Nigerians, home and abroad, are beginning to react to Sunday’s claim by Nigeria’s main opposition party, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that security agencies at Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport Abuja embarrassed its Presidential Candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, by searching him on arrival from Dubai, United Arab Emirate (UAE).
Atiku returned from Dubai, where he had held a “strategy meeting” with 400 PDP members who travelled to the far away foreign land from Nigeria simply for one political meeting.
Following the Dubai meeting, PDP, using its grip on National Assembly, had staged a confusion with a purportedly attempted assassination Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu, by which the opposition party claimed the police did a cover up on the development preliminary investigations report it said did not show assassination but burglary.
Ekweremadu had threatened to release CCTV to show what he believed the police was covering regarding what happened in his house by his two purported assailants one whom is currently in police custody.
The attitude of the opposition created doubts in many, who have been asking the Deputy Senate President to release the CCTV and, over four days now, he is yet to release any.
An article published by The DEFENDER was first to puncture the Ekweremadu’s surprised distrust in the police investigations, as it asked why the Enugu Senator who, despite his support for all terrorist activities of IPOB and Niger Delta Avengers, never for once ceased to enjoy security protection of the same country he worked against.
This, to some smart thinking Nigerians, was quickly interpreted to be part of the Dubai “strategy meeting” just to create confusion in the land to ensure the 2019 general elections will not hold.
Following that was suspicious agility with which the National Assembly has suddenly built up probes with days and concluded that President Muhammadu Buhari diverted State funds to execute his campaigns for the 2019 presidential election and still went ahead, not only to with the aid of their media cohorts twist a N3.5 million feeding story against Minister of Information and Culture Alhaji Lai Mohammed but also, to “indict” the Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo over what has now been agreed to be concocted allegation of N35.3 billion embezzlement of North East IDPs money.
All of these put together with the avoidable issues they made with the police, who would not twist investigation report against culprit arrested at Ekweremadu’s house, easily aided Nigerians’ arriving at conclusion that the implementation of the Dubai resolutions was in the offing by politicians already being tele-guided by the same Nigerians who sacked them over three years ago on the grounds that they damaged Nigerian economy through their blind corruption, plunged the people into complex seeming unsolvable security problem and their lack of concern for the welfare of the masses.
While that was on, there was already apprehension in the land as to what next, after the politically motivated killings in North Central states just ended by Buhari’s security agencies, the 400 politicians that travelled to foreign land to do just a meeting were capable of importing as another leg of crisis to the country. A serious government, therefore, was expected to be on the guard.
Upon arrival, Atiku, no longer in government, was given due respect as former Vice President but was searched. Atiku, it would be noted, traveled into Nigeria in his private jet.
There are evidences that not even officials of Buhari’s government have been spared from search that the laws of Nigeria require all passengers to submit themselves to at the nation’s international airport.
Surprisingly the PDP has made hell out of it, calling the legal operation intimidation of the opposition candidate just like the candidate made hell out of HSBC close down recently, knowing the global banking group has track of aiding corruption in countries of the world.
The Federal Government through the Minister ofState for Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika, however has replied the PDP and Atiku that all they did with “empty” cry out was no more than “mischievous attempt to grab headlines attention”.
Some other Nigerians, who stand with the government on this, referred to America where Vice President to President Bill Clinton, Al Gore, was searched twice at an airport, despite that he was still accorded presidential treatment as former Vice President like Nigeria’s Atiku of President Olusegun Obasanjo era.
A Nigerian intellectual (names withheld) brought up a report headlined “Al Gore gets ‘presidential treatment’ by airport security…ex-VP bags searched twice on Wisc.trip”
The report read as follows:
Washington – Midwest Express Airlines boasts the “best care in the air,” but Air Force II it ain’t.
Private citizen Al Gore learned that last week – not once but twice.
Traveling to Wisconsin, the former vice president was pulled aside for random security screening at Reagan National Airport before boarding the 7:15 p.m. flight to Milwaukee on Friday.
Passengers sharing Flight 406 were startled to hear Gore being told, “Sorry, sir, you have to go through extra screening,” and to witness security personnel rifling through his briefcase and suitcase, a witness said.
“You’re looking out and seeing Al Gore’s unmentionables in his big, carry-on suitcase,” said Mark Graul of Green Bay. “You could tell he was thinking, ‘This is not happening to me.’
“He did not have a happy look on his face. Basically the whole plane boarded before they got through looking through his stuff.
“He patiently went through it and then took a seat in the front row with, I assume, an aide,” Graul said.
Gore was en route to Madison to address the Democratic Party of Wisconsin convention Saturday.
Graul, chief of staff to Rep. Mark Green, House Republican from Green Bay, said a handful of passengers fired up their cell phones before the plane left the gate.
He was one of them. “People were calling friends: ‘You’re never going to believe what I just saw.’ ”
What are the chances?
On Saturday afternoon, when Gore was leaving Milwaukee’s Mitchell International Airport, he was taken aside for some extra scrutiny at a Midwest Express gate before boarding a flight to New York, said Gore spokesman Jano Cabrera, who accompanied him during both checks.
“My understanding is he was randomly selected both times,” he said. “And both times he was more than happy, as all Americans are in these troubled times, to cooperate.”
Does the ex-veep and almost-commander in chief see any irony in being frisked and wanded like your average passenger from the rear of coach?
Does he crave being Big Kahuna?
From Cabrera:
“Despite the fact that he won more votes than anyone else in the history of America, except for Ronald Reagan, he is more than happy to do his part for airport security.
“As I recall, he shook the hands of all the airport screeners afterward and thanked them for doing the jobs that they’re doing and asked them to keep up the good work.”
At Midwest Express, based in Oak Creek, Lisa Bailey, director of corporate communications, referred questions to the U.S. Transportation Security Administration.
TSA spokeswoman Deirdre O’Sullivan stifled her laughter long enough to issue a statement indicating that dignitaries do not merit special treatment.
“The TSA does believe that screening at the gate is an additional level of security that acts as a deterrent to persons who wish to do harm,” she added.
Meanwhile, there’s been no decision on whether so-called “trusted traveler” cards will be issued to whisk good-intentioned frequent fliers through security, O’Sullivan said.
