In the global aviation community, it is the same laws that guide the rules of the game. In other words, it is the same rules that apply to all classes of people.
Nigeria as a signatory to the civil aviation rules and its annexes cannot afford to do things on its own as all the laws pertaining to flights operations are binding on the country.
There should be no local or emotional sentiments attached to the business of flight operations, in view of the sensitive roles the sector plays, which include movements of humans and cargoes around the world through air transport.
Little wonder that such rules, apart from being guided by strict reputations, defied any application of muscle flexing tendencies as the rules do not exempt any class or status. Therefore, no matter your status, you are expected to subject yourself to the operational procedures at the airports.
This is the situation in other climes where even their revered leaders, without being coerced, are ever ready to subject themselves to the airport rules and standards.
All these have been responsible for the seamless and well coordinated air transport in such climes.
Unfortunately, despite the efforts being put in place by the different professionals in the country’s aviation sector to replicate these developmental principles for the advancement of air transport, a few class of people who have been intoxicated by power and status have continued to frustrate such efforts in the country.
It is on record how many public officeholders, including politicians, uniform personnel, ministers and even local government chairmen who all rose to their positions by chance or mother luck had, in the past, abused such privileges as they chose to live above the law which they swore to obey.
At the airports, this class of people usually display executive lawlessness by refusing to subject themselves to security screenings and, at times, when they come late, they expect the airline staff on duty to abandon other passengers who had arrived the airports two hours before them to attend to them, because they wear uniforms bought with public funds or because of their political influences.
This group of lawless individuals always feel too big to surrender to the rules guiding aviation safety and security, sadly though they comply with even more ridiculous rules once they step outside the shores of Nigeria.
Unfortunately, once there is a little incident, they form part of other Nigerians rushing to misjudge and castigate the same system they are frustrating.
This brings to the fore the latest display of recklessness by some officials of an arm of the country’s uniform personnel who ordinarily should have known better how the system works in aviation, but got carried away by their status.
The latest incident which involved some officers of the department of State Services (DSS) at Ibadan airport according to information in the public domain, reared its head when some staff of Green Africa who followed the aviation boarding rules refused to allow the state director of DSS to board the flight because his name was not on the passengers’ manifest.
The name of the DSS director not being on the list clearly showed he was not scheduled to travel on that flight and it would have been against the operational procedure if the airline had bent the rules to board someone whose name was not originally on the manifest.
Perhaps, officials of the security arm of the government who forgot that the airport is different from a typical motorpark where everything can be allowed, unleashed havoc on the airline and its staff for daring to deny their boss the ‘illegal boarding’.
At the end of the show, the affected workers were not only handcuffed and whisked away to the Aleshinloye office of the DSS, but were forced to apologise in a letter for following the laid down operational rules.
Whilst the DSS officials who were said to have come in masks to arrest the airline workers, operational activists became disrupted with other passengers having their travel plans temporarily halted.
Obviously, relevant authorities could have commenced investigations into the illegality, but again, nothing concrete may come out of the shenanigans like the previous experiences which were swept under the carpet.
At this juncture, the time has come for the aviation authorities particularly the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) to enlighten the uniform personnel through the top hierarchy on the need for them to realize the sensitivity of the aviation rules.
The NCAA should let the uniform personnel and other law breakers that the laws guiding operational procedures across the airports are applicable to all statuses irrespective of who is involved.
You don’t say because you are a uniform personnel or a politician the law should be changed for you. Above all, any one who wants to be respected should first respect the rules of the game by getting to the airport on time and follow all the due processes and not a case of rushing their behind schedule and expect the airline or aviation security to be compromised.
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