. (David) says: “my heart also instructs me in the night seasons.†(Psalm 16:7). If you spend the day watching horror films, you might have a horrific dream at night. During times of intense spiritual warfare, you may also dream about situations involving dark forces of the enemy.
The human mind is a dream factory. Therefore, be careful not to put too much reliance on dreams for the primary way that God talks to us in these last days is by his word: “For in the multitude of dreams and many words there is also vanity.†(Ecclesiastes 5:7). By the same token, don’t allow yourself to be derailed by the dreams of others: “Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are in your midst deceive you. For they prophesy falsely to you in my name; I have not sent them, says the LORD.†(Jeremiah 29:8-9).
Since what we dwell on during the day often appear in our dreams, it is important to spend our waking hours meditating on the right things. God counsels that we should procedurally meditate on the scriptures: “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.†(Joshua 1:8).
As we digest relevant scriptures during the day, our minds will continue during the night to assimilate the truths we have imbibed. The psalmist says: “I remember your name in the night, O LORD, and I keep your law. (Psalm 119:55). As a matter of fact, we can even meditate on the scriptures by listening to them and dreaming about them while we are sleeping.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
This is not a sanctimonious attempt to earthen the drooling failings of Nigeria. The Nigeria I know is as clumsily and nebulously unwieldy as its problems. From the patrician orbit of leadership to the thrashed stratum of followership Nigeria is an anti-climactic nightmare. Nigeria’s notoriety in classical nay fabulous malfeasance precedes it no doubt; its disease, however, is from a degenerative virus all Nigerians carry.
The essays of this infamous quartet are all doom and gloom. They seem to have a predilection for announcing only negative realities, and not that they care about the harrowing plights of Nigerians but because it gives them schad-en freude; a feeling of pleasure that they are far removed from the woes of the country. Another thing about this quartet of hypocrites is arrogance. They assume that they have a firm grasp of Nigeria and its teething troubles even more than Nigerians living in Nigeria. Their analyses of the country are always outlandish, groggy and rebarbative. This pretentious quartet cry louder than Nigerians living in Nigeria whenever there is a tragic occurrence in the country. They immediately claim vicarious liability, and stick out their claws to maul the government. Not that “the kernel of the gun-ho†means anything to them, but it satisfies their “megalomanic†hankerings. It gives them a feeling of importance that an army of uninformed and unsuspecting Nigerians is cheering them on in their vile campaign of bringing Nigeria down. Apart from this gang, there are other Nigerians abroad whose job- owing to their joblessness and frustration- is to vituperatively mow down the government. Not that they know the ABC of governance, but they assume that because they are abroad it confers on them some intellectual stuff to speak about subjects they are patently blind to. This article is not written to malign anybody, but to draw the attention of those mention here to the disaster of their pens. Writing is a great art which has subliminal effects; we must write responsibly and not incite readers to take the treacherous path of doom. Nigeria stinks, we know that, but we do not need our brothers and sisters abroad to scream it into our ears all the time for that is sheer skulduggery. We can take more constructive paths in discussing the litany of issues in Nigeria. Let’s be more feeling and involved for we show ourselves hypocrites when we are physically divorced from a cause that we claim to fight for. _____________________________________________________________________________- Fredrick Nwabufo is a writer and a poet. He writes from Abuja. Email:fred…@yahoo.com. 08167992075.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
How positively you see others is linked to how happy, kind-hearted and emotionally stable you are, according to new research by a Wake Forest University psychology professor.
“Your perceptions of others reveal so much about your own personality,†says Dustin Wood, assistant professor of psychology at Wake Forest and lead author of the study, about his findings. By asking study participants to each rate positive and negative characteristics of just three people, the researchers were able to find out important information about the rater’s well-being, mental health, social attitudes and how they were judged by others.
The study appears in the July issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Peter Harms at the University of Nebraska and Simine Vazire of Washington University in St. Louis co-authored the study.
The researchers found a person’s tendency to describe others in positive terms is an important indicator of the positivity of the person’s own personality traits. They discovered particularly strong associations between positively judging others and how enthusiastic, happy, kind-hearted, courteous, emotionally stable and capable the person describes oneself and is described by others.
“Seeing others positively reveals our own positive traits,†Wood says.
The study also found that how positively you see other people shows how satisfied you are with your own life, and how much you are liked by others.
In contrast, negative perceptions of others are linked to higher levels of narcissism and antisocial behavior. “A huge suite of negative personality traits are associated with viewing others negatively,†Wood says. “The simple tendency to see people negatively indicates a greater likelihood of depression and various personality disorders.†Given that negative perceptions of others may underlie several personality disorders, finding techniques to get people to see others more positively could promote the cessation of behavior patterns associated with several different personality disorders simultaneously, Wood says.
This research suggests that when you ask someone to rate the personality of a particular coworker or acquaintance, you may learn as much about the rater providing the personality description as the person they are describing. The level of negativity the rater uses in describing the other person may indeed indicate that the other person has negative characteristics, but may also be a tip off that the rater is unhappy, disagreeable, neurotic — or has other negative personality traits.
Raters in the study consisted of friends rating one another, college freshmen rating others they knew in their dormitories, and fraternity and sorority members rating others in their organization. In all samples, participants rated real people and the positivity of their ratings were found to be associated with the participant’s own characteristics.
By evaluating the raters and how they evaluated their peers again one year later, Wood found compelling evidence that how positively we tend to perceive others in our social environment is a highly stable trait that does not change substantially over time.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
Ayodeji Rotinwa recently took a bite out of the Big Apple, the world’s most famous megalopolis
My Empire State experience started from hundreds of feet in the air. On plane descent, the city mushroomed into form, a beautiful, reverential sight that locked my attention in a vice grip. She was sprawled out majestically, tattooed by a bedazzling melange of amber, silver and azure-toned lights, in such close proximity and curious file that they seemed to be trying to coalesce into a message of words and familiar shapes.
Such a magical constellation of lights, I had never before, seen. Also obvious from on high were the grand, rich greens of what I guessed was the storied Yankee Stadium, the hallowed home and ballpark of famous baseball team, the New York Yankees. Nearing touchdown, the heartbeat of the city became audible, first, faint and then building up to a ferocious tattoo. Sounds of cars, machines and metropolitan activity seared the night air, piercing the formidable shell of the aircraft. My watch read 11.45PM, Eastern Time. The city was not asleep.
But, Am I Really Here Yet?
At once glaring and fairly unnerving were the stark similarities between New York and Lagos, whence I had flown. For the entire fifty-odd minutes of my journey, from the airport to the residence I was going to stay for the duration of my trip, I did not feel like I was in another country. The semblance in physical structures was almost alarming. I could very well have been on Kingsway Road, Ikoyi, navigating a turn to head unto the new Lekki-Ikoyi Bridge!
My discomfiture did not end there. Days following my arrival, my suspicions that both cities must have been separated at birth became corporeal. Lagos and New York breathe the same air. They share the same pulse. They are sister melting pots of culture, peoples and beliefs, separated only by miles, sea and most obvious, superior management.
New York, New York
New York City (NYC) is the bustling, roaring engine of the state of New York. It consists of five boroughs, each of which is a county of New York State- The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island. The city and state were named after 17th century Duke of York, future King James II of England.
The largest gateway for immigration in the United States, inhabited by 8.3 million people (as of the city’s last census count of 2012), with over 800 languages spoken, and exerting significant influence over commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and entertainment. On a global scale, it is undoubtedly the cultural capital of the world.
On arrival, I found that NYC was more than had been written about it and saw why it was elusive to capture in words. The city does not stop to catch its breath. It moves, shakes, stretches repeatedly, over and over again. Seconds after exiting the Bus Terminal, I was swallowed up into its thick grove of buildings- some short, stout, many stretched out to touch the sky- assaulted by bright lights (in the morning, mind you) music playing from different directions, larger-than-life advertisements and loud conversations in many different languages.
Just about every sidewalk, boulevard, crossing is submerged in a sea of people. An interesting scene plays out when the pedestrian traffic light holds the tide up and after a short while, signals movement via a white ‘WALK’ sign.
A deluge of people bursts forth onto the zebra crossing, frothing, fast. It can be a trancelike sight when closely watched, repeatedly. I soon learnt to move in step with the tide, a crucial skill in walking around (which one has to do, a lot!) and living to tell the tale with no mangled toes.
NY Living
The city is a junk food enthusiast’s dream. Available from block to block and on the streets, in generator-powered carts, are calories/cholesterol-suffused offerings. A healthy meal is hard to find and not in the measure of variety and relatively cheap range of fast food options. After binging on fried chicken wings, pizza, pancakes, tortilla chips, burgers, hotdogs, and tacos for a few days, I teetered on the edge of a gastro-intestinal crisis.
Succour, after beating long trails, came in form of Chinese and (Hallelujah!) Nigerian food. The former, which I discovered in Bar Shabu, an upscale bar/dinner house in Queens, (an hour by train from NYC) was a one-of-a-kind culinary experience. Food was served, partially raw and had to be cooked by customers, to their liking, in a hotpot rigged into the dinner tables for the purpose.
Nigerian food, on the other hand, I found in an artsy restaurant in Brooklyn, aptly named Buka. Music from the now-defunct MoHits Group blaring overhead, not quite believing my luck, I dived, palm wine bottle in hand, into familiar dishes of akara, peppered snails and a gigantic platter of goat meat pepper soup.
Despite its reputation, I found NY to be genuinely safe. Prodded by an appetite for danger, adventure and a desire to see what the city was like when dark had fallen, accompanied by my host and friend, Mohammed, I ventured into the night severally. Sure, I was street-smart (Lagos living having taught me a few hard lessons) and a seedy character did sidle up to me in the subway, one hand, perhaps ominously, in his pocket that could have been hiding a knife, maybe, but other than that, there were no incidents of note.
“You have to tip!” Mohammed constantly reminded me throughout my stay. The cab driver, the bar tender, the waitress and just about every service provider, is entitled to a tip, sometimes, for no good reason and they would let you know this, surreptitiously via body language, lingering or a solicitous stare. The city’s service class is crawling with aspiring capitalists.
The most effulgent characteristic of the city, bar its culture, is its public transportation system. Clean, cheap, fast, efficient, reliable and very easy to find, there are trains available to take you anywhere within the five boroughs of New York.
An impulsive shopper’s wallet would be ravaged by the allures New York has on offer.
A city with a street called ‘Fashion Avenue’ obviously takes appearances seriously.
With the world’s largest store, Macy’s and other multiple-level, diverse stores catering to every manner of personal taste and style under the sun, being spoilt for choice is a foregone conclusion.
The Sights
One simply does not visit New York without reaching the summit of its crown jewel of famous structures- the Empire State Building. A 102-story skyscraper, deriving its name from a nickname for New York, the Empire State, it is the one of the tallest buildings in the world. (23rd tallest) It used to be the tallest building in the world until 1970 when it was dislodged by a few more stories of the North Tower of the World Trade Centre.
Countless online guides to New York had told of the building’s legend when I did some travel reconnaissance while still in Lagos. I had been sceptical. A lot of things are exaggerated on the internet. Not this time, though. On reaching the 88th floor observatory deck, I was momentarily awe-struck by the breath-taking view of the concrete jungle below. Everything seemed impeccably in place (like well-arranged Lego blocks) and a shining testament to the amazing offspring the marriage of man and technology can produce.
A steaming cauldron of flashing lights, dancing images and words, Times Square is a feast for the senses. Alongside the digital media billboards in varied, dizzying colours everywhere I turned, there were go-go dancers on one corner bedecked in burlesque finery, men painted in the rich teal colour of the Statue of Liberty, standing, immobile, torch in hand, opened duffel bag filled with dollars, at their feet, break-dancers, in motion, their backs kissing the sidewalk.
Amidst the city’s thick throng of structures, people and technological triumphs, lies an untainted oasis of nature- Central Park. A rolling, lush carpet of green tended by chirping birds and cloaked with soothing tranquility, it is an irony to the rest of New York.
Aboard the Staten Island Ferry – the John F. Kennedy, specifically – taking off from the Whitehall Terminal, Manhattan, for a bargain price of free, enrapturing views of Lower Manhattan, the Brooklyn Bridge, Wall Street’s skyscrapers and most memorable, the iconic Statue of Liberty made for a stimulating afternoon.
The New Yorker
New Yorkers are an eclectic bunch. Loquacious, hare footed, au courant, ennobled by their acceptance and absorption of different, rich, diverse cultures, I hazard they may be a superior ‘species’ of Americans, in a refined sense. New York is truly an international city.
During my short visit of 15 days, I met a Jamaican, Chinese, two Italians, and three South Africans and overheard conversations in the subway, on the street, in bars, in different boroughs, in German, Afrikaans, French, Creole, Russian, Korean, and other languages that my ears could not discern.
In my interactions, I found that it was the immigrants I met that were most enlightened not only about the society in which they live but the world, at large.
They are also a driven sect. My host and friend, Mohammed, Shannon, Tracy and Asanda (the 3 aforementioned South Africans) for instance, I discovered, are assiduously climbing the ladder of corporate America and are currently in moderate-level positions of one of the biggest multinational professional services firms in the world, PricewaterhouseCoopers. Quinnie, the Chinese, had just recently started her own risk management firm. She is 25 years old.
Conversely, most Americans I came across, bar one, a worldly film critic, seemed unconcerned with anything beyond their borders except the many wars in which their country is embroiled and whether or not they were ‘winning’.
At a dinner with Mohammed’s friends, in a dingy, garishly decorated Italian restaurant, one, an owlish dilettante (I later discovered) with the grimness of a judge, asked me if smartphone technology had come to Africa and was it true we had an indigenous telecommunications industry.
Sated with generous amounts of Pinot Grigio, I did not take offence but instead schooled her on the success story of a certain Mike Adenuga and the blistering inroads global brands like Samsung, Blackberry, and more recently, Apple, are making in the Nigerian telephony market.
New York waits for no one. It is sweet and sour. It is a never-ending slideshow of surprises. It is a conflation of contradictions.
Blink and you’ll miss everything. It is all these and yet, I felt right at home, finally understanding American novelist and art critic, John Updike’s aphorism about the city, “One belongs to New York instantly, one belongs to it as much as in five minutes as in five years.”
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
After 47 years, Major Chukwuma Nzeo-gwu Kaduna, stripped of rank, has resurrected as an academic major-domo. Professor Ben Nwabueze, a former minister of education, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria and a leader of The Patriots, has written a paper on the problem posed to him and others by the Northern Region. The paper is typical of what the Northerner has to put up with in national discourse—the gullibility of a self-proclaimed vanguard and the extent of venom long har-boured for, and now released and ready to be injected into, the brave new region.
It comes with its simple but gravely warped logic and represents a pitiful latter-day Southern discomfiture and outcry at Northern political versatility even at its nadir. Its unstated final solution is the rejection of everything. It began with the Amalgamation, which the Sardauna, for very different reasons, had called ‘the mistake of 1914.’
Professor Nwabueze believes the amalgama-tion was done to divide the country! ‘In other words, the effect of the 1914 Amalgamation, indeed its purpose, is to dichotomise the coun-try from its inception; to keep its northern and southern segments apart by an imaginary, artificially created boundary line, and conse-quently to disunite them in interest, attitude, outlook and vision. That defines the magnitude, the enormity, of the problem bequeathed to us by Lugard and his 1914 Amalgamation.’
But this is clearly illogical. First, how do you draw ‘an imaginary, artificially created boundary line’ between regions that according to the thrust of his own logic are still not one—no nation, no national front! It is not sensible to assume that an amalgamation is the best or right or even sensible way of keeping two parts that are already apart. And if they have to be amalgamated to bring them together, then there is no question of an “artificially created boundary line” to keep them apart, because they were not together before. It is the bringing together that is artificial
Second, if the British, for their own purposes, were more interested in keeping the two separate they would have go on to administer them as two, or even three, separate countries as indeed they had done before the amalgamation, and grant them different independence dates, so that they would have ended up only as neighbouring countries, not just regions within a single country.
According to him, the North-South divide, which, by the way, is not the same as the Northern unity with which Professor Nwabueze has drawn false equivalence and which he has been bashing, is the idea that has become an obstacle to the creation of a nation and a national front. So, why didn’t we see the rudiments of a nation and a front taking shape at the East-West divide separating their patriotic enclaves of the country?
Actually, as we all know, this East-West divide which, presumably, doesn’t have any of the North-South hang-ups and which will therefore help, and not hinder, the achievement of national unity and the creation of the national front, has not been able to date to to achieve even Southern unity or the creation of a Southern front, as Nwabueze himself has lamented, the two objec-tives of those who spearheaded the creation of the Southern Nigeria People’s Assembly last year, as liberally quoted by the professor in his essay. The idea of the nation and national unity are rooted in history.
This Northern togetherness is the result of history—even if at times it is bitter history—and the adroit politics of Sir Ahmadu Bello and his lieutenants. Detractors of the North have, not infrequently, forgotten that the peoples of the North have a history and a pre-colonial culture that have gone beyond village living and its people did not overnight get transformed from hunting-gathering to democratic republicanism.
Professor Ben Nwabueze, whom Moham-med Haruna last week said ‘is arguably Nige-ria’s best constitutional academic lawyer,’ is unfortunately remembered in some places as the most academically-decorated person to occupy the office of the minister of education in Nigeria, but, by the time he left, the least successful minister of all those who sat on that seat. And we can now see why.
In the paper, apparently armed with unassailable facts and, to him, impeccable authority, he gave the nation the benefit of his intervention on the Boko Haram phenomenon. And it is lecture time.
‘A far more grave threat to the unity of the country than the demand for power shift to the North, is the current Boko Haram insurgency which, as is generally believed, is sponsored by some political, traditional and religious leaders from the North in pursuance of an agenda aimed at promoting northern domination and the supremacy of the Moslem religion in the affairs of Nigeria,’ he said.
And his authority for such a weighty pro-nouncement was because a ‘stark revelation of this was given in an interview with the Sunday Vanguard newspaper by Chief Tobias Michael Idika, President of Kano State Chapter of Ohanaeze Ndigbo who is also President-General of the leaders of the ethnic communities resident in Kano… [and who blamed] northern politicians as well as the northern traditional and religious leaders for the Boko Haram crisis’. This is supposed to be an informed analysis by a professor of constitutional law.
And from such a pedestrian treatment of Boko Haram even for a non-professor, he jumped straight into the issue of the control of the nation’s security apparatus under General Sani Abacha, hoping, no doubt, to conflate the two in readers’ mind and prove an Islamic agenda.
He quoted extensively from His Holiness Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah’s Witness to Justice to buttress his argument: “The General had, in furtherance of that design, appointed Major Hamza Al-Mustapha as the Chief Security Officer to the Head of State; Alhaji Ismaila Gwarzo, as the National Security Adviser; Brigadier Gen. Sabo as the Director of Military Intelligence; AVM Idi Musa as Chief of Defence Intelligence; Alhaji Ibrahim Coomassie as the Inspector-General of Police; and Alhaji Zakari Biu as the head of the newly created Counter Terrorism Agency, which was assigned “the responsibility of keeping watch over enemies within who might be collaborating with enemies without to destabilize the nation.”
While clearly, this cast has, by whatever measure, flouted the nation’s federal character and even the Northern character, but it cannot be used to prove the Islamisation thesis, which is actually only a figment of the imagination of some people who think, because they read newspapers, they are also good analysts. From their names, you will assume they are all Muslims; but AVM Idi Musa, the chief of defence intelligence for General Abacha and the lynchpin of his security network is a Christian.
And in any case if, under Abacha, Nor-therners had dominated the leadership of the nation’s security service, did they, by any chance, give the nation an admission list into the nation’s security training institutions like the one we saw recently, which failed to respect any kind of character?
And the professor seemed to be interested in installing negative quota system in regional political and social development. He doesn’t just want to empower the South, he wishes to dispossess the North. If the North has ACF and the South has no similar forum, ACF becomes an instrument of national disunity that has to be countervailed.
‘Before July 2012, the South as a single entity had no organisations corresponding to those existing in the North – no one pan-southern organisation to countervail those in the North,’ the professor said…‘The formation of the Southern Nigeria Peoples Assembly (SNPA) in July 2012 is thus a significant development.’ It is therefore quite clear that what he called a significant development is not at all about bring national unity or the national closer to a front: it is, in his own words, ‘to countervail…the North.’
Nwabueze is not happy that non-Hausa people in the North speak the Hausa language, which he took pains to remind them is not indigenous to them—and, by now, it is almost turning and settling into full-fledged ethno phobia. Of course the Hausa language is not indigenous to many Northern tribes, but it is the most-widely spoken language in the country today, because of the accommodation and assimilative nature of the Hausas and the simplicity and user-friendliness of their tongue. The professor is apparently unhappy about this and about the fact that though tribe and tongue have differed in the North and in spite of the greatly trying times the region is going through, people in the North still stand in tortured brotherhood.
If the professor and others like him are really interested in forging national unity, as they always say, the fact of Northern unity should have been a welcome development. All they needed do was to replicate it in the South and lo! you are all there. But, no, they have to break up the North in order to unite Nigeria, and what this means is beyond administrative state creation; what they want is to break all the ties that bind—cultural, social, sociological, linguistic and religious. And you cannot but stand in respectful awe of their vacuousness.
Nwabueze is apparently also unhappy that ‘the idea of one “Northern Nigeria” has persisted as an entrenched fact of life, even after it (i.e. Northern Nigeria) has ceased to be a governmental entity, with a firm hold on the thinking and vocabulary of the ruling elite and political class in that part of the country, conditioning their attitudes and views in the matter of the management of the social, political and even economic relations between the two segments of the country.’
But if the fiat with which the regions were created is not acceptable to Nwabueze, because it was one act of gerrymandering by British colonialism, he should have proceeded to the logical end of that argument—that Nigeria itself is an act of gerrymandering by British colonialism, which should now, therefore, be dismantled. QED.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
Chris Aligbe gives insight into some of the ills of Nigeria’s aviation sector
In my spare time, I always tune in to the DSTV Channels showing Nigerian and African movies. I do so because the plots are usually abstractions from our society. They mirror the valueless times and the moral decadence in which we live and then pull us back to our value-laden past, when families and individuals prided themselves in their high moral standing. One of the movies featured a young Catechist (Francis Duru) who put an “innocent” girl acted by Chioma Chukwuka-Akpotha in a family way, denied her and got her thrown into the streets. But nemesis caught up with him when the truth was discovered and he was forced to marry her in conformity with the cherished values of the Christian faith.
The second was one in which Hilda Dokubo, playing a royalty role, asked one of her Chiefs this question: “Chief, if your character meets your reputation in the street, will they recognise each other?” This was awesome. The question arose because the character of the chief played out in secret was not only utterly despicable but at complete variance with his public reputation as a High Chief.
Pained by the unfortunate Associated Airline’s crash in spite of the great strides we have made in repositioning our aviation industry in the areas of airspace infrastructure and management and in regulation, I came across Fani-Kayode’s article titled “Rumours of Sacrifice, Agagu and Stella Oduah”, in which he reflected on President Jonathan, the PDP and some Aviation Ministers, past and present including himself, using the accident as a rider.
In his judgmental reflections, every person from the President to all the Ministers but himself, was unfit as it were; unknowledgeable and underperformed.
Professing his excellent knowledge of the aviation industry, Fani-Kayode said: “…there is far more to aviation than beautifying airports…” In his catechism, he catalogues safety of passengers, airworthiness of airplanes, solemn and avowed commitment to discipline, professionalism and efficiency of the aviation Parastatals as the sine qua non for success. He further contended that whenever there is an air crash for whatever reason, the Minister should accept responsibility, offer to resign, failing which she should be redeployed or sacked.
Before embarking on his long trip in self-adulation, Fani-Kayode unguardedly pokes fun at President Jonathan, not for what he has done but for his would-be inability to sack Stella Oduah, even if 1000 people get killed in six months in air crashes under her.
Turning the search light unto himself, Fani-Kayode eulogises self for being the only Minister since 2002 whose tenure did not experience any air crash. He claims that this was due “to hard-work, prayer and the grace of God”.
After taking a brush at his sworn foe and predecessor, Professor Borishade under whose tenure the devastating air crashes of 2005 and 2006 in which 453 fatalities occurred, again Fani-Kayode pointed out how, from the point he took over from Borishade, he turned off the switch of crashes as it were by putting a stop to them, thus breaking what he referred to as a “cycle” of air crashes that occur every 10 years.
In further effort at self-reconstruction, Fani-Kayode puts on a self-designed cloak of impeccable reputation in worldly and otherworldly knowledge in aviation matters and management. He further pushes self-reconstruction to the outer limits of arrogance when he refers all of us to his website to benefit from his “well researched” papers on aviation and the impact of the ethereal and spiritual on air crashes.
Expressing anger over social media comments on late Agagu, he acknowledges that Dr. Agagu’s tenure did not witness any air crash. Incidentally, Agagu ran aviation for about two years from 1999 to 2001 longer than Fani-Kayode’s seven months, and within the same Obasanjo era. However, in order to retain his reputation of being the only Minister whose tenure never experienced air crashes, Fani-Kayode has to start his count from 2002 to date rather than 1999.
If I had not been in aviation, I would have yearned for the return of Fan-Kayode’s “golden era” in our aviation sector. But I know that since 1988 when I left the Ministry of Information to join the Democrat Newspapers and, subsequently to Nigeria Airways in 1989, I have been a very close and avid watcher of the aviation industry. For close to 25 years, I have neither been physically nor psychologically away.
More critically, because of personal interest in the Obasanjo era in aviation during which Nigeria Airways was liquidated and over three thousand staff, quite a number, of whom have now died, were thrown out without their benefits up till today, followed the performance of every Minister, from Agagu and Chikwe under whose tenures I worked, to Yuguda, Borisade, Fani-Kayode, Diezeani/Hyatt, Omotoba, and Njeze to Oduah the present Minister.
The history is not too distant and the records of legacies and ignoble roles of each Minister are available.
My first encounter with Fani-Kayode was during the aviation stakeholders meeting called by Obasanjo to address the challenges of the industry in the aftermath of the crashes of 2005/2006. The meeting was held at the Villa Conference Hall. That fateful day, Obasanjo was raging with anger and, rightfully emotionally laden. Borishade was the Minister then. In a fit of anger, Obasanjo literally sacked the then Director-General of NCAA, Engr Fidelis Onyeyiri, a first-class Maintenance Licenced Engineer.
When he said to Borishade at the middle of Onyeyiri’s brief, “Minister, if these are the type of people you have in aviation, I am sorry you have no person.” Then, Obasanjo handed down bans on ADC and Sosoliso and surprisingly sanctioned Chanchangi that had no issue but left Bellview whose crash in 2005 was not only as devastating as others but also will remain one of the three classics in the cover up of evidence to sub-plant accident investigations in the history of aviation accidents in our country.
All of us present were stunned. Fani-Kayode, then Special Assistant to Obasanjo, was also there. At the end of the meeting, as we walked out, the Bellview case was the talking point. Unfortunately, there was a daring man who voiced out his anger loudly, alleging ethnic bias. Fani-Kayode who was close by not only challenged and engaged him but also threw caution and the expected public conduct of his office to the wind, when in spite of his flowing agbada charged at the man for a physical combat. It took two gentlemen to restrain him from physically attacking the man by pushing him into his waiting car.
Nobody could decipher why Obasanjo did what he did; could it be a once-in-life descent into ethnic pedestal for a man not known in life to be so inclined? This was to be fathomed in later months when we all came to realise that Fani-Kayode and the owner-manager of Bellview, Kayode Odukoya, were deeply intimate and that what happened was a precursor to what was to become the “Bellview accident investigation saga”.
Before Fani-Kayode became aviation minister, he was on a local flight from Lagos to Abuja with his armed Aide, who refused to surrender his gun and live ammunition to aviation security officers in accordance with standard best global practices. Fani-Kayode did not intervene to put his Aide on track. The then Airport Manager, the most senior and highly professional Airport Manager in FAAN then, Taiwo Okuiga, quietly informed the pilot of the flight that an armed passenger was on board. The pilot shut the engine and ordered every passenger down for security screening. The Aide was forced to surrender his weapon.
When Fani-Kayode assumed duty as Aviation Minister, his first decision was the transfer of Okuiga to Yola airport, which was not receiving flights. This was his punishment for exhibiting the highest level of professionalism in the area of security and safety of passengers as approved by ICAO and as enunciated by Fani-Kayode in his catechism of “safety of passengers, discipline and professionalism” as the hallmark of his tenure in aviation.
At the time Fani-Kayode assumed duty as Aviation Minister in 2006, the Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB) then headed by Engineer Angus Ozoka had virtually concluded investigations into the Bellview crash in Lisa Village, Ogun State in 2005. The Report by the Bureau under Ozoka unambiguously indicted Bellview Management for grievous malpractices, corner-cutting, untoward procedures, unethical practices and culpable negligence and the Airworthiness Directorate of the NCAA headed by Engineer Oduselu for poor oversight and negligence.
The Pilot was also found not to have been technically sound in his decision. Ozoka’s report was so devastating that if accepted, all those involved would never ever again qualify to operate any airline in any sane environment. More critically, the Report would have given rise to extensive litigations whose consequences are difficult to imagine.
But the highly performing Minister would not allow this Report to pass because his dear friend, the Owner/Manager of Bellview would be embarrassingly exposed and indicted. He rejected the Report, an action that the AIB Act forbids. To cover himself for this despicable act which no Minister before and after him has never done, Fani-Kayode told Nigerians that he rejected the report because he had evidence that the crash was caused by an explosive planted in the aircraft. This was the height of either mischief or ignorance and unbecoming.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
Pioneer Commissioner and Chief Executive of the Accident Investigation Bureau, Mr. Angus Ozoka, has explained why air accidents happen in Nigeria and what should be done to drastically reduce the frequency of accidents. He spoke to Chinedu Eze in Abuja. Excerpts:
Many people in Nigeria believe that there are so many accidents in the country, considering the number of aircraft we have and our level of operation. So how do we eliminate air accident in Nigeria?
It is never a good thing to have accidents. Air accident is a national tragedy and we are supposed to be in mourning and sympathise with those involved and their families and even sympathise with ourselves and Nigeria as a country.
Therefore, it makes me feel unhappy when there is an accident and people make all sorts of comments; sometimes we comment as if we are possessed. The comments, if there should be any, should be constructive, knowing that whatever we say or do after the accident will likely affect the nation’s morale, especially the travelling public and even make the bereaved unhappy. So I am not happy that whenever there is a crash people make unchecked comments.
I think we have to look at ourselves and think maybe there is need to do one or two things. There is need to be stricter in licensing airlines. We should intensify inspections of airlines; audit of airlines and surveillance of airlines. We should intensify all of those. And when I say we, I am saying the regulatory authority; all of us are involved in one way or another in influencing how airlines come on board. We should also maybe, update and make it stricter for airlines to be licensed.
This will make air operations safer because we are talking of an industry that is highly capital intensive, labour intensive, and subjects itself to competition within the industry. It is also subject to regulation both domestic and international. It is also sensitive to economic and technological advancement.
If an aircraft is involved in an accident that is not enough to rubbish the entire system; it is expected that people should be patient and let the Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB) do their work. Once they come out with their findings because a lot of people that say a lot of things now, by the time they know the truth; they will not take back what they have said and what they have said may have caused problem in different quarters.
So it is good for people to be patient and allow the accident investigators to do their work; just like medical doctors would be allowed to do their work and just like engineers doing road construction should be allowed to do their work. You don’t come out with statements that are counterfeit when nobody has known what the situation is that made the accident to happen.
A pilot, in fact, a captain who has been flying aircraft for many years in Nigeria, disclosed that sometimes an operator forces the pilot to take up a flight even when the aircraft may not be airworthy in the pilot’s judgment. How can NCAA put this into check?
It is recognised worldwide that accidents don’t just happen; that the system must have been breached before an accident happens. Part of the things that are traceable to an accident are latent issues because in accident we have active issues, the immediately cause of the accident, like pilot error; then the latent issue which you might see. It may be an issue that has to do with the board room; it might be that the airline culture is not suited to safe air operation; it might be that the airline may not have a good audit department. A good airline is supposed to have a good audit department and it should be alive to its responsibilities.
The NCAA will license an operator. He carries out certain functions as I mentioned before …the inspection audit and surveillance but the airline itself is supposed to ensure the continuous air-worthiness process because one accident can wipe out an airline, so they are supposed to be up and doing. So I will neither concur nor reject what the pilot said, but even the aviation world recognises that if an individual or an organisation decides to establish an airline it is doing so for commercial and economic consideration – profit. It is the regulatory body that is supposed to maintain a balance between the commercial activity of an airline and the safety and security aspect of the airline.
The first priority of an airline operator is profit and not safety and security, so somebody has to step in and make safety and security a priority for him. The regulator must also ensure that the operator makes money, because if he is not making money he will not be there, operating. So you allow him to make money and also control how he operates so that security and safety are not breached. So airlines that want to cut corner will be checked by strong regulations; strong monitoring; strong audit; strong surveillance.
What of a situation whereby the airline and the regulator are in cat and mouse game; a situation where the operator is not saying all the needed truth to the regulator?
The regulator is usually known as the policeman of the industry, but you know, the policeman cannot police everywhere; even if you have a million policemen in Abuja, they cannot police everywhere. If you have thousands of personnel in the office of NCAA, they cannot penetrate everywhere; so some of these things are also done in “trust”. That this man, we have examined him; we have scrutinised his papers and we have them suitable to be licensed as an operator. The operator has first responsibility to ensure he operates safely and in accordance with the law.
That is the reason I said each airline should have a good audit department and the people at the audit department should be bold enough to examine what is happening in the organisation, point out errors, point out shortcomings and ask the management to correct these errors and if at any time the aircraft is not in the best state to operate, there should be no half measures, once they are aware. It is criminal if they are aware that the aircraft is not airworthy and decide to operate.
Sometimes they may not be aware because a problem may just develop, but in aviation because of the monitoring, a lot of inspection and a lot of assessment, sudden problems rarely develop. So if all these are done the way they are supposed to be done and at the time when they are supposed to be done, the serious way which they are supposed to be done, it will be hard for problems to just develop.
The way aviation is, if the procedure is followed, it will be difficult for problems to develop all the time; they are supposed to develop infrequently.
People always say there is nothing wrong with old aircraft if it is well maintained, but now it is obvious that some of the airlines that operate old aircraft don’t properly maintain them, what action do you think NCAA should take?
First of all there should be no reason for not servicing and maintaining an aircraft; there should be no reason. The operator should not be in business. If they are all maintaining the safety standard required, then you can have as many, but here everybody wants to be known as an airline operator; everybody wants to be the chairman of his own airline, rather than pulling resources together. If they can pool resources together and halve the number of airlines in Nigeria they will be more efficient.
The fact that there is no maintenance facility or hangar in not a reason because the people going into the business ab initio knew that there is no hangar to maintain aircraft in the country. They knew that aviation is labour and capital intensive before they ventured into the business. If they didn’t know this it means that they did not do study before they went into the business. That is not excuse that people should not do what is expected from them. You must not start an airline if you are not going to abide by the rules and you can walk out of the airline business.
On ageing aircraft I will say that human being age; aircraft age. If something made by God ages, how much more things made by man. Aging aircraft is defined as at or near or above its designed year of operation. It does not mean that once it reached that designed year that it will stop operating, but what it means is that aircraft manufacturers, just like when you are designing a bridge, you say you designed this bridge for 40 years. It does not mean that after 40 years the bridge should not be used again; but that depends on the maintenance and usage.
I will prefer, from what I have known, I will like that if I am travelling by air as a passenger that the aircraft that I am using is relatively new. I will prefer that. There are two reasons for this, going by what I know as an investigator, newer aircraft can also get involved in accident, but let us say, if newer aircraft and the much older aircraft get involved in accident in similar circumstances and crash dynamics, which is how it crashed and the spread of the wreckage, there is higher possibility of survivability in the newer aircraft that in the older aircraft.
In recent years the aircraft seat has higher survivability during accident. The seat has been so modified and strengthened that they can take nine Gs to 16 Gs and everybody is supposed to have one G. A G is a force at which every object is attracted to the centre of the earth. It is the acceleration due to gravity. That is the definition of G in physics. So the seat of a newer aircraft has been constructed and designed in such a way that they are more survivable when there is a crash. This is more than in older aircraft where the Gs were, maybe Three Gs to six Gs, now it is between nine and 16 Gs.
If older aircraft and newer aircraft crash in exactly the same way, the passengers in the newer aircraft are more likely to survive the impact than the passengers in the older aircraft because the seats have improved greatly. That is number one. Number two, from the accident investigation point of view, the newer aircraft contains more variables, more information in the Flight Data Recorder (FDR). FDR will tell you the altitude of the aircraft, direction of the aircraft, height and hundreds of other variables.
If you get a Flight Data Recorder or Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) from a newer aircraft, you are more likely to know where the problem in the aircraft is likely going to be. These two pieces of equipment which make up the black box don’t tell you what caused an accident but they are a guide to investigation; they point out for you to the direction where you are supposed to be heading to find out more information about what led to the crash. It doesn’t mean you will stop at the Flight Data Recorder. You are supposed to thoroughly investigate everything. But the help of the FDR will guide you to where you should concentrate now after looking at every other thing.
Don’t you think NCAA should be as relentless in enforcing economic regulation as well as safety regulation?
The regulator at the time of licensing an operator should carry out a thorough assessment to know if he can effectively operate, carry out scheduled and unscheduled maintenance. The airline must present convincingly how it is going to operate; the number of staff members it will have and the salary they will pay them. This is because the regulator has to balance both the economic and commercial interest of the operator and safety and security aspects of the industry. Where the regulator feels that the operator is not measuring up to standard, he has the right to step them down. I am using step down instead of saying revoke their licence. They should be stepped down until when they are ready, they can be stepped up again.
I don’t think we will be talking of over regulation if we do the right thing and until the people start taking their responsibilities seriously. There was a time I was chairman of a committee in the Ministry of Aviation. Nigeria and the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) were going to develop jointly a civil aviation master plan for the country. ICAO formed its team; Nigeria formed its team. I was the chairman of the Nigerian team.
That document was developed, although before it came out I had left the Ministry. There is strong recommendation for an economic regulation of the industry. As a matter of fact, apart from the civil aviation authority, which is supposed to take care of the technical aspect of the regulation, economic regulation is supposed to be strictly monitored now.
This is because of the airline is not healthy, the industry is not healthy, so I won’t be surprised if in the near future there is an agency for economic regulation. I support that. The act has to be amended for the changes to be made. It is important to do that because it will be an overload for NCAA to do economic and technical regulation. This will give one person too much power when he is to regulate this and regulate that.
Let us go back to accident investigation, what are the benefits of the laboratory government established for Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB)?
This laboratory made it possible for Captain Muktar Usman and his team to in one week produce a preliminary report, which was made public to Nigerians. Without the laboratory AIB would have been heading to Canada or Brazil because the Embraer was manufactured in Brazil. This flight investigation laboratory came from Canada. If it was a Boeing aircraft that was involved in the accident AIB would have been heading to National Transport and Safety Board (NTSB) of the US without the laboratory to do the analysis. I have been there twice.
So this lab shortened the time of preliminary investigation. I must say that I am really sad because when there is a crash people make comments as if they are possessed. Yesterday I read a newspaper report where somebody is saying, I don’t trust what the preliminary report has stated. When you didn’t have black box they will say there is no black box. And when you have black box and you analysis the black box, they will say, I don’t trust what the black box is saying. This means that something is wrong with us.
The AIB Commissioner and Chief Executive made it very clear; that this information he passed to the public are factual information, which means that this is exactly what we have got from the Flight Data Recorder and the Cockpit Voice Recorder. Journalists asked him, tell us why this happened and he said, no we have not reached there. We have just given you factual information.
Accident investigation involved collecting of information and data both from the site, the aircraft, including the black box. You analyse the data. After analysing the data, you draw conclusions from the data and the analysis and then after that you make safety recommendations. There are these four steps; they have not even started. The requirement is that maybe in the next two weeks you come out with preliminary report. In the past it was not easy to do that, but now because of the laboratory they were able to come out with it in seven to eight days.
For somebody to criticise that report means that something is wrong with us. If it is where they have interest, they will keep silent; they will not say anything. Let me give you example, when I was in AIB investigating that fatal crash in October 22, 2005 that killed 117 people. I was forced to hand over to somebody who was the Director of Air Worthiness at NCAA when the crash happened. He was advised not to allow the plane to fly and he defied the advice. When the crash happened he was removed, only for somebody that called himself a Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to bring that same person and appointed him to head the investigation into that crash as Commissioner of AIB.
And none of these people that are talking now saw anything wrong with that appointment; none of them said anything against that. If they said anything let them produce what they said. So I don’t take their criticism seriously. To me, that is the height of hypocrisy. The people who are criticising now knew what happened. They were in the system; none condemned that action. I don’t take them seriously and that is why I said a lot of people go to the TV to make noise. Aviation is not where you go and make noise. Plane has crashed; we are supposed to be in mourning.
Why were you removed suddenly as Commissioner of AIB?
At a time everybody knew they were singing a song that it was bomb that blew down the aircraft. So when somebody was appointed Minister in 2006, he said to me, call a press briefing and announce that it was bomb that blew down the aeroplane. We were still investigating the crash then and he said that right in his office with his permanent secretary, with his aides and other staff members. It was not one on one, everybody was there. And I said I would not do it. I was still standing up; I said, Hon. Minister I will not do it. It was not a bomb I will not do it. Then he said I hope you know I can remove you. I said you are the Minister.
Those who don’t want to hear the truth will tell you the rest is history. The rest is history in the sense that when you want to remove somebody you can concoct something against that person. Fortunately I rose in the civil service from the graduate level to the highest level. So when the thing was happening I wrote and informed all the security agencies and told them that they wanted to manipulate the investigation.
I copied the Inspector General of Police, State Security Service (SSS), National Security Adviser, Senate Committee on Aviation, Secretary to the Government, Head of Service and Civil Service Commission and said they wanted to manipulate the investigation. It was only the Secretary to the Government then that wrote a letter to the Ministry of Aviation and said, why are you doing this? Nobody else said anything.
Was that the reason why there were two reports about the accident?
There were no two reports. I submitted preliminary report, submitted interim report; submitted update report. We had not gotten to conclusion and safety recommendation before I was removed. I spent over two years there. When the person that took over from me came in it is possible that the report that I submitted wouldn’t be in tandem with what he wanted so it was delayed until luckily, God in His own way made it that the person was removed and Captain Usman was appointed and completed the report, following the footsteps of what I had laid down.
Let me say this also, in Nigeria we have to understand one thing. Once there is an accident, everybody says he wants to investigate. AIB will not tell them not to investigate, but ICAO recognises only accident report and that is the one from the authentic investigating body, AIB. That is the only one ICAO recognises. Anyone can investigate what they want to investigate but the investigation must be in accordance with Annexe 13 of ICAO and Annexe 13 is holy book of AIB which they must follow religiously. One they have done that they send it to ICAO and ICAO recognises that.
If an airline has a record of its aircraft suffering engine failure more than once in a short period of time, what do you think the regulatory body should do?
If the engine failure is not due to bird strike then there is something wrong with the operations and maintenance of that aircraft. First of all it is either the engineers are not monitoring, servicing and maintaining the engine; the regulator has his responsibility to monitor but the basic daily responsibility of the airline is to ensure that the aircraft is airworthy. Even if the regulator is short of staff, he may not be responsible for the fact that there is not enough personnel in the organisation to regulate the industry.
One of the reasons is this, we have the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology, Zaria (NCAT) and they carry out ab initio training pilots, engineers and other technical trainings, but there is no single university in Nigeria that offers degree programme in aviation.
There is none. So the manpower that is available in Nigeria are those that have gone to NCAT and then the airlines take them and give them further training in-house, on the job training and then later on, outside.
But if you have institutions offering degree programmes on aeronautical engineering, aircraft maintenance engineering, aeronautical operations as basis; then you can start building up the manpower needs of the industry in the country. So if there is lack of manpower in aviation, the entire country has to look at itself why is it that no Nigerian university that offers degree programme in aviation courses. The issue of manpower should be looked at holistically.
Finally, what is the advice you will give Nigerian airlines?
Nobody asked the operators to establish an airline. They established the airlines on their own, but since they decided to establish an airline, they must maintain the standard.
Angus Ozoka
BioData
Angus Ozoka hails from Nnewi, Anambra state, Nigeria. He attended Presbyterian Ikom for his primary education and Hope Waddell Calabar and Christ the King College, Onitsha for his secondary education. He trained as a private pilot before his university education in the US and UK and obtained a degree in Aeronautics (Operations) from San Jose State University, California in 1974, having initially enrolled in the Aeronautics programme at Ohlone College, Fremont.
He also obtained a Masters degree in Civil/ Transport Engineering with specialisation in Airport Engineering from same university in 1980. He returned to Nigeria and worked with the Federal Ministry of Aviation in 1983 and between 1986 and 1988, he pursued and obtained a Masters of Philosophy (M.Phil) in Air Transport Technology/Aviation System Planning at the University of Technology, Loughborough, UK. Ozoka had a distinguished career in the Nigerian Ministry of Aviation between 1983 and 2008 when he retired from government service.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
“We have met the enemy, and he is us.”- Walt Kelly 1971
Politics is threatening the fragile Nigerian democratic process in a manner that is likely to create unprecedented levels of crises.
Overheating the polity is the popular phrase Nigerian politicians like to use against opponents. In this context, this is an appropriate description of the cumulative effect of the utterances and manouvers of elected leaders and others with responsibility for managing the democratic process.
At no time in its history has this nation needed more cohesion and consensus around vital matters on politics, governance and security at its leadership levels than now. Rather tragically, at no other time has the nation been more exposed to damaging absence of unity and commitment to national interests as it is today, 53 years since politicians quarrelled and squabbled over dates and duties, but settled around the fundamentals of political independence from the British.
It is difficult to see how the nation can be freed from the depth of despair and paralysis which its leaders have plunged it. Democracy is many things to many people, but at its barest minimum, it is a social framework for resolving basic human challenges such as conflicts over social goals, leadership and allocation of resources.
It becomes a threat to social existence when its operation becomes the source of massive quarrels over leadership and security of communities and citizens. The failure of democratic institutions and leaders to resolve conflicts opens up the nation to opportunistic threats. These compound the weaknesses of the state, and expose it to more serious threats.
Many things can, and do go wrong with democratic systems. Elected leaders fail to lead well, and nations pay a huge price for inept or corrupt leadership. Many elections are rigged, or widely disputed, and governments limp on through terms battling to justify mandates and acquire some credibility and influence. Voters and citizens are quick to judge, and difficult to please, so leaders are often stampeded into taking decisions or adopting policies which create solutions that compound problems. Not all inter-related democratic institutions work well, or together, all the time.
Failure of one or all to operate above the most minimal levels of integrity and competence compromise the entire system. Viruses such as corruption and endemic insecurity infect the entire system, and although nations can be substantially rid of corruption in vital organs of the state, this can only be achieved under very strong and committed leaders who enjoy high levels of support from critical political sectors, and who operate within a consensus framework that identifies the fight against them as national priorities.
Precisely because democratic systems are both instruments for conflict resolution and sources of conflict, they are designed to operate with flexibility and adaptability.
Values which keep the system working include broad and sustainable consensus among the political elite over the mode and goals of exercising power; inclusiveness which reduce the potential damage of partisanship and vulnerability and weaknesses of those without power; respect for laws and rules for political competition and the deployment of political power; and above all, a recognition of the fact that power does belong to the people, and the people have interests that transcend those of politicians at any time.
The Nigerian democratic system is gradually losing all the elements which should make it work. The damaging quarrels within the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, represent a disastrous failure of a major pillar which supports elite consensus, and both for good and evil, has kept the quarrelsome and cumbersome democratic system in Nigeria ticking since 1999.
The edifice which has provided a platform for power sharing and economic appropriation by the largest segment of the elite is being assaulted by a leadership which appears bent on destroying the legacies of the party.
These legacies include the creation of a broad elite concesus around a Yoruba president in 1999; the creation of expertise and competence around the manipulation of the electoral process which got more sophisticated with every election; the generation of sufficient levels of elite support and commitment to stick together in spite of serious assaults from the opposition; the establishment of a veritable resource base which target and manipulate ethno-religious and other security faultlines of the nation towards retaining power; and huge experiences in the use of state resources to weaken the opposition and compromise other vital organs of the democratic process, such as the judiciary and the legislature.
This party which had pulled many chestnuts out of its own fire now seems incapable of overcoming its problems. It appears to have boxed itself into a corner, and there is very little room for manoeuvre. President Jonathan, whose candidature for the 2015 elections is at the heart of the battle cannot step back, or out.
He has to run in 2015 because not doing so will expose him as weak and intimidated by Northern pressure. He will be powerless for the rest of his presidency, and will be fair game beyond 2015. His considerable army of beneficiaries will not hear of it anyway.
Where will they go with their largess after 2015? What will be their fate under a different administration which may have a huge appetite for inquiring into the management of national resources under this administration? Without Jonathan in power beyond 2015, what will be the fate and role of the new billionaires from the Niger Delta who have the nation’s substantial oil and gas assets in their custody today?
If Jonathan does run, the split in his party will be well and truly sealed. The PDP governors who are rebelling against his ambition will have nowhere to run under a new and improved Jonathan, post 2015. He won’t run without winning, whatever the ballots say. A stronger opposition and the rump of the PDP rebels can defeat him, provided there is a credible election in 2015. But the stakes will be too high to be left to the electoral process to decide. With incumbency, massive resources, control of security assets of the nation and a morbid fear of life in defeat, Jonathan’s people will throw everything into the fray for another term.
The opposition will also fight like it has never fought before. Starting from those rebelling against his ambitions in 2015, it is becoming clear by the day that an acceptance of reconciliation on their part will amount to the most foolhardy capitulation. It will say only one thing: they are now well and truly part of his plans for another term in 2015.
Dr Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, a commentator on national issues, wrote from Abuja
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
HI! THE story you are about to read will no doubt evoke several emotions in you by the time you finish reading next Thursday. It is the pathetic story of a young lady seeking to know her true identity. I was moved to tears after listening to this lady as she narrated her story. At the end of it all, I concluded that this was a classic case of over indulgence on the part of this lady’s grandparents as well as sheer wickedness and lack of fear of God and humanity on the part of her mother. That is if indeed she qualifies to be called a mother.
I have advised Idara (not real name) to seek for solace with God who does not abandone nor forsake anyone. However, as is our style on this column, we would love to know what our readers have to say about this story. Your contributions may help heal this lady’s broken heart as well as provide inspiration and courage for and anyone with a similar story to face the future. Happy reading!
Rich business woman
“I have no parents. I mean, I do not know my father or mother. I was not adopted by anyone so, sometimes, I feel like I just dropped from heaven. I always feel lost and alone, even though I am now married and my husband tries to console me and makes me feel wanted all the time.
As I child, it took a while for me to know that I had no father like the other children. I lived with my mother with a few other people in the house. She was a rich business woman and it took a while for me to realise that the other girls who were older than me were not her children.This was because of the frequency with which these people came and left our house. They all came to work for her or learn to trade, so they always left after a while.
A few people called my mother by my name, Mama Nkem, but most of the people, especially family members called her by other names. I learnt that my mother had four other children who were much older than me and lived abroad.They have all returned to Nigeria now.
My mother used to travel very often too. Most times, she went for her businesses and also to see my brothers and sisters. They too used to come home once a while but we were never close. it was as if they resented me for a reason which was not clear to me at the time. I used to think it was because of the wide age difference between us. My mother too never related well with me. It obvious that I was a problem to her and she never liked me. She did not treat me differently from the other people that worked with her. She would rain abuses and curses on everyone and I was not spared. Her favourite abuse for me was eyen anana ete (bastards) and that I will never do well in life and would die in the forest. And she would beat me for every little thing.
I did not like her and sometimes wondered if truly she was my mother. However, over time, I began to discover things that gave me great concern. I would wonder why I had a different name from my other siblings and why they too also have different names. For instance, the first two children bear the same name while the third and fourth have different names.
When you add my own name, it meant that my mother had children by four different men.
This added to my resentment of her person and would always wonder why she would continue to blame me for her own mistakes.However, I eventually discovered that my name was actually my mother’s maiden name. This meant that I did not have a father and it bothered me to no end, especially since she always called me a bastards and treated me like one of her helps. I think it was at this point that I started thinking about my identity and who my father was. But I did not have the courage to ask my mother for fear of what her reaction would be.
However, one day, I summoned up courage and asked about it from one of my sisters, the fourth child who was home on holiday. Of them all, it was with her that I could relate. She bought me many of the things I could boast of owning at the time and she would always advise me to ignore our mother and older sister and that one day, I will be free from them. The first time I asked her to tell me the truth about my identity, she just laughed and asked why I wanted to know. At that time, I had not informed her that I knew my surname is the same as our mother’s maiden name.
She then told me that our mother was not lucky in her relationships with the men she married and so, had married at three different times. That did it, it was her answer that encouraged me to ask my main question. Her three husbands confirmed that all my four older siblings bear three different names. If our mother had married three different men, who then is my own father or why am I not bearing the same name with at least, one of my older siblings?
Would that mean she had a fourth husband? And if that is so, why am I not bearing the man’s name? It was as if I had spoken something taboo. My sister began drilling me, demanding to know why I was asking such questions and what I wanted to do with the information. She advisd that if I loved myself, I should never allow my mother to hear such nonsense from my mouth or I would wish for death because of what she would do to me. I was so scared, I begged her not to tell her that I was just worried because of the different names we were all bearing and the fact that my mother hated me so much and was always calling me a names. The next day, she called me and told me to be patient, that with time, I will know the truth about who my mother is and that she is not in the position to tell me yet. Neither should I also discuss it ever with anyone.
I was about 12 years then and had just gained admission into Secondary School. and rather than put my heart to rest, my sister had confirmed my fears that there was something wrong with me. The truth would hit me about four years later. Ever since, I have not been the same again. Our first born, a girl who ought to be like a mother to us all was the most selfish and arrogant of all my mother’s children and treated me the worst. I kept to myself anytime she was around. We were like night and day, our paths never crossed and I always wished she did not come home at all. But she did not really have a cordial relationship with the others too but she was treated with respect as the eldest and perhaps the apple of our mother’s eyes.
Dear readers; comments, opinions and views on this story are very much welcome. Please send contributions to: Email Address: personnel@codewit.com hoping to read from you soon
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
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