What Is Really Missing?

THE depth of our shamelessness is embarrassing. Two months after an aircraft left the Lagos airport without arriving its destination, Bebi airstrip in the tourist haven of Obudu, remain uninformed about the fate of the aircraft and its three-man crew.
Amazing things are happening. The families of the crew and the owners of the plane have sustained negligible interest in the matter. After the first few weeks of their reported anguish, they have become silent, as if the losses are of little consequence, if any. The Nigerian approach would have been to commission fasting and prayer sessions at least to save the lives.


Their conduct has resulted in all manners of speculations about the incident. These speculations are not new. Teslim Folarin , Senate Majority Leader, reportedly told Ben TV, in London, that no aircraft was missing. This was only two weeks after the incident. He sounded offended that some people had made a profession of disparaging Nigeria. He refused to give more details about the missing plane.


While Senator Folarin’s position was reported in some newspapers, other reports were about the refusal of the Camerounians to allow Nigerian aviation authorities access to parts of the country where it was assumed the plane could have crashed. It is unlikely those investigating this incident have spoken to Senator Folarin.


More curious things have been happening. The accident and Investigation Bureau, officially mandated to investigate incidents like this, has been mute. No word has been heard from the manufacturers of the aircraft, not even one to the effect that the plane was usually safe.


Is it also possible that the plane has no insurance cover? There has been no insurance company mourning its losses over this incident. Nobody has stepped forward with information on the plane to claim the N5 million reward that the Cross River State Government offered.


A presidential team investigating the incident has thrown up more dust. Its biggest achievement is blaming the Nigeria Airspace Management Agency, NAMA, for the incident. It said air traffic controllers (NAMA employees) at the Enugu misdirected the aircraft, when they assigned it an altitude lower than the mountain range that rings Bebi airstrip.


The allegations of the presidential team that NAMA tampered with the voice recordings of the conversations between the pilot and the traffic controllers have dominated the headlines. NAMA officials have denied the allegations.


Air traffic controllers have drawn attention to the absurdity of a presidential investigation when there is no report from the Accident Investigation Bureau.


None of these postulations has led Nigerians an inch near the missing aircraft and its crew. It would be interesting to see how all these would be resolved.


What is really missing? Why is interest, even in the lives involved, diminishing? Why the sudden lull in efforts to find the plane? There is certainly more to this than a missing plane.