Question:

For about 6 years now we had no cases of air crashes in the country and now we have this. What does it say about air safety in Nigeria?”

Chief Fani-Kayode: What it tells you is that our skies are no longer safe and that we have gone back to the pre-2006 level of degenaration and rot when it comes to aviation and air safety in Nigeria. It tells you that since 2007 something has gone very wrong and there has been a slow but systemic dismantling of all the standards, reforms and measures that we put in place to save the lives of our fellow Nigerians and to improve the quality of aviation and flying in our country when we were there. It tells you that someone is not doing his or her job in the way that it should be done or with the firmness, discipline and commitment that is needed for Nigerian aviation. It also tells you that things will get far worse unless there is an attitudinal change from those that are charged to run aviation and protect our skys and our air travellers. It tells you that that change has to come at all levels of the sector from the top to the bottom and that the whole place needs to be overhauled. It tells you that the mafia and the cartel that had controlled aviation for many years before and that always cut corners and cover up evil and wrongdoing in the sector have crept back in, have been given a free hand again and are operating with impugnity behind the scenes. It tells you that the airline operators themselves have not been adequately kept on their toes and that they, once again, are putting profit before safety. It tells you that we need drastic and far-reaching changes in that sector today and that we need to re-dedicate the sector to the Living God, to work hard and to pray hard. It tells you that we need to ensure that every single person in that sector, including the Minister, the parastatal chiefs, the regulators, the aviation officials and the airline operators themselves do their job properly. The whole thing is so painful to me. Last sunday 153 people had their lives cut short just like that in the Dana crash and I am sure that it could have been avoided. It reminds me of the darker days of just a few years ago in 2005. This is how it all started then. It was evil and it was frightening and everyone was scared to fly throughout that period. It is just that Nigerians have such short memories otherwise they would be thanking God everyday for what He delivered us from then. The year before I became Minister of Aviation we had a total of 5 plane crashes in just one year and no less than 453 people died in those crashes. Professor Borisade was Minister of Aviation when all those crashes took place. After the 5th crash, which took place in Abuja and in which the Sultan of Sokoto, his son and grandson together with over 150 other poor souls persihed, I was redeployed by my boss President Olusegun Obasanjo from the Ministry of Culture where I had been serving as Minister to the Ministry of Aviation. What I met at Aviation was a demoralised and traumatised sector which reeked of death, destruction, corruption, blood and evil. My job was to turn things around with a very firm hand, put a stop to those crashes, introduce a series of far-reaching and long term reforms, return the light of God to that sector and restore sanity, law and order to the place. My team and I worked hard, prayed hard and took on the powers that be in that sector and, by God’s grace, we achieved all those objectives. Throughout our tenure there was not one crash of either a large or a small plane. Sadly though when we left power in 2007 things immediately started to change for the worse and by 2008/ 2009 they had completely degenerated again and the evil was back. Unfortunately and predictably after we left and after the rot and indiscipline had completely returned to the sector there were three more plane crashes and two helicopter crashes. The three plane crashes were all light aircraft and there was loss of life in each one of them. This was the same with the two helicopter crashes. All this took place under President Yar’adua’s tenure. Sadly it didn’t stop there though. There was another helicopter crash just a few weeks ago in which my friend AIG John Haruna and a number of others died and then there was the huge plane crash of last sunday which constituted the 7th crash since we left power in 2007. I have purposely not included the Nigerian cargo plane that crashed in Ghana last saturday killing 10 innocent Ghanaian people that were driving past the airport in a bus because that crash did not take place on our soil. Nevertheless life was lost there too and the cause of that loss of life was a Nigerian carrier. These crashes were all terrible but the Dana one of last sunday was particularly horrific and really was a tragedy of monuemental proportions simply because so many people died in it and because many were killed when the plane dropped from the skies and unto their homes. Can you imagine anything more horrific than that? A plane dropping from nowhere on your house? My heart goes out to all those who lost their loved ones and to those that died in that crash and all the other crashes and my prayer is that their souls rest in peace and that the Lord, who is the great Comforter of all, forgives them of their sins and welcomes them into heaven’.

2. QUESTION-Are you satisfied with the response to the Dana aircrash?

Well like everyone else I feel a sense of deep outrage about all these and that is why I am speaking out. When something as terrible as this happens I just will not keep quiet and sit in my room and say ”it is well’ as so many are doing. That is because it is not ”well”. It is not well at all. If it is not Boko Haram bombing people in their churches today then it is plane crashes tomorrow. This is just not good enough. Specifically to your question I must tell you that I am not satisfied with the fact that the rescue efforts were not properly co-ordinated, that ordinary people were forced to use satches of ”pure water” to try to put out the raging fire of a crashed plane and neither am I satisfied with the fact that not one television station in Nigeria deemed it fit to carry the story about the crash for a number of hours after it had taken place and the world had not only been told about it but had also been shown pictures and film footage. Nigerians were dying and were being burnt alive in the heart of Lagos and yet we were hearing about it and seeing it only on CNN, Al Jazeera and BBC. Not one Nigerian television station carried it or even reported it till much later. I really do wonder in whose interest it was to enforce such an unecessary news blackout? What was the government hoping to achieve and what were they scared of? Whoever it was that made that call made a big mistake because it gave the impression that they had something to hide. In any case gone are the days that you can hide things from the people. The people have a right to know no matter how bad things are. Other than that I believe that the government did the right and proper thing by quickly declaring their intention to launch an investigation into the crash, by grounding Dana Airlines immediately and by declaring three days of mourning for the souls that were lost. This breeds confidence and encourages the people. I am not pleased that the Minister of Aviation gave a press conference after the crash because my understanding of the procedure and the way we set it up when we were there was that in the event of a crash it is the Accident Investigation Bureau that is meant to speak to the public and feed them with the details of the crash. Everyone else, including the Minister and the D-G of NCAA are meant to remove their hands from the whole matter and allow the AIB to take charge, begin their investigation, communicate with and relate to the public and the media and take full control of the situation. From the minute there is a crash the AIB should become the only relevant organisation to discuss the issue publically. Obviously the Minister can express her condolences and express her regrets about what happened publically but other than that he or she is meant to keep quiet, step aside and allow the AIB to do their job, to investigate the matter thoroughly and to tell the public what is going on. That is what we created AIB for and it was for such a time as this that I established it in 2007. It was meant to have a high level of independence from the Ministry and everyone else in the event of a crisis or a crash.That is how we structured the whole thing when we were there and we did it for good reason. Well perhaps they have changed all that now. Perhaps they want to do it differently and if they do want to do it differently I really would want to know why. As far as I am concerned if that is what they have done now it is a big mistake. Other than that I stand by the Minister at this difficult time. I could see from her press conference that she was very badly shaken by these events and frankly I felt sorry for her. No-one would want this sort of thing to happen under their watch. I believe that we should pray for her too and do our very best to assist her and her team to do the right thing and expose the truth. This is not the time to point fingers but to assist and encourage them all. However there must be no cover-ups, no scapegoating and no deceit from any quarter about what has happened. The truth must be allowed to prevail and anyone that is found to be in the least bit wanting must lose their job, resign and/or face criminal proceedings. Anything less than that will not be good enough. I say this because human blood and life is involved in this matter. Such blood and such life speaks to the very throneroom of God and it cries for revenge. And if it is not avenged and justice is not done it brings curses on the land. Another thing that encourages me is the fact that the black box was found. The contents of that black box will answer a lot of questions. I must tell you however that in practice what has happened since 2005 is that the contents of and information in the black boxes of the various planes that crashed have either been kept away from the Nigerian public or the black box itself has just disappeared or been stolen. The result is that no-one really gets to know the truth about what really happened in these crashes except for those in the corridors of power at the Ministry of Aviation. This is all done in an attempt to hide that truth and manipulate the report. I sincerely hope that this does not happen in this case. I am also hoping that the government will allow the American NTSB, which is the agency that is charged to investigate all air crashes all over the world, a free reign and a free hand to do their job to help in establishing what really happened. Their reports are always factual and accurate and as Minister I relied far more on their reports about what happened in some of the crashes that took place the year before I got there than on the reports filed by my own Ministry. The things that I discovered are best left unsaid for now but be rest assured that I wrote to the President and told him the truth and asked him to do something about it at that time. For example the NTSB report on the Bellview crash said some very interesting and disturbing things about what actually brought that plane down. It had nothing to do with any failing on the part of Bellview airline but there was definately another factor which I will not go into here. I will say though that there was specific mention of a ”low incendiary device” on that plane which went off and actually brought the plane down. The American FBI also did a prelimanary report in which they confirmed that finding and recommended a criminal investigation into the matter because it was clear that there was more to that crash than met the eye. By way of contrast the reports filed by our own security agencies and the Ministry of Aviation under my predecessor in office omitted all these and contradicted it. There were also some very serious issues raised about the ADC and the Sosolisso crash that were kept from the public and I did everything in my power as Minister to open it all up by have a public hearing on the matter and from there open a criminal investigation. You will recall that 60 children and many adults, including a dear friend and sister, Pastor Bimbo Odukoya, lost their lives in that crash. The bitter truth is that those children and all the adults on that plane were roasted alive whilst their parents and families stood by and watched helplessly simply because someone had not supplied water to the water hydrant system at Port Harcourt Airport and for the fire engines. This was so even though contracts had been awarded and money allocated and spent for the supply of that water. Not one person on that Sossolisso crash needed to have died if everyone had done their job and water was available because the plane did not explode on impact with the ground. The fire started, spread and consummed them all after the plane had landed on the runway, hit a curb and come to a standstill and there was plenty of time to save the people. I wrote to President Obasanjo expressing my deepest concerns about these matters, including the shabby conduct of the investigation and reports of the Bellview crash, the Sossolisso crash, the ADC crash and all the others and in fairness to him, though he was not eager to open old wounds on the others for reasons best known to himself, he did at least approve my recommendations on the one on Sossolisso. Sadly though a few unscrupoulous civil servants, who had much to lose if that public hearing ever went ahead and who really hated my guts because I had come there to expose their evil, conspired against me and the President and frustrated it. Consequently we never had that public hearing and after we left power in 2007 the agitation and desire for it petered out. Quite apart from the crashes themselves what made it all worst was the attitude of some of the airline operators whose planes had crashed. Their nonchalant and arrogant posture and attitude often threw me into a rage. The truth is that apart from Kayode Odukoya’s Bellview Airline, none of the other airline operators that had suffered crashes and that had lost their passengers saw fit to even pay the compensation that was due to the families of those who died under their watch. Both Sossoliso and ADC simply refused to pay and they both showed the highest degree of insensitivity and callousness towards the families of the lost souls and the Ministry when they were asked to do so. Bellview Airline however, by way of contrast, not only paid up but they also went out of their way to do the very best for the families of the victims and to honour all their obligations to them. That is why till today I have the greatest respect for Odukoya. He is an absolute gentleman, a complete professional and he truly loves the aviation sector. Some of the other airline operators were not so decent and they worked closely with some ruthless and corrupt elements within the aviation sector to frustrate our efforts to ensure safety and to stop the cutting of corners. My response to people like that was to set up a new Aviation parastatal called the Accident Investigation Bureau, which President Obasanjo graciouslly approved and whose job it would be to investigate any plane crash in Nigeria independently of the Ministry of Aviation. We appointed a very experienced and highly recommended individual to head that agency by the name of Dr. Samuel Olukayode Oduselu and when he arrived I told him two things. Firstly I told him that I hoped that he and his agency would not have too much to do because I pray that we dont have any more crashes but that if we do I would immediately resign as Minister because it would mean that I had failed in my duty. He seemed rather surprised by that commitment and he told me so. Secondly I told him that in the event of a crash he was not to look to me or anyone else or allow himself to be influenced or corrupted by anyone from the Ministry or amongst the airline operators whilst investigating such a crash. I also urged him that in the event of such a terrble thing happening he should send his reports not just to the Ministry but also directly to the Presidency for necessary action. This was to avoid any watering down or doctoring of those reports because I was mindful of the fact that unless the truth was established about any given accident or crash we would not be able to learn the lessons that needed to be learnt and we would not be able to prevent future crashes. Oduselu is still alive and well today and he can testify to all that I have said here. Unfortunately he left the AIB just a few months ago after an excellent tenure of office as the pioneer D-G for 5 years. The fact that he was not asked to stay I think was very unfortunate because the truth is that we need him and people like him now more than ever before to run that place if you want to have an honest, factual and accurate report about what happened in the Dana Airline or any other crash from the Ministry. Very few people can withstand the pressures of external influence when it comes to such things because there is so much at stake but Oduselu is one of those that certainly can. So in answer to your question about whether I am satisfied with the response or not I believe that we still need to wait and see how the matter is handled by the Minister and the government, whether anyone will resign, whether anyone will be fired, whether anyone will be brought to justice or whether they will just try and put the entire blame on the head of Dana Airlines and brush all the relevant facts under the carpet. The question is if indeed the Dana plane was faulty or if it had a history of problems as is being suggested in some quarters, who was meant to inspect it and watch it closely from the Ministry and how come it was still flying? Who is the regulator? Who was meant to be in charge and who was supposed to be monitoring all the aircraft and airline operators including Dana? We can blame Dana for not maintaining their fleet properly, yes, but that is not good enough. It should not stop there. Other heads have to role too. They could not have done it all alone. They could not have got away with lowering their standards without some element of official collusion, encouragement, assurance and support. We must blame others in the Ministry too and those others must resign and be brought to justice otherwise you are going to have more plane crashes in the future. I pray that I am wrong but I am speaking from experience and from a position of knowledge.

3. QUESTION -”The measures your administration as Minister put
in place in 2006 following incessant air crashes,how adequate would you say they were and what did you manage to achieve? What was your legacy in Aviation” ANSWER- ”I believe that we did far more than was expected of us and that it was a very successful tenure. My legacy at aviation speaks for itself and needless to say I am very proud of it. I am also very proud of each and every member of my team from those that worked directly with me at the Ministry to my parastatal chiefs and their respective teams. I remember them all very well, we were like one family and we all worked very closely together. We were like a well-oiled machine and everything was done with immediate effect and with military precision. Together we reformed the sector, raised the morale of the staff and airline operators, restored confidence in flying in Nigeria, made the skies safe again, stopped the plane crashes, installed radar in our airspace for the first time since 1979, restored the TRACON full radar coverage contract and paid for it in full (which is what Nigeria is using for full radar coverage today), curbed the excesses of the few airline operators that were giving the rest a bad name and stopped them from cutting corners, established a ”full compliance” rule of all the regulations, guided and watched the parastatals closely to ensure that they were doing their jobs properly and keeping the safety standards high, won respect for Nigerian carriers and airline operators in the international community and won many international routes for them, consolidated and increased the asset base of airlines and banned all the small old ones so that they could no longer ply our skies, banned old aircraft and stopped them from flying, commissioned the Bicourtnay MM2 airport in Lagos, supported Arik, Bellview and other Nigerian carriers and fought for them to be treated fairly by the international aviation community and ensured that they won many lucrative foreign routes to ply, ensured that both Bellview and Arik were allowed to fly directly to Heathrow even though the British government resisted it, put the international carriers in their place, insisted that they operated within our laws and ensured that they treated Nigerians with respect and decency, stopped the spraying of Nigerians with strange aerosol sprays like animals on all international carriers, restored and repaired Port Harcourt runway, restored and reaired the second runway (18LR) at Lagos Airport, investigated and exposed corruption at all levels and reported such matters to the President and the security agencies, appointed excellent technocrats from the private sector to take key positions in the parastatals and Ministry, ensured that ICAO placed us on the ”Category One” level which meant that we could fly directly to America and other countries and that we were recertified as being ”risk-free” after being designated as a ”death trap” for international air travellers for a number of years, leaving 7.2 billion naira of the Aviation Intervention Fund in the account when we left in 2007 and properly utilising the 3.8 billion that we spent before leaving on two runways and one other project at the time that we left in 2007 and so much more. We achieved all these things and we left a legacy of safety, high standards, professionalism and discipline. I grounded more planes and withdrew the licences of more airline operators than any other Minister of Aviation in the history of Nigeria because I was not prepared to take risks with anyone’s safety or life under my watch. That is how we achieved our success. We worked from 10 am in the morning till 11 pm at night and no one left the office before me. That was the norm rather than the exception. We prayed hard too and I literally had an army of prayer warriors praying for the aviation sector and in all of our major airports on a twenty four hour basis. That was the key- hard work, due diligence, the manifestation of power and strength from the top, total loyalty and commitment to the President of the Federal Republic and to his vision for the aviation sector, a no-nonsense military approach to every issue, putting round pegs in round holes, unflinching loyalty from me to my staff and unflinching loyalty from them to me and finally, and most importantly, plenty of prayer and fasting. That was the secret to our success, that was our legacy and that is how we got the results that we managed to achieve. Could it stand the test of time? Well evidently it didn’t because everything depends on the quality of leadership at the Ministry and the amount of support that that leadership gets from the President. The only reason that I was successful was because President Olusegun Obasanjo supported me all the way and did not allow anyone to interfere with my work or intimidate me. He gave me absolute power and I had his total confidence so when people would go and report me or tell lies about me to him because they could not get their way he would always ask me for my side of the story, hear me out and eventually back me. After a while they knew that I had the full backing of the President and that he would never undermine me or waiver in his support for me. That weakened them. I also had the backing of the Living God who deemed it fit to use me and my team at that terribly traumatic time in our nation’s aviation history. Without Him I am nothing and I could have done nothing. To Him alone be the glory. Sadly as from 2008 after we left power things started to fall apart again at the aviation sector. I must say that Diezeani Allison Maduekwe tried her very best and so did Architect Felix Hyatt who came after her but after that things fell apart. All the others were interested in was nailing Fani-Kayode and his team for some imaginary wrongdoing after that and using that to embarass Obasanjo who by that time was their perceived as being their greatest enemy. This became an obsession with them but that is a story for another day. They forgot about providing safety and protecting the skies and instead they focused on me. Whilst they were busy doing that the cabal slowly returned and the aviation sector slowly began to return to it’s evil old ways of cutting corners and covering things up. I am afraid that in my view that is where we are today. Air safety is certainly not the priority today. Instead what I see is plenty of cosmetic work and refurbishments going on at the airports which seem to be never-ending. It was obvious that something was going to give sooner or later if safety was not given its rightful place. I have immense confidence in Nnamdi Udoh who is the D-G of NAMA , Harold Demurean who is the D-G of NCAA and one or two others that are still in aviation today because they are experienced, knowledgeable and highly skilled. I know this because they both worked under me when I was Minister. If they can just get the necessary backing and support that they need they can still work wonders and turn the place around for good. They can certainly raise the standard again and prevent other crashes from occuring if they just maintain their focus and work hard. I certainly wish them well and we shall be praying for them all.

4. QUESTION-”Some of the things that you have said here are pretty alarming? Why are you saying all this now only after a plane crash? Why couldn’t you have said all this before and perhaps it would have helped us to avoid a crash?” ANSWER- ”There is nothing in this interview that I havn’t said before. I didn’t just say all this on the pages of newspapers in 2008 but I said it at a public hearing before the Senate Aviation Comittee headed by Senator Anyim Ude. It was broadcast live on all the TV stations then and you can still watch it from beginning to end on youtube today. It was also carried in all the newspapers 3 and a half years ago and we took a four page advert in every single Nigerian newspaper to publish the full text of what I said at that public hearing at my own expense. I dont know what more I could have done. I told the commitee and the Nigerian public everything I knew then. I told them about the challenges we faced, the giants that we saw in the land and that we had to contend with, the dangers and inevitability of more crashes if the momentum that we had established was not sustained and about the vicious ”blood cult” that existed in the aviation sector at that time which needed to be forcefully confronted with courage, dedication, vigour, discipline, prayer and hard work. Most of them understood and appreciated what we were saying though one or two of them were skeptical and they could not fully comprehend or understand it. Well now, seven crashes later and with many more people dead they are beginning to open their eyes and ask the pertinent questions that should have been asked and answered many years ago. As I said earlier, Nigerians have very short memories. What I have said here is not new and I have said it over and over again even after 2008 Senate Aviation Commitee Public Hearing. Please find the time to go to my website at www.femifanikayode.org and read the docuement titled ”My Mandate At The Ministry of Aviation” (which is a copy of the presentation that I made at the Senate Aviation Commitee Public Hearing in 2008) or follow the discussions on my facebook page since 2009 and you will see all these things there. I made my contribution, did my bit and I spoke out when I felt that it was necessary to do so at the risk of my life, my family and my reputation. Sadly not many people are listening or are interested in this matter. Even after the tragic events of last sunday I assure you that after a while Nigerians will forget again until there is yet another crash and then they will just loudly express their horror and pain again and they will lament, moan, cry and talk about it for a few weeks. After that everyone will forget about it and it will be back to business as usual. Little will change in the sector. For me that is the biggest tragedy of all. And yet I hope that I am proved wrong because I fly as well and so do my loved ones. It is so sad but that is the truth. No-one really cares unless it affects one of their own directly and that is why we are in this terrible mess. Despite all the rubbish that has been going on and all the lives that have been lost in the 12 fatal crashes that we have had since 2005 not one person from the Ministry of Aviation has been publically queried, reprimanded, sacked, resigned or brought to justice as a consequence of any of them. Does that not seem strange to you? Can anything really change if that continues to be the order of the day? There is no deterrent and there is no fear of any sanction so everyone just keeps misbehaving. That is essentially the problem of the Nigerian Aviation sector. May God help and deliver us all and may He ensure that we do not have anymore of these horrific crashes. Curiously every single one of these crashes took place on a weekend. On either a saturday or a sunday. Why is that? Is it a mere coincidence? Is there not more to this and is God not trying to tell us all something? The truth is that it is time for drastic change and for the watchers of christendom to rise up in prayer. The muslims must pray too. Sanity must be restored. This blood bank that some have turned the aviation sector into has to be completely destroyed and dismantled before more people are killed in mindless and avoidable accidents like the one we witnessed last sunday. May God help us all.

.5.QUESTION- You say that there were 12 crashes in the last 7 years? When did these crashes take place?

ANSWER- The 12 crashes that took place between 2005 and 2012 and which all resulted in loss of life were as follows- 1. the Bellview plane crash in 2005. 2. the Sossoliso plane crash in 2006 . 3 A light air plane crash in 2006. 4. The crash of a plane carrying very senior army officers in 2006. 5. ADC plane crash in 2006. 6. A first light aircraft crash in 2008. 7. A second light aircraft crash in 2008. 8. A light aircraft crash in 2009. 9. A helicopter crash in 2009. 10. A helicopter crash in 2011. 11. A helicopter crash in 2012 12. the Dana Airline crash in 2012. I should also mention the EAS crash which took place in 2002 and which resulted in a massive loss of life. That was a particularly terrible crash and the Minister of Sports of that day, amongst many other, perished in it. If you add that one as well then you can conclude that we have had 13 fatal air disasters in the last 10 years in ouir country and this has resulted in the loss of approximately 800 precious souls. This is sad and unacceptable and unfortunately it makes Nigeria one of the most unsafe places in the world for air travel. There is no country that I know of that has lost as many of its citizens from air crashes in peace time within a period of ten years. That is an abysmal and shameful record and we need to do something about it very quickly before more people are perish in the air.