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GRACE IN SYSTEMIC FAILURE: THE CASE OF NWA FLIGHT 253
By Louis Brown Ogbeifun | January 1, 2010
Systemic failure could be said to be the shutting down of multiple components of a system that hitherto functioned optimally or sub-optimally. In medical practice, this would involve the failure of multiple organs and the patient would be at grave risk.
Reasonable and responsible world leaders were amazed that flight NWA 253 would have been doomed but for systemic failure. But in this part of the world, systemic failure is not new in our dictum. Systemic failure sleeps and wakes with us. Our leaders believe that it is a way of life but Obama says it is totally unacceptable. The day our own leaders see systemic failure as unacceptable, that day would have started our deliberate attempt to leave the league of underdeveloped nations. Let us briefly look at what systemic failure has done to Nigeria:
Chaotic downstream Sector of the oil and gas industry. A country so blessed with oil and gas had her citizens’ sleep in gas stations to purchase scarce Premium Motor Spirit (PMS). Some Nigerians were unable to travel to their homes for the yuletide because of scarcity of PMS while others who did, paid their ways through their nostrils. Our refineries remained idle for months in 2009 because the crude lines were blown by militants. This has been a recurring decimal in our economic history. Yet, our government has been unable to proffer solutions to this malady. The original Petroleum Industry and Freedom of Information Bills that will reform our Petroleum Sector and address issues corruption in a significant manner may not likely see the light of the day.
Chaotic electoral system. One year and four months to another election in 2011, some of the cases involving politicians that contested various elections in 2007 are still on-going in court.
Our budget performance in 2009 was below 45%. How can we move on to displace the present 20th economic state in the year 20-20 at this rate?
Insecurity of lives and properties is on the increase. Yesterday, it was Maitasine and Boko Haram sects that dealt deadly blows on innocent citizens. Today it is Kala-Kato that is wrecking havoc on the civil populace in Bauchi State, yet we are supposed to have security agencies that have pre-emptive and preventive capacities to curtail crimes.
The marginalization, economic banditry of the Niger Delta region by the elites, massive unemployment of the youths, oppression and repression of the people led to the near revolution by the militants of the Niger Delta
Infrastructural decay. Our University system was totally shut down for more than three months in 2009 courtesy of ASUU and Federal government rift.
Our manufacturing sector, which should be a pivot for economic growth collapsed more than a decade ago.
The government promised and swore that by December 2009, the country will generate and transmit 6,000 Mega Watts of electricity. It never happened.
Our President and the avowed preacher of the rule of law has breached the fundamental rule and soul of delegation of authourity when he refused to hand over to his Vice. I just hope that the decisions of the Federal Executive Council since the President left for treatment will not be a nullity. The resultant discordant tunes from the seat of power following this act will sooner than later deal a fatal blow on our polity.
Nigerians have managed to cope with the above failures but the godmother of systemic failures is staring us in the face. It is in acting fast and quick intervention that can help our democracy out of the red alert flag in the horizon. The Chief Executive Officer of Nigeria, the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces, President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua has been away from his duty post for more than one month. To continue where he stopped physically, and in order to prevent Vice President Goodluck Jonathan from acting for him, he has programmed the country on auto cruise because he is too weak to press the accelerator button of governance. My worry is that when this auto cruise system fails, Nigeria runs the risk of a very fatal accident and only God knows what the end will be
The above represents the dirty and sad side of systemic failure. However, this same concept saved the passengers of NWA 253 on December 25th 2009 from total annihilation. When I wrote “peace to the world in 2009”, I urged all those fighting in the trenches all over the world to cease fire, come to the dialogue table, and stop the senseless carnage and the spilling of innocent blood. Though wars or suicide bombings raged in the triangle of API (Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq); the militants in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria gracefully laid down their arms in response to President Yar’Adua’s amnesty programme. For the first time in almost a decade, the Niger Delta people celebrated Christmas without guns.
As the world focused on the deadly bombings in the triangle of API, Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab, a Nigerian was plotting to reinvent Lockerbie plane disaster on US soil. The luck the passengers of NWA 253 had was the systemic failure of the terrorist’s equipment, which staved the tide of another horrifying death in the sky.
Towards the end of 2009, systemic failure gained notoriety in use like never before, when Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab was alleged to have attempted to blow up the Northwest Airlines (NWA) Flight 253, a subsidiary of Delta Airlines on Christmas Day. The Systemic failure in this incidence has some positive and negative connotations. His journey recorded strings of systemic failures from the time of the purchase of his ticket to his advantage.
The father of Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab was alleged to have informed the US embassy in November and the security agencies in Nigeria of the radical posture of his son and the need to keep him under close watch. Though the UK refused him Visa for further studies, the United States did nothing to impose no fly restriction on this young man because the information did not get to the appropriate quarters for action. Nigerian authourities on their part are still investigating the veracity of Farouk father’s claim.
Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab was said to have purchased his ticket in Ghana without any forwarding address. This is quite unusual and would have raised some level of suspicion. The airline saw nothing untoward in this. So, he walked free to board the plane in Nigeria.
He went through security checks in Lagos. He even checked in without a luggage. This was enough to again arouse some suspicion, it did not and he was given a clean bill of passage.
Airlines usually screen passengers at the entrance of the boarding gates shortly before boarding. Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab again passed the screening test.
Against all odds, he successfully went through the security checks at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam. He was said to have checked in on NWA flight 253 without any luggage. This is in the character of terrorists. This would have also raised some level of suspicion but it did not. So Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab graciously headed for the United States of America.
As the plane was about making the final preparations for landing in Detroit, Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, the vessel of death on board NWA 253 was getting ready to detonate his weapon of mass destruction. He did, but the equipment suffered systemic failure which was the saving grace of the passengers.
Now we know that the sophistry of airports is no full proof against terrorist acts and that security is of God. To show the commitment of serious minded world leaders to avert death in the sky, I am sure that in the next few weeks, new equipment will be introduced at international airports worldwide to remedy the identified lacunae. It is sure that passengers of Nigerian origin will suffer all forms of humiliations at international airports. The days of stripping Nigerians to their undies are here again. This is what the action of a perversed person like Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab can do to a people. irrespective of what has happened Nigerians must be treated with respect because the sins of Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab cannot be visited on all Nigerians.
I hope Nigeria’s leaders will also seriously tackle the systemic failures that have plagued our country for so long. Except our politicians and leaders address these systemic failures NOW, unless we change our orientation, values and ethics as a people; I see the most unpalatable change in Nigeria happen. Will the change come through the ballot box? I do not know. Will the change be extremely revolutionaryand bloody in character? I cannot tell. Will the change that will remedy this rot ever come? Yes it will and when it finally comes, this country and the world will quake. All the treasury looters will seek hiding places to no avail. Just like the days of Noah, our leaders won’t listen to wise counsel, but I dare say that this change is imminent and may be sooner than expected. This is why we need to rise up now and use all peaceful means to redefine our corporate entity and channel a new vision, a new mission and course before it is too late. I wish all the good people of the world a very prosperous New Year.
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March 27th, 2010 at 9:10 pm
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