What do we say of a once brightly lit candle quenched in the midst of this dark night? Where have the youths gone wrong that millions of us are stuck picking from the crumbs that fall after being scattered into the winds from the masters’ tables? How many more like flying officer Tolulope Arotile would be lost to this country in the fight to protect it? It is harder to say that it is worth it anymore even now that unpopular lives really matter only in the books of law and not in the reality of things we go through.
I am watching what would have been a great career being lowered into mother earth – Tolulope Arotile, Nigeria’s first Air Force female combat Helicopter Pilot who died at the very tender age of 24 not at the warfront but in the Nigeria Air Force Base.

This growing champ, full of dreams and potentials could have been one of Nigeria’s greatest heroines. But it’s sad to lose her so cheaply like this knowing that it takes very great courage to reach the peak of your career in Nigeria in spite of the steep competition we face while battling for the little made available which does not affect the “supposed high and mighty”. I am pained more importantly because this was an avoidable death as the young man, Nathaniel Adejoh, alleged to have knocked her to death if in a security and safety-focused country would have been intercepted long before reaching the Nigeria Air Force Base, Kaduna.

How long do you have to drive in America to be intercepted when you have no proper documentation to drive a car? Would it be false to argue that the young man had been driving around in complete disobedience to the laws of the motherland long before that fateful day without being held by the relevant forces? They might come for me if I say anymore because it is now for show than for country. Many are in jail for making speeches – not hate speech but speaking against the supposed “high and mighty”; the freedom of speech they told was free is not truly free.

So rather than question these things, the media takes care of its business. The news of Arotile’s death is scattered around all standard news media platforms but not much noise was made the day she was decorated as Nigeria’s first Air Force female combat Helicopter Pilot. How is it that many people are hearing of her only after her demise? I will ask again, “If bad news is good news, when is good news bad news?” Many people around the world are doing exploits but not much of that makes the “big stories” or the “front pages” and we question why it is hard to see any good in ourselves? Is it fair?

By David Ugbabe
Journalist |Writer
https://link.medium.com/jzcNMyQUl8