Master Ihekina’s desperate Arik Flight and the security question

 

By Niran Adedokun

I don’t know how many of us remember The Charly Boy Show.  It was a magazine programme anchored by His Royal Punkness and Area Fada, the legendary Charly Boy Oputa on various television channels in Nigeria.
One of the very striking things about the show, aside from the fact that it always had high calibre guests, was that the presenter of the programme always reminded viewers that it was a show “where anything could happen”. In the absence of the Charly Boy Show, Nigeria, the country in which the programme was produced seems to have taken over the responsibility of presenting the world an assortment of events and happenings of unimaginable dimensions. Some tragic, some comic, others downright ridiculous and incredibly saddening and what is worse is that, we always find a way to justify these ridiculous actions.One of such bizarre events happened last weekend. A teenage boy, Daniel Ikehina had sneaked into the tyre compartment of a Lagos-bound Arik Aircraft 5N-MJG, Flight 44 on Saturday morning beating airport and airline security at the Benin departure point.  Thankfully, the boy flew safely with the aircraft which left Benin around 9am and landed at the Murtala Mohammed  Airport hidden throughout in the undercarriage. On arrival at the Lagos airport, passengers disembarking from the aircraft saw him crawl out of his position and raised the alarm. Then security personnel moved in and arrested him. I imagined that the security personnel at the Lagos terminal and other officials of the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria(FAAN) must have felt a deep sense of accomplishment on arresting the latest security threat in the land- a 13 year old boy. Very sad!
 I couldn’t shut my mouth for what seemed like an eternity when I first heard the news on the news bulletin of Rhythm 93.7 FM on Saturday. A few questions quickly ran through my mind. The first being, how did this happen? How could this happen? How did he beat the usually tight airport security? Then I imagined the risk the boy took and just couldn’t bring myself to visualise that anything could have happened to him in his tyre compartment. What if he didn’t arrive Lagos alive? What if his body got minced mid air?
Indeed, anything could have happened to him. The mere fright of the exposure, tens of thousands of feet about sea level, with temperature that I hear could have been like -50 degrees could have killed the poor boy. How did an 11-year-old boy even think up the idea? He must have planned and perfected his plan for a while.  I wondered about the parents of the young lad, how did he leave home without their knowledge especially as he packed a bag for the journey?  What if the boy were on a suicide mission with a bomb strapped to his body? I just couldn’t stop the barrage of questions that raced through my mind. Of all my posers however, two things, which are damning to our image as a country have stayed with me.
It would be impossible for me to understand the kind of security that we have in our airports. As unpardonable as it is that airport facilities do not have perimeter fences, I could possibly live with that, what beats my imagination is that those who manage a facility without a fence do not realize the need for round-the clock surveillance of an important facility like the airport. It gets more cofounding when we remember the security challenges that Nigeria has faced in the past couple of years. As one of the passengers on Flight 44 observed in Sunday PUNCH, “…But speaking seriously, this shows that we have a serious problem as regards securing at our airports. This is a serious security breach. If that boy was carrying bomb, it means he would have succeeded in blowing up the plane. How can somebody be in an aircraft without being detected; we are in trouble in this country…” Absolutely correct!
Unfortunately, FAAN authorities are currently trading accusations with Arik Airline. This is as shocking as it is unacceptable. While the crew on that flight may have questions to answer on their conduct, I find the bulk-passing by FAAN through the General Manager, Corporate Communication, Yakubu Dati, really improper. In an environment where people really care, FAAN would by now, have taken more drastic steps, including instant, albeit temporary punitive measures for its employees guilty of this gross dereliction of duty at the Benin Airport pending full scale investigations into the rather disgraceful incident. And if FAAN is indeed convinced that Arik had flouted regulations, the proper thing to do would be to invoke the rules against them rather than playing to the gallery by this war of words which, in my opinion is a further erosion of public confidence. Deal with Arik according to the books and send a signal to other airlines from embarking on such wrong adventures in future, this would be more effective than issuing press releases that insult the collective intelligence of the already bewildered Nigerians.
The second issue that I cannot get over is how Daniel Ihekina’s story exposes the way we deal with our children. As I said earlier, I cannot understand how this chap flew under the noses of his parents without anyone noticing. As we wait to hear the full story of what may have transpired between the boy and his parents before he took this desperate flight, I am hopeful that the incident would help parents pay more attention to the totality of their children’s wellbeing. It is true that the economic situation in Nigeria makes things really difficult for parents but bringing up children is not just about feeding and clothing them, there are spiritual, emotion, psychological and several other dimensions to parenting.
 On a final note, I cannot believe that we have not heard a word from the Edo State Government on this matter. At his age, young Mr. Ihekina is still what one would call a “government child” and it beats my imagination that nothing has been heard from the state on the matter. As the great Nelson Mandela once said: “Our children are the rock on which our future will be built, our greatest assets as a nation. They will be the leaders of our country, the creators of our national wealth, those who care for and protect our people.”  Child marriage is not the only likely impediment that may hamper  Nigerian children from attaining this future that Mandela painted and when a government sees any such risk in the life of any one child, that government should be as worried about that as the parent.