HOT NEWS: Crash-site robberies

THE recent sad crash of Associated Airlines plane just outside the
perimeter fence of the domestic wing of Murtala Mohammad Airport,
Lagos exposed, once again, an ugly side of our society,
which has become a regular occurrence.
As soon as the crash took place, people rushed to the scene. Majority
of them were genuine
sympathisers eager to lend a helping hand to save fellow Nigerians,
dead or dying, from a most
traumatic accident.
But among these were hoodlums, whose primary agenda was to rob the
victims of their material belongings.

These are usually the first to arrive
accident scenes because it ensures they would be able to loot as much
as possible before the law enforcement agents and well-meaning
rescuers would arrive.

It is a pity that it is these evil people that always
get there first rather than the law enforcement
personnel and other specialised agents trained and equipped for rescue
operations, who ought to get there first and secure the scene to
enable full, professional processing of accident scene.

Time has come when the authorities specially set up to deal with these
sorts of emergencies
engaged the public to partner with them in
securing crash sites against the invasion of thieves and looters,
whose activities invariably
compromise investigation that helps to prevent future occurrences.

There is also need for the government, the media and civil society to
debunk the notion that air travel is a pastime, which the rich and the
corrupt engage in to show off their affluence.

Views being expressed by many commentators in the social media
networks give the impression
that plane crashes are like judgements
pronounced on the rich and corrupt. It is this
mentality that drives urchins, who invade crash sites to commence
orgies of looting of victims.

Our people must be made to understand that air
travel is part and parcel of modern society; just
another means of transport. Every person,
irrespective of their social standing, will have the
opportunity or need to travel by air some time in
their lives.
They must also understand that the wealthy
people are not necessarily the enemies of the
poor and vice versa. Not every so-called wealthy
person is corrupt or achieved that status by
oppressing the poor. We live in a society, where
social mobility is free. Nigeria is not one of those
societies, where the poor have no hope.
The truth is that those, who engage in this evil act
also practise it upon road accident victims, which
shows the act for what it really is: Evil criminality
that every right thinking member of society must
shrink from. The law enforcement agents, on
getting to crash sites of any sort, must be
prepared to apprehend culprits, parade them and
visit the full weight of law on them.