STOWAWAY BOY DANIEL IHEKINA.....BLAME THE GOVERNMENT

When i read a story about Daniel Ihekina, a teenage boy who was arrested at the Lagos Airport after flying in the Tyre hole of an Arik plane from Benin to Lagos on Saturday morning,  that he thought he was on a US-bound flight, i was just ashamed as a Nigerian, and as a father too.

What really took me spell-bound was the way this poor boy was been handling by the security operative at the Lagos Airport, as if this poor boy committed a grave offence!!! The desperate attitude of this poor boy shows that something is not okay with are government in Nigeria.Or how will you deduce it if this boy should have come from an average family. where he can have 3 square meals a day with other luxury benefits of good home,chauffeur driven car, nice school, nice clothes,and other good amenities of live would he ever dare risk his life?

This  is just a poor boy that needs help, we have a millions of Daniel Ihekina out there in Nigeria who are just been maltreated and the money that are suppose to use to take good care of these future leaders are just been waste away by the so called-impose leaders. Example of this was the Sunday’s arrival of Governor Suntai of Taraba who chartered 3 Jets from United State  America to conveyed himself, his families and his associate!!! While a lot of Daniels Ihekina were there in Taraba State begging on the street in order to eat. And their futures are not certain.

It was gather that  the boy said ‘’he was being maltreated and tried to escape from his parents. He thought he was on his way to the USA.’’......My question is that why wont be maltreated by his parents when the government have crippled them? They have no jobs, no source of lively hood. A hungry man is an angry man.This boy was not maltreated by his parents but by the power that be...the likes of Suntai,Ibori,Cicelia Ibru, Akingbolas’,Igbinedions’,Senators of the Federal Republic etc.

Furthermore, how is this evaded the securities at the Airport , because since i have been doing my globe trotting, i have never seen any Airports in the world that have so much securities as Nigerian Airports !!!

The General Manager, Corporate Communications, Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, Mr. Yakubu Datti said that ‘’FAAN has adopted the ‘risk amelioration processes to safeguard flight operations’ at all its 22 airports across  the country and that the agency had tightened its risk amelioration procedure to ensure that similar incident did not occur again.’’

The above statement is typical of Nigerian in authority, what it means is that prior to this time, security at all our 22 airports are porous, and the money that were allocated for such purpose have been embeselled !!!

The agency, in a statement on Sunday, said it read with “great dismay the statement released by Arik Airlines about the stowaway found on board Arik’s flight 544 from Benin to Lagos on Saturday 24 August, 2013.”

FAAN said, “Our investigations reveal that a passenger on board the flight called the attention of the cabin crew while the aircraft was waiting to take off at the threshold of the runway, to the effect that they had seen a young boy walk under the aircraft and had not seen him re-appear on the other side.”

“The cabin crew in turn informed the pilots in the cockpit about this. The pilots called the control tower and asked them to request FAAN to do a sweep of the area after their departure, opting to carry on with their flight despite the report.”

“Upon the arrival of the aircraft in Lagos, we were informed that there had been a stowaway found alive alighting from the wheel well of the aircraft. While FAAN takes this security breach extremely seriously, we deem Arik’s attempt at indicting and smearing FAAN as irresponsible. Safety and security breaches occur when all the checks in the system are beaten.  

Given that security is a responsibility for all players in this industry, a critical last opportunity to detect and prevent this stowaway was offered and had the airline taken the information by passengers as seriously as they should have, this incident would have been avoided.”

Moreover, with the agency and Arik management now shifting blame , who then are we to hold accountable for this?........The FAAN top shots must be fired, while all the people or securities at the airport on that day be questioned.