Despite MH17, Flights Continue Through Active War Zones

By Eze Eluchie

Was quite shocked when I looked at the Video Screen in front of my Emirate airline seat on the inbound flight to Lagos and realized that from its flight path, the airplane I was aboard was flying directly through an active war zone – through Maidugri, Bornu State, a notorious hot-bed of Boko Haram operations.

I immediately checked the altitude at which the plane was flying and it struck me that we were actually flying within range of moderately advanced Surface to Air Missiles (SAM’s). All it would take to have brought the plane down was some deranged Boko Haram terrorist, desirous to make ‘paradise’ (Hell more likely) to have the plane within his target and press a trigger, and boom!

How on earth could Nigerian authorities and the International Civil Aviation authorities, following from the experience with Malaysian Airways Flight MH17, allow airline passengers to be at such risk?

One would have thought that after the shooting down of MH17 over Ukrainian airspace, efforts would have been concretized by ICAO and other international aviation regulatory agencies to develop a mandatory regime where by flights, more particularly international flights, will actively avoid passing through areas of active conflict.

The world does not have to experience another Malaysia Airways Flight MH17 before concrete action is taken and general standards set.


Earlier BlogPost 'And the Big Bird Fell from the Skies....'
http://ezeluchie.blogspot.com.ng/2014/07/and-big-bird-fell-from-skies.html

Picture: Snapshot of Video Screen aboard Emirate Airlines as it flies over Nigeria’s hotbed of Boko Haram terror activities 

A Dictators ‘Democracy Day’ Broadcast.

by Eze Eluchie,

By his failure, in his maiden ‘democracy day’ address (whatever this is supposed to mean in a country where vestiges of totalitarianism reign supreme), to apologize for the mass murders and other atrocities committed by troops under his overall command against members of the Shiite Islamist sect in Zaria (Northern Nigeria) and in ongoing efforts against the people of the oil producing regions of Nigeria’s delta and his non-mention of any plans of addressing the mass murders and other atrocities committed by the acclaimed 4^th most deadly terror outfit in the world, the Fulani Herdsmen, across virtually all parts of Nigeria; and choosing rather to continue on a path of wailing over what had transpired, focus on spurious gains of a partisan and skewed ‘anti-corruption war’ and celebrate the highly questionable and doubtful  release-cum-arrest-cum-capture of supposedly 2 out of as yet unknown number of students ‘abducted’ from Chibok over 700 days ago, Muhammadu Buhari has merely broadcast to the world that in Nigeria, we are stuck with business as usual, and the following will continue:–

a. The lies will continue with increasing ferocity;

b. Impunity by the military will be condones and covered;

c. Blaming past administration for present failures will continue;

d. The killings by Fulani Herdsmen will continue with increased frenzy;

e. The Chibok ‘abductions’ charade will continue to serve propaganda and political purposes;

f. The lust for cheap petro-dollars, even at the expense of human lives, will continue;

 Inadvertently, the Presidential address revealed that rather than address systemic corruption which had for decades crippled the Nigerian system, efforts were merely being focused on targeting individuals having opposing political views and creating new, ‘more loyal’ beneficiaries for the corrupt system. The announcement that over 43,000 ‘ghost workers’ had been discovered in the Federal workforce, without any person being prosecuted for receiving salaries {on behalf of these ‘ghost workers} amounting to billions of Naira for this workers and cataloguing drain-pipes in the system without mentioning any concrete efforts or plans to plugging such loop-holes only indicates that at the end of the current junta, Nigeria, Nigerians and the international community will likewise be regaled with ‘stories’ of monumental fleecing of the national treasury.

Towards the end of a lacklustre ramble, and desperate to show that something positive has accrued to the Nigerian State as a result of his thus far 1-year stewardship, Buhari ventures to throw thank-you’s to all manners of agencies and countries, including to the International Committee of the Red Cross and Red Crescents which he terms ‘a UN agency’, to “France, the US, UK and China” for contributing to efforts at tackling the Ebola Virus, a feat which was attained long before the emergence of the present junta; finally seemingly spicing up the drab performance with a potpourri of phantom undebated, ill-thought white-elephant ‘promises’ to Nigeria’s poor and vanquished masses, promises which like many sundry promises of the junta will be soon be denied and thrown into the junk-bin of lies severally told to Nigerians.

A monumental mistake of historical proportions was made in Nigeria on 29^th May 2015 when the present junta was (s)elected into office. It will be unhealthy to wait till 29^th May 2019 to reverse the mistake, and I doubt if the country can survive the delay, to correct same. Efforts, within the ambit of legality and our Constitutional framework, should be hastened to salvage our contraption from the unfortunate direction it is headed under the present junta.

Picture: Nigeria’s lackluster and clueless ruler, Muhammadu Buhari.

Accepting 'Blood' Endowments?

by Eze Eluchie,

Something certainly does not add up here - a Billionaire who hails from and principally resides in impoverished, squalid and education-deprived hot-bed of Boko Haram terrorist operations in Nigeria’s north-eastern region, Bornu State, decides to donate the princely sum of US$14 Million to advance the cause of education - and where does he donate this sum? To the richly endowed University of Lynn in Florida, United States!!

The authorities and entire community of University of Lynn, Florida, which is the instant beneficiary of billionaire Mohammed Indimi’s donation, should perhaps wonder if indeed the gift they have received has by depriving the people of Bornu State of basic amenities, in any way, fueled the activities of Boko Haram in Bornu State and its axis.  Would the purpose of humanity not have been better served if the Mr. Indimi had been encouraged to devote his cash to uplifting the youths of Bornu, whose endemic impoverishment provides a ready and endless recruitment base for Boko Haram and other extremist Islamist terrorist groups operating in the north-eastern enclave of Nigeria and across West Africa? Is the University of Lynn wiling to be held responsible for further abductions, killings, be-headings and kidnapping of Nigerians and foreigners alike by the terrorist operating in this area arising from the further impoverishment of this hot-bed of Boko Haram activities by the cash flight which this donation directly represents? 

This is happening at a time when the Nigerian Government is going cap-in-hand to the ‘international community’ seeking for foreign aid to re-build basic educational infrastructure destroyed by Boko Haram terror elements in the same region where the Billionaire hails from.

To garnish the pretense, a lame-duck ‘Safe School Initiative Project’ which promises to be a drain-pipe for some easy cash fleeced out of tax-payer funds from some western seeks to fund educational activities in what is essentially a war-torn zone where even local civil authority structures is yet to be out in place. In essence, no one will be able to verify or confirm if funds granted for the building of a school was actually expended on building a school or merely found its way back into a personal account in the Cayman Islands or the Isles of Man.

The authorities of academic institutions in older democracies should be a bit more circumspect in accepting donations and or endowments that may be tainted or turn out to cause more harm for the areas from whence such donations emanated. At the same time, Tax-payers in the United States, the United Kingdom or other democratic countries whose leaders opt to accord dubious and wasteful ‘foreign aids’ should demand more accountability from their Governments. Assurance of access to some of these dubious ‘foreign aids’ largess’s fuels all manners of violence perpetuated on peoples in so-called emerging societies, inclusive of most of the countries in Sub Sahara Africa.

Picture: Billonaire Indimi, flanked by officials University of Lynn, Florida.