Five days after the tragic crash involving an Associated Airline plane killed 14 people in Lagos, Minister of Aviation, Mrs. Stella Oduah, on Monday described accidents as God’s will that are inevitable.
While fielding questions from State House correspondents on investigations into the Thursday Lagos crash, the safety of the nation’s airspace and the suspension of Dana Air’s operations, she said:
"We do not pray for accidents but they are inevitable. But we will continue to do everything to ensure that we do not have accidents. But an accident is an act of God.
Again, we do not speculate on the cause of accidents. Until they happen, you cannot say this is the cause or that is not the cause. But what is obvious and is the truth is that, in aviation, there are shared responsibilities, starting from the man that carries your luggage to the man that makes sure that your boarding pass is issued to you.
Oduah described those saying that she left the issue of safety in the airspace to dwell on money-making ventures as ignorant.
She explained that security and safety could not be achieved without proper funding.
The minister said:
“I think it is ignorant to say so because you cannot have security and safety without funding. The aviation sector has to be funded.
In aviation, it is often said that if you think safety and security are expensive, wait until accident happens and see how expensive it is.
And what saddens me really is that ICAO said just last week that Nigeria was way above the global average. We actually scored 65 per cent. Secondly, ICAO said Nigeria was the 12th most safe aviation globally. And then when you hear bad comments; people making comments that have zero bearing on reality. It is very annoying.
What I will advise the public really is to recognise the fact that aviation is a very professional area; you cannot listen to bar (beer parlor) comments because they are just unrealistic and totally untrue.”
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