The Archbishop of Calabar Archdiocese, Methodist Church, Nigeria, Most Rev Emmanuel O. Udofia, has blamed the recent Airforce plane crash  on the poor maintenance of Nigeria assets.  

Rev Udofia, while speaking to newsmen on Monday, said the plane crash would have been aborted if the country operates a good maintenance culture.

He said “It is really unfortunate that such a thing will happen in Nigeria, when you consider the calibre of people that died even if they were only crew members; their families have lost their loved ones.

“Now at this critical time in our nation, where we are looking for the services of specialized people and then we lose them by crash? What is happening with our maintenance culture, does it mean they did not service the aircraft before it was put on air? And that is very unfortunate for specialized people to go down the drain.

“This is not an ordinary aircraft, it is a specialized aircraft, managed by specialized people and when things like this happen, we talk of setting a probe panel, what kind of probe are they going to carry out, are they going to recover the lives of those that died?

“What compensation is the federal government going to give to their families, a lot of them have responsibilities, taking care of themselves and others, paying school fees and feeding others as well as paying rents, they died of recklessness and it very sad and unfortunate.”

The Archbishop also lamented on Nigerian roads, where accidents of all sorts occur, people die, maimed and amputated.

“Do you know more accidents happen on the roads because of the bad roads. A lot of people also die.

“A lot of people who cannot pay for flights go by road but end up dying or being maimed in accidents,” he said.