by Emma Okah

But we may ask: What are we getting at against Oduah today? Is it the fact that treated or bulletproof BMW cars were not desirable and should not have been bought in the first place? Is it the point that the purchase was outside budgetary appropriation and consequently breached due process or that she had corruptly enriched herself?

I have been a fan of Nigeria’s Aviation Minister Stella Oduah since she began the ambitious refurbishment of many of our airports across the land. Under her tenure, the Federal Government of Nigeria had realized that Nigerian airports deserve more.

With time, Oduah was only a few meters away from problems, accusations and gossips; some totally insulting, illogical and petty. At a time, it was about the contractors executing the renovation of the various airports in Nigeria, which some persons alleged were manipulated by the minister who chose them. It later moved to the fact that she was blocking the entry of some airlines into the country. The report alleged that the minister had refused three foreign airlines – Emirates, Etihad and Turkish Air the approval to operate in Abuja where they have high patronage. Instead, she asked them to go and explore the Enugu axis as a way of decongesting the two major airports (Lagos and Abuja) in terms of international flight operations.

Although the minister appeared unfazed by those accusations, the recent crash of the Associated Airlines plane bearing the corpse of former Ondo State governor Chief Olusegun Agagu seemed to open a new chapter in the many battles of Oduah. While many Nigerians were worried about the return of frequent air crashes to the aviation sector, former Aviation Minister Femi Fani-Kayode was loudly critical of her performance as Minister of Aviation. The parties and their various supporters were still exchanging fires when the purchase of the two BMW cars valued at N255,000,000.00 (two hundred and fifty five million naira) by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) became public knowledge. The vehicles were allegedly purchased for use by the minister and other visiting foreign dignitaries in the global aviation sector.

Like an ensnared person, the minister appears to have bitten more than she can chew. Every Tom, Dick and Harry now talks about the corruption in the aviation sector, want of due process in the acquisition of the BMW cars, insensitivity to the suffering masses of Nigerians etc. Nigerians are angry and emotions are burning high and justifiably so. There is nothing under the earth that Oduah has not been accused of. As a servant of the FGN, the Presidency also shares part of the blame.

Sadly, I will disappoint many of my fans on this matter. I will not flow with the crowd. As painful as this choice may be, Nigerians deserve to see this matter from another perspective. That is the beauty of democracy.

What many Nigerians especially those in the human rights community and anti-Jonathan/PDP forces are doing today is to isolate the problems of Nigeria from the Oduah matter as if she fell from the blues. She is a Nigerian, working in a Nigerian system and relating with Nigerians as well. So what makes her different? She is not. The problem today is not Oduah. The problem is Nigeria and Nigerians. The issue is the Nigerian system that allows all manner of things to happen with alarming impunity. The confidence that public officers exude in committing wrongs in the conduct of public affairs is deeply worrisome.

But we may ask: What are we getting at against Oduah today? Is it the fact that treated or bulletproof BMW cars were not desirable and should not have been bought in the first place? Is it the point that the purchase was outside budgetary appropriation and consequently breached due process or that she had corruptly enriched herself? Whichever way we want to look at this, the starting point in taming the luxurious lifestyle of public officers in the midst of mass poverty, curbing of fiscal abuses in varying degrees or indeed the fight against corruption in high places is not the Minister of Aviation, Princess Stella Oduah and the purchase of two bulletproof BMW cars.

I say so because Nigeria’s problem is not about President Goodluck Jonathan or those who work under him alone. Every Nigerian has blame in the scandalous state of our nationhood and the way things are done in our time. The same omnibus Nigerian system had closed its eyes toworse things that were done in the past and the people moved on after a few weeks as if nothing had happened. If Nigerians had arisen together to say emphatic NO to stealing of public funds in many terrible cases like the John Yusuf, Veronica Onyegbula, and their collaborators who embezzled N32.8Billion naira belonging to Police Pension Fund; if Hon. Farouk Lawan and Hon. Boniface Emenalo had been told to bury their heads in shame and leave the House of Reps, the story will be different with Oduah. If the Arunma Oteh and Hon. Herman Hembe had caused Hembe some disorder; if the Alhaji Maina N469 billion pension fund scam had been well resolved by Nigerians as well as so many high profile and other cases touching on the same issues that Oduah is being accused of today, then Nigerian public officers would begin to learn the hard way.

Until the report of the three-man Presidential Committee set up to investigate Oduah is released, I will be very reluctant to make deep comments on the matter but suffice it to say that if the only case of infraction that Nigerians will be shouting about today is N255M, then good days are here. It means that Nigerians are now waking up to face the realities of the moment. The truth is that this is just a tiny part of the big story.

We do not need to be prophets to know that most of the attacks visited on Oduah are politically motivated and not designed to improve public good and promote accountability.

Talking about wastage in the conduct of public affairs, we are still waiting for members of the National Assembly who should be the policemen of our democracy to disclose their wages and allowances. They are the ones who are abusing their oversight obligations to chase contracts in the MDAs in a bid to satisfy their greed. It is funny when I see Dino Meleye who was formerly of the House of Reps shout about corruption when he did nothing to tame the outrageous salaries and allowances that he and his colleagues were collecting in the NASS.

Nigerians are very accommodating people and that is why over the years they have shied away from the monumental corruption that pervade the political landscape beginning from the various local government councils up to the Presidency. This has been the trend before Jonathan became the President and it is not abating because that is what Nigerians want. Whenever any case is exposed, ethnic sentiments set in to diminish embarrassing national issues when common sense requires us to show optimum patriotism.

It is for this reason that we must support the National Conference so that we can choose the kind of country we want to run. Oduah’s style is just one of the microscopic few that the conference should address.