NIJASEA,
Please allow me to clarify my point if I may.
I am not biased towards Nigerians or your aviation industry.
What I AM biased againsed is someone with the attitude that LJT displays from time to time where the Expats working in and for his country and others that serve the periferal industries are considered to be leeches and exploiters of the excellence that is Nigeria and her people.
It is a refrain that is heard all over the world, and most loudly in my homeland, South Africa where all the problems of the land are the fault of and were caused by the white man. What many seem to overlook is that while the colonial "system" was far from perfect and was indeed exploitive, when it was finally kicked out or voted out, it by and large left behind it a country that had a functioning and intact infrastructure that then took not too long to degenerate to the state it is now in. All the while the decline is blamed on the whites who had the cheeck to run off and stop maintaining the stuff, thus allowing it to get into rack and ruin.
As for your aviation industry, my involvement in it was in the helicopter section where I worked with Nigerian engineers and pilots, some of whome were first class and some rather less - much like any other country, I might add.
My point about the Bellview flights I did was to illustrate that regardless of where or by whom the F-reg machine/s were maintained, Bellview was at the time a respected part of the industry in Nigeria and once the machines went onto the 5N-reg it all went south.
As for needing to raise my standards with regard to the industry, I say absolutely I do. It has been some years since I was in your country and by way of illustration, Bellview were still flying F-reg metal, Chanchangi was still in business (albeit tenuously) and Chrome was on the ramp at MMIA and the collection of hulls parked in the bushes across the apron from PAAN and the old Concorde hangar had only recently been removed, so it has been a while.
I worked in Nigeria for almost 7 years and by and large I had a good time there. My contact with your people was mostly hassle free, I was not mugged, scammed, 419'd, shot or anything bad which is, for me at least, a positive sign. As with anywhere there were the ones who considered me and my fellow expats to be an irritation and a target for racial and other attacks and they got short change from me.
I do not suffer from what has been termed "the white conscience". I do not feel guilty that I am white because I had nothing to do with that decision. Historically, my family never supported the National government in South Africa, but as the minority of the voting population had little choice but to make do with an imperfect world. I grew up on a farm and my father tried as far as possible to treat his staff with dignity and respect, and I believe he taught me the same respect.
What gets up my nose is a person who blames me and my "type" for the ills that befall him. Let's be blunt here for a second - tell me what the white man has done to facilitate the decline of the Nigerian industry and it's infrastrcture please. Which whitey stopped the trains running, allowed the festering of tribalism that has led to MEND and similar festering sores, created the current incarnation of a phone system, turned off the power stations, and closed the refineries?
Now take that question for the sake of fairness to the rest of Africa just to illustrate that I am not Nigeria bashing and the answer becomes clear - It has been self inflicted.
If I have offended you, I apologise, but understand me when I say that
by and large the white man is not responsible for the current state of affairs in Africa.
As fot you, LJT...
They improve your economy and you sound like you're doing us a favour?? You must be out of your mind!
You mean like the recent case of the SAA crew that were caught at Heathrow with a few hundred grands worth of drugs? Where it turns out the security guard who "checked their bags" in Jozi and got herself arrested was married to a Nigerian who it seems is part of an international drug ring?
Believe me, that sort of enrichment we can do without, thank you.
I flew both of those airplanes and one of which is now being used as spares for the last flying one!!!
Why aren't the ALL still flying, and in the same conditition they were then?
Expats to stay on because they don't have a problem in the world!
Apart from being occasionally hijacked and sometimes killed when they get caught up in the middle of the mess that your government has created with the oil dollars and their distribution to the masses.
They are escorted round in SUV's, given cooks, Gardner's, cleaners, drivers etc.
Tell me, can you afford all those things in your neck of the woods???
I don't drive an SUV, but I do have a housekeeper and a gardener, while I prefer to drive myself like I would have preferred in Nigeria if it was not made compulsory by the company in order to create the jobs that your government can't be bothered to do themselves.
For you re-education, when the locals go on strike, it's because they are fighting for basic rights;
How come those basic rights are not afforded to the people whose land has been dug up to allow for the industry that gives the strikers the opportunity to strike in the first place? Maybe it's to do with greed and corruption, which if it were a national sport would guarantee Nigeria a clean sweep of gold medals at the All Africa Games despite stiff competition from Zimbabwe.
I don't need to get over anything at all. I still communicate with my Nigerian friends from time to time and my dreams at night are not haunted by the likes of you.
I do believe though that you need to take a step back and take a long hard look at what you consider to be the ideal. Unless that is you are a part of the elite who benefit from the exploitation that you blame me for, in which case it's best left well alone then, right?