Without much ado and based on obvious facts, Nigeria can be described as a country where the rich have become so powerful that they can trample on the laws of the country without consequences.
When you belong to the class of the wealthy even when the source of that wealth is questionable, you can get whatever you want or violate any law in the land and simply get away with it.
In Nigeria, one can say there are two types of laws with one applicable to the ‘almighty rich and powerful’ while the other one is applicable to the lower class since the hitherto middle class has disappeared from the cadre.
From all indications, the major problem of Nigeria rests with the wealthy few whose actions and inactions have continued to complicate issues confronting the entire length and breadth of the country vis a vis the general wellbeing of everyone.
The painful part of these shenanigans is that the negative actions of this few wealthy clique often rub off on the innocent obedient Nigerians who in most cases adhere to the laws.
Sadly, many of those who belong to this category of people have continued to work against laid down rules and regulations guiding against the ease of doing business in all sectors of the economy through their ‘above the law’ attitudes.
The illegalities being perpetrated by the few wealthy Nigerians painfully cannot be challenged even by the subsequent governments as any attempt to dare call them to order are often swiftly frustrated through the connivance of the ailing judicial system.
This menace has turned the entire country to a lawless lot where only the lower class are made to face the consequences of their actions no matter how minute they may be, whereas, the rich and the powerful can even put the entire country in their filthy pockets and walk away unchallenged.
The country’s aviation sector is not left out of the illegalities of this few group. It is on record that some of them once they acquire some funds see the aviation sector as the nearest place they can foray into.
As they rush to the sector to float airlines bringing fleet of aircraft even without carrying out due diligence, within a year or two, they are faced with the reality that running an airline is more than how financially strong you are as many other requirements are needed.
Therefore, as they rush into the business, they rush out of it leaving the aircraft they acquired with huge funds abandoned at the airports. This lack of due diligence is responsible for the hundreds of abandoned aircraft littering the airports till today.
Like a helpless cat beaten mercilessly by the rain, the aircraft owners not knowing what to do with the airplanes leave them to rot away at the airports at the expense of safety and security of other airport users.
The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) on whose shoulder the responsibility of making the airports convenient for flight safety is the one left to spend extra money and resources to prevent undesirable elements from using the abandoned aircraft to unleash havoc on the airports.
All efforts made by FAAN to get the owners to evacuate these aircraft which have turned the airports to graveyards have been truncated by the so called rich individuals who rushed to the law courts to stop the government agency from removing the aircraft.
FAAN is presently handicapped by the court injunctions even as key players have been raising the fears about the dangers the abandonment of the aircraft pose to the airport vicinity and yet the rich aircraft owners are going about unmoved.
Among the questions on the lips of airport users include; how long will the aircraft owners continue to liter the airports with their disused planes, how long will the courts continue to protect them and how long will the few people continue to use their so called wealth to sabotage the larger society. Continuous abandonment of the planes belonging to the few individuals is a time bomb waiting to explode in the face of the generality of Nigerians.
Source: tribuneonlineng.com