Opinion: Mourning Dana victims is hypocritical

by Ola-Abraham Emmanuel

Too bad that the life of the rich is more valued than that of the poor, even by the poor.

Following the plane crash that happened more than a week ago, I have read a lot of stories on the print, electronic, social media, etc. I must say this: the bulk of them are hypocritical.

This is my reason. People die almost every day on Benin-Ore road, Lagos-Ibadan, Lokoja-Abuja expressway because of bad roads, yet nobody mourns, nobody sheds tears, nobody changes their BlackBerry display picture (DP), or occupies the social network with such sad news.

In fact, few days before the Dana crash more than twenty vehicles were burnt on Lagos-Ibadan expressway, not everybody not even everybody in the South-West region of Nigeria; the Federal Government didn’t declare three days mourning, state governments didn’t declare seven days mourning, and local government probably twenty-one days.

Discouraging still, nobody sets up committee to investigate the state of the roads or creates a standard for the rickety vehicles that convey us from state to state. But, when a plane crashes (once in ten years) and about three or four NNPC men are involved we won’t “hear word” again. DP’s would be changed, statuses will cry, and condolence messages will be so much that they will even played in between sport programmes.

Now, my question, when the children of the poor die every day because their parents could not afford their medical bills, where is the media? When we lose our loved ones on the butchery slabs otherwise called roads in Nigeria, where can we find the media? Well, I won’t blame them because road accident is a regular occurrence so it might have lost its news value.

But, what makes me sad is that nothing is done to fix our roads and address our poverty. Nothing, I mean nothing. But if the rich die we swing spontaneously.  Too bad that the life of the rich is more valued than that of the poor, even by the poor.

 

Editor’s note: Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

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