Airport Closure to Plane Carrying APC Men, An Act of Sabotage

Days after the plane carrying officials of the All Progressives Congress, APC, was prevented from landing at the Gombe Airport, the party has described the development as a clear act of sabotage and a dent on Nigeria’s air safety standards.

“The investigation is necessary to ensure that Nigeria’s airspace does not become another weapon in the hands of a desperate administration. After all, the authorities know those who were aboard the plane as well as their mission in Gombe. We make bold to say that the politicization of air safety is worse than the alleged training of snipers by the Jonathan administration.”

APC wondered what would have happened if the plane bearing the APC officials, led by former Minister of State for Power and Steel, Alhaji Murtala Aliyu, could not land in Bauchi and did not have enough fuel to at least return to its take off point in Abuja?

While the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria has denied that it prevented the chartered plane from landing on Thursday January 2, 2014, the APC said Nigerians know better.

Calling on National Assembly to immediately investigate the matter, APC took a swipe on spokesman for the aviation agencies, Yakubu Dati, who reportedly said the airport was closed for a routine operation to check fire tenders, saying it's either he did not know what he was saying or he was being economical with the truth.

“Either way, he has shown by his unprofessional comments that he is qualified to do everything but speak for the aviation agencies,” the party said.

According to APC, “An aviation spokesman worth his salt must surely know that an emergency drill does not, at any time, involve parking a fire truck on the runway, and that such drills are conducted to enhance safety, not to jeopardise it. He must also know that fire trucks were not tested for serviceability on the runway, but at their parking bays in the fire stations.”

“Aviation has no room for politics. Even at the height of the Cold War, US commercial planes were not barred from the airspace of the USSR and vice versa. The flight that was apparently deliberately prevented from landing at the Gombe Airport could have come from anywhere, even beyond the country’s borders. It could have been a flight in distress in which case the sequence of events and their aftermath would have been a tragedy, a man-made tragedy,” APC warned.