THE DOUBLE TRAGEDY
The time was 23:00 G.M.T on Saturday night when I saw news flashes from one of the television stations about a missing Bellview aircraft. The news not only struck me with shock but disbelief and worry especially for the 117 souls on board. I tried to imagine the possibility of their survival amidst the insecurity in Nigeria, where minor mishaps usually claims lots of lives. Talk more of an airplane.
As events continued to unfold, I woke up Sunday morning to receive yet another bad news; “Mama” our first lady, Stella Obasanjo had passed away in far away Spain due to complications in her surgery. I was still trying to grapple with the news when it was confirmed that the missing plane had crashed leaving no survivors. Immediately some questions ran through my mind; is all well with naija? Could this be our own hurricane Katrina, Rita or Wilma? OR probably God aint happy with us. Surely there is more to this puzzle than meets the eye and only time will tell.
By the time the crash site was discovered at 14:00 hours GMT, Sunday at Lisa village in Ogun state, nothing but scraps of metal, incomplete human parts could be salvaged. Thereby raising questions on competence of our rescue and search agencies, not even our proudly owned satellite, NICOMSAT.1 was not even put into use throughout the period.
Definitely the 2 events have thrown the entire country into morning. A good Sunday turned into a black one. My heart goes out to the relatives of those that were involved and to OBJ, I say “take heart, God knows best”.