Still on British Airways’ inhumanity to Nigerians

By Emmanuel Onwubiko

Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, as the Minister of Aviation, made bold moves to ensure that Nigerians who lost their luggage aboard any foreign airlines, especially, the notorious British Airways, were treated with courtesy and adequately compensated.

The former Minister of Aviation took that decision to hold series of trouble shooting consultations with the top management of the British Airways to drum it into their consciousness that the Nigerian government would no longer tolerate the mistreatment of Nigerian travellers from foreign airlines whose luggage were declared missing and were not adequately compensated by the British Airways. As a man schooled in the British university system, the then minister was well aware that the British Airways always treats their nationals with courtesy, especially when there are established cases of missing baggage.

Of course, the British justice system usually comes down heavily on these foreign airways for violating the rights of their British passengers. The British Airways recently dolled out several millions of Pounds Sterling to their distraught British passengers who lost their bags to the Heathrow five landing facilities which failed to work since it was commissioned for business. Since Fani-Kayode left as the aviation minister, this maltreatment has continued unabated especially with the the new minister of aviation facing a series of problems relating to the missing Beechcraft Aircraft which allegedly killed four crew members without trace.

The new Minister of Aviation, Felix Hassan -Hyat, who this writer knew so well as a meticulous and hard working Nigerian who achieved fame and success as a public servant in Kaduna state, is expected by Nigerians to also beam his search light on the malpractices of these foreign airways and airlines who would not respect the human rights of Nigerians as if the human rights of the average British citizen is much more valuable than that of the Nigerian citizen. 

Hassan–Hyat who has a near impeccable record as a public servant before he was appointed as the Minister of Aviation in Nigeria has just been saddled by president Umaru Musa Yar’adua with the duty of unraveling why and how the British Airways with flight number BA75 on March 27th 2008 ordered a total of 138 Nigerian passengers in the economy class off the plane after some of them protested against the inhuman treatment being meted out to a Nigerian deportee. The said British Airways pilot was said to have presumed that all the economy class passengers of Nigerian extraction could no longer travel down to Nigeria from London in the BA because they were all guilty of constituting a security threat. What illogicality? One wonders why that pilot was not arrested in Nigeria on arrival without those Nigerian passengers.

A Fani-Kayode as the Minister of Aviation would have ordered the arrest and detention of that terrorist called pilot of the British Airways for his show of shame which left 138 Nigerian passengers stranded in Britain without any justification whatsoever. Though the current minister of Aviation Felix Hassan-Hyat is said to be towing the line of rule of law by not arresting the recalcitrant British Airways pilot, analysts say there was nothing wrong in ordering the arrest of that pilot for violating the human rights of 138 Nigerian passengers including Mr. Ayodeji Omotade who has been banned for life from traveling on British Airways for allegedly spearheading the call to the British security authorities to treat Nigerian deportees with humanness and compassion as human beings, entitled to all the rights provided for in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights approved and adopted by the member nations of the United Nations on 10th December 1948.

Britain is the home of some of the world’s best known human rights advocacy groups like Amnesty International. One wonders then why these colonial tendencies and this master-slave treatment of Nigerian passengers have not assumed international advocacy dimension? Is it because Nigerians are involved? Are Nigerians less human than their British counterparts?

The answer is certainly NO because all members of the uman race are entitled to the protection and promotion of their human rights anywhere they are in the Global Village. That pilot of that British Airways plane involved in this monumental show of shame and massive breach of the human rights of these Nigerian passengers must face the competent court of law for violating the human rights of these 138 Nigerian passengers.

The presidential probe panel headed by the current Minister of Aviation should expedite action in recommending what I may call the ‘Femi Fani-Kayode no-nonsense solution’ that all the indicted officials of the British Airways are made to face the music in the law courts in Britain or alternatively, if the British Government feels that the established case of the massive violations of the human rights of Nigerians are not sufficient grounds for prosecution of the indicted persons, then the British Airways should be made to pay heavy penalties, like compensations, to the affected Nigerians.

This case must not be treated in the usual Ojo Maduekwe’s style of sweeping the allegations under the carpet of rhetoric of “citizenship diplomacy” that has not positively impacted on the Nigerians victimized daily in foreign countries. The foreign Affairs minister, Ojo Maduekwe, a consummate politician, will usually mouth the policy of citizenship diplomacy but make no deliberate effort to externalize this ideal when the welfare and Human Rights of the Nigerian citizens are breached in foreign countries.

The Foreign Affairs minister will rather engage in the rhetoric of preaching to Nigerians in foreign countries to be law abiding as if all Nigerians abroad are lawless. Immediately he came into office last year, a Nigerian in Greece was killed in incident involving the Greek Police, but when this writer protested in my capacity as a Federal Human Rights Commissioner in Nigeria’s National Human Rights commission [NHRC], appointed by the President and Commander in Chief in 2005 for a -four year tenure, Ojo Maduekwe did not take kindly to it. He called the attention of the Federal Attorney General who subsequently summoned the civil servant that now heads the National Human Rights Commission as Executive Secretary after Buhari Bello was illegally removed, and she called my attention to the issue raised by my press comment whereupon I asked the Federal Government to defend the rights of Nigerians living abroad.

She told the federal Attorney General that what this writer said did not represent the official position of the NHRC, whose credibility has been consistently whittled down and undermined deliberately by the Federal Government through the actions and pronouncements of key Government officials on the status of the Governing Council, which legally has a little more than eight months to expire. 
 

Onwubiko, a human rights activist and journalist, lives in Abuja.

•••Editor’s note: The writer erroneously referred to the Dutch Ambassador as being involved in the Lufthansa Airline issue instead of the German Ambassador. The error is regretted.