₦airaland Forum

Bellview Airlines leaves passengers at the counter
By Okechukwu Nnodim
September 4, 2009 12:58AMT
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Bellview Airlines left hundreds of passengers stranded at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos on Thursday after flights to London were cancelled without notice. This is the latest in a spate of events that have rocked the troubled airline, which saw its aircraft grounded earlier this year due to indebtedness to the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria.

Domestic flights were also affected on Thursday as no ticketing or reservation workers were seen at the airline’s stand in Murtala Mohammed Airport 2 (MMA2). The airline’s website had announced plans to begin flights to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on September 3, 2009 but no mention was made about alternative plans for stranded passengers.

Situation worsens

The situation at the Bellview counter degenerated into chaos as waiting passengers became restive — some demanding for their money, while others cursed the airline. Police officers were called to the Bellview counter to restore order.

“It is not in refunding our money or putting us in hotels; passengers want to travel,” said a stranded passenger who wanted to be identified as Mark. “We want to travel, for God’s sake. If it is not a regular thing, then it’s okay, but the irony is that we have people that have been here since last week Tuesday, and this airline is becoming notable in disappointing passengers.”

As things got more intense, the managing director of FAAN, Richard Aisuebeogun, came to the scene with the chairperson of the House of Representatives Committee on Aviation, Bethel Amadi, to appeal to passengers.

“We have actually spoken to the managing director of Bellview Airlines and expressed our displeasure over what we’ve seen,” said Mr. Aisuebeogun. “It’s most unfortunate. These are passengers that have actually bought tickets and there is a transaction obligation between the airline and the passengers.”

Also pleading with the passengers, Ify Megwa, an employee and management official of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority’s consumer protection unit, assured the passengers that their interests would be protected.

Out in the cold

Expressing the “inhumane level of contempt” meted on them by the airline, the passengers requested that the nation’s aviation authority penalise the international and domestic carrier for such acts.

“My name is Mark; I come from London,” said one of the affected passengers on line at the MMIA. “I gladly bought a Bellview ticket, thinking this is Nigeria’s company and you’ve got to patronise our carriers but all I get is very disheartening and disappointing. In fact, the aircraft (airline) should be shut down by the appropriate authorities.”

Mr. Mark said that the airline has proved to be “unprincipled,” stressing that passengers are not to be treated like beggars without choices.

“It’s not a professional way of operation,” he said. “You don’t put your passengers to go through this kind of nonsense. They are taking money from people. They don’t have an aeroplane; they don’t have seats. That, in theory, is fraud.”

Ayo Ladejo, a father whose daughter was also affected by the delay, said that his daughter bought her ticket on Tuesday, September 1, and had not been able to travel since then.

“My daughter was supposed to travel last Tuesday,” he said. “They text her that she should come yesterday, and yesterday evening, they say today (Thursday), and now, they are telling us to come on the (September) 6th; that as for today, no way for her to travel.”

According to Mr. Ladejo, his daughter decided to go for another ticket, but the price of tickets to London had increased.

“We thought of buying another ticket because she is desperate to go back because she has a very important appointment tomorrow,” he said. “Her children are going back to school. She needs to arrange for the children. Now, we are looking for tickets here and there, and they sayN180,000-something.

“Where do we get such kind of money from, while we have already spent the much we had in acquiring a dormant ticket?”

Mr. Ladejo was forced to make alternative plans.

“I had to go out and borrow some money; this is part of the money here,” he said. “I have not seen anybody from the airline (Bellview) to talk to. We have been going from office to office looking for them, but we can’t see them.”

Expressing disappointment was another stranded passenger, Lakunle Okpuosun.

“Bellview Airlines is irresponsible for making us suffer this much,” he said.

Bellview speaks

Habib Mohammed, media relations personnel for the airline, in an interview with NEXT, said that internal hitches and technical issues led to the flight delays. He said that the airline would airlift the passengers to their respective destinations, stressing that the travellers should exercise patience with the carrier.

“We have been contacting them (passengers) through their cell phones, but the unfortunate thing is that a lot of Nigerian passengers don’t have functional numbers, and some of them fail to provide their numbers on their tickets,” he said. “We are sorry for the disappointment but we will ensure that they fly by tomorrow (Friday, September 4).”

the lines are virtually invisible.
anyway, i did see a few samples of Rugged's line at the Palms.
They were absolute rubbish.

on a more serious note, Jarus, you need to make that contact with Mr. Peterside.
that is the sole member of the elite whose words and conduct i trust (almost).

Jarus:
MY LASTEST EXCHANGE WITH DELE MOMODU
Dear Nairalanders,
Sequel to the request here that I get their messages across to DM, I sent him this mail:

. . . and almost immediately he replied thus:


If you have specific questions you want to direct to DM, send to me and I will get them across to him. I don't want to convince him to join Nairaland himself  as some people may go overboard and might lead to exchange of tantrums and it will be embarrassing to have news across the country that Dele and some people are exchanging vituperations on NL.

Let's see what we can do. . . .

Any one holding his breath is waiting in vain.
I started reading Dele Momodu's columns since 1989 and only stopped reading Ovation a few years back.
Dele Momodu is incapable of a perspective devoid of ass licking, name dropping and
exagerrations.
When the coming revolution of the Nigerian space arrives, his type shall reap all they
have sown.
Men and women who sieve truth through the basket of convenience.
Segun Adeniyi wrote more persuasive articles, where is he today?
You cannot serve God and mammon. A time worn truth that the likes of Dele Momodu are
unable to appreciate.
How can you celebrate the oppressor while claiming to serve the oppressed?

Please hold my hand.Don't let me go.
Have mercy on me and deliver me.
Please do not abandon me.
I am worthless and feeling lost.
I know i have let you down,my heart is broken and my soul feel lost.
you are all i need and you are all i lack at present.
Lord,please help me.
all i plead for is your mercy and the blood.
please, Lord help me.
but for the richness of your mercies,i am finished.

no be only you.me sef don tire

biina:
and what is so prophetic about the Vanguard article?
-  That soludo will not get a second term, when no CBN governor has done so in recent times, and after his brushes with the president was almost certain to be replaced
- Anyone privy to the state of things in the EDW could easily deduce that these five banks were in trouble, as they were constantly borrowing from other banks, without paying it back since October 2008
- That the CBN would have to take action against them else the collapse the entire sector. Even Soludo would have acted against them if he was reappointed. He likely feigned ignorance so as not to hinders his chances of a second term as governor.
- Given the size of the banks involved (and the recent court rulings on Savannah issue) , that the CBN would have no choice but to inject funds into this bank.
- That the banks would have to be transitioned into a new management (and possibly ownership where needed) to recover the CBN funds and move the banks forward as a going concern
- Given the distribution of wealth in Nigeria, it is highly likely that some of the investor might come from the north (afterall they are like half of the country).

Yet some people simply ignore the failings of the prophecy like
- The top 5 banks are targeted, yet the banks affected are not the top 5 banks as claimed by the article
- The group were supposed to force the banks into liquidity problem by depositor withdrawing their money, yet said 5 banks are in trouble because the have been borrowing from other banks without repayment, lost money because they invested heavily in stocks and oil & Gas, and because they have huge amounts of loans that they have failed to collect on, but rather doctored their books. Their failure is their own handiwork, and not because of some text messages sent by some group
- The government was supposed to take equity in the banks, yet the CBN has not done so. The funds injected were tier 2, which is essentially like an insurance policy, and not tier 1 which could have been termed has buying equity in  the company.

Short of the coincident number 5, the rest is malleable for anyone gullible enough

Though that Nigerians cant reason on facts and figures is not surprising, else how would one explain the thriving throng of false prophets, fake pastors, and crooked imams.

gbam!!

Jarus:
I have provided answers to that many times in the several threads on this topic, if you bordered to read my previous posts.
As I am now, I'm even writing an article, titled SANUSI'S REFORMS: A TALE OF TWO PREDICTIONS for publication in national dailies, solely to counter that article.

I'm not Sanusi's PA. I have never met him. I first heard his name around August 2008 when he was announced as replacement for Jacob Moyo Ajekigbe as FBN GMD, but I've been on NL since 2007. I only believe he's doing the right thing, at least for now, that is why I have taken it upon myself to defend him. Once I realize he's going astray I'll be teh first to criticize him on NL and on pages of newspapers. Count me out of sycophancy.

i am watching you o.
many have gone that way.

The only banker i will ever listen to is Mr. Atedo Peterside.
i will have to analyse his comments critically.
I do not trust any member of the Nigerian elite but if i must give my ears to the comments of any of them, it will be Mr. Peterside.
He is no sycophant, neither is he an empty head.

on the issue of his origin; Dele is from Edo state but has adopted Ife wholly.
He says this himself.He says he is an Edo man by virtue of his father's origin, apart from that he is a Yoruba man in every sense.

akigbemaru:
All you stupid people dropping dirty and yeye comments about Dele does this and Momodu does that, I want every last one of you gays get off this man di.ck.
You can drink your Hatorade, it doesn't matter, God has blessed my man already. If anybody critizise that war monger called Ojukwu, I bet you, many Biaf-rats would come on this forum to yell, rant and cry. I am talking about those that called oil Oyel or better still those monkeys that eaten up all our monkeys in Idanre hills, located few kilometers to their Eastern region. If anybody criticize Onyegbos, they would be playing race cards and crying of marginalization. It's only retarted fools would not concur that calling Onyegbo a majority is just a Shibboleth.

I remember, that useless hoe called Mrs rebranding, tell me what she has upstairs? Who doesn't know that a retarded rich kid who know how to spend money anyway. She's a charlantan opportunist. I want to criticize Igbos so that many of you can come in multitudes to get on my di.ck, I may feed y'all with my big dic.k any damn way. Y'all gonna su.ck my big John Thomas.

NB: Leave Dele Momodu alone, he's not a politician or something that's close to that,  Blame it on Foibes Magazine too, if that could be the case. Silly bastards.

can someone please explain the meaning of the post above?

na today

I have followed his career since the days of Weekend Concord to Classique with late MEE to FAME and briefly at Ovation.
One thing i know is that he is a brilliant fellow (in his ability with words in either the english language or Yoruba in which he has a Masters) but an opportunist to the core who will like the relevant asses for the sake of his pocket.
a man who you can never define his stand.
in my view he obviously has an inferiority complex, as he enjoys name dropping and massaging his silly ego.
He is to Journalism what Tokunbo Afinkuyomi is to politics.
Shameless men.

How can anyone take Dele Momodu serious?
He is a clown and a joker to boot.

on each of these lines mentioned, both local and international ones, i have had good and bad experiences.
one of my best flights ever was a VA flight.
my worst ever was a Bellview flight but i have heard people who had good experiences on their flights.
they all have their bad days. it is all about the regularity or rate of bad days.
I will never fly a local airline for an intwernational flight and that is because i do not think they are reliable enough in terms of safety and quality of service.
2ndly, i do not think the difference in fare is worth it.
the important issue in air travel is customer satisfaction = customer retention = loyalty.
Just one bad experience is able to put you off an airline for ever.
That is one area i have been disappointed with Virgin Nigeria. they seem to be chewing more than they can swallow.
On several occassions i have been militant and aggressive to their people at various terminals.
either the flight is delayed for hours or luggages got missing or flight was cancelled arbitrarily.
I mentioned this to a friend and he said he can stand Virgin Nigeria but that Arik is a no go for him.
He finds the staff both on board and on ground to be rude , uncouth and abusive.
there you go, one man meat ----------

BATTLING for survival on different continents, an 18-month-old Nigerian child and an Indian housewife, suffering from advanced liver failure, have virtually given each other a new lease of life and the answer to the problem of organ donor shortage.

Dike Ezeanya, son of a Nigerian businessman, and 44-year-old Priya Ahuja have undergone what is being claimed as the first successful swap liver transplant, also called paired donation, for which a team of 35 doctors laboured for 26 hours in four operating theatres.

"In such cases, an incompatible pair of donor and recipient are matched with another incompatible donor or recipient pair and the livers are exchanged between them," Dr. A.K. Soin, chief liver transplant surgeon, Sir Ganga Ram hospital (SGRH) said.

Five months after his birth, doctors diagnosed Dike with Billiary Atresia - a rare condition of newborn infants in which the common bile duct between the liver and the small intestine is blocked or absent. If unrecognised, the condition leads to liver failure. And this is exactly what happened to Dike. On the other hand, Priya's state was also critical. Already suffering from advanced liver failure due to Hepatitis C infection, she was later diagnosed with tuberculosis.

With transplantation being their only hope, doctors hit a dead end - unavailability of compatible cadaver donors. But by a stroke of luck, Dr. A. K. Soin, chief of liver transplant unit, Dr. Neelam Mohan, paediatric hepatologist and Dr. Sanjiv Saigal transplant hepatologist found that the blood group of Dike's mother, Chinwe, was A which matched with Priya. On the other hand, Priya's husband, Haresh, belonged to the blood group B which was the same as Dike.

A 35-member surgical team then took 50 per cent of Chinwe's right liver and transplanted it into Priya while Hariesh gave 20 per cent of his left liver to save Dike. Almost two months after the surgery, both Dike and Priya are now in normal health.

According to Mohani: "While both donors' blood groups did not match their own recipients', they were suitable for the other recipient. Dike's father had the same blood group as the kid but he had very fatty liver and so wasn't a suitable donor. When we suggested the idea of a donor exchange, which is also called paired donation, both families jumped at the opportunity.

"The blood groups of Dike and his mother Ezeanya Chinwe, the donor, were B positive and A positive respectively and that of Priya and her husband Haresh (donor) were A positive and B positive respectively. Both donors' blood groups did not match their own recipients' but they were suitable for the other ones.

"Dike was detected with advanced liver failure five months after his birth. His family flew down to SGRH in February 2009 for treatment.

"Immediate remedy could not be chalked out. Dike's father was not medically fit to donate," Neelam Mohan, pediatric hepatologist at SGRH said adding, "only a cadaver donor could be of help."

Meanwhile, Ahuja, who was admitted to the hospital in March 2009, was also detected with advanced liver failure three months later.

"Since both were struggling with their lives due to terminal liver failure and with no cadaver donor and living donors' liver not fit for them, the idea of swapping donors struck us, " Soin said.

"The biggest challenge in paired donation transplants is that both transplants must take place simultaneously, otherwise the donor for the second transplant may refuse to undergo surgery once his own loved one has received the donated organ," Soin said.

Sanjiv Saigal, the Transplant Hepatologist in charge of Priya's case said: "This opens up unique opportunities for matchmaking between donors and recipients from different families, thus helping save more lives with liver transplants."

Priya's husband was said to have donated 20 per cent of his liver to Dike while the child's mother donated 50 per cent of her liver to save Priya.

Interestingly, swapping is still not officially allowed in India. The team of doctors at Gangaram hospital, who conducted the swap did take the approval from an in-house regulatory body before going ahead. "It was the only way to save Dike and Priya. Three members on the committee are from the government," said a doctor.

India has been planning to launch a national organ transplant programme. The health ministry had drafted changes in the Transplantation of Human Organs Act, 1994 under which swapping of vital organs between willing but incompatible donors was to become legal.

The current rule restricts organ transplant to between blood relatives (father, mother, son, daughter, wife, husband, sister and brother), near and distant relatives and those having love and affection towards the patient.

Swapping will help patients who have relatives willing to donate but are medically incompatible for the recipient.

Dr. Saigal said: "Encouraged by this case, we have instituted registration of patients with medically suitable family donors who do not match their own recipients due to inappropriate blood group or liver size. This opens up unique opportunities for matchmaking between donors and recipients from different families, thus helping save more lives with liver transplants."

Dr. B.K. Rao, chairman of Ganga Ram Hospital added: "This swap transplantation will come as a blessing at the time of acute organ donor shortage. Around 30 per cent of rejected donors can become suitable swap donors, increasing transplant rates by 30 per cent."

India at present requires 30,000 liver transplants a year. Unfortunately due to the country's abysmally low cadaver donation, doctors end up carrying out about 400-odd transplants a year.

i don tire for this matter.

oyb:
the word is proxy

all over the world, ceos in businesses do business with themselves

if you go deeper, you will proably find that the cleaners, it support, security etc for oceanic are all companies owned by the ibrus. you may even find that some if not all of the contractors building that head office building are owned by the ibrus. na today?

that one na old style.
now they own the buildings themselves.
they just lease it to the bank.

becoomrich:
i real do not get it. why do they need to arrest her. They should go after those who collected the money. Jimoh Ibrahim just paid $25 million. na wa o . money dey nigeria. how much una fit borrow me. Everybody get oilwell.

I think they should restore cecila and akingbola into other position because it can create problem. Bill gate is still part of microsoft but not in management. They need to restore both back.

dude, what is the meaning of the highlighted phrase?

mailmalc:
Commot for where? Aight . . .name 10 tracks or even 5 outta his 3 albums while i dig out the lyrics for u to read. Puhlease stop makin me sound as if i'm hatin on the dude. I like him nd his kinda music.

better stop. they will label you a hater.
it is illegal to criticize 2face here.

this was loan to self for sundry expenses and miscellaneous.

i am getting dizzy.

must be million.
na so billion easy
a begi

watch out, one of his fans will soon come in here and call us haters.
i am out of here.

i did not even bother reading it.
i ignore his comments like a plague.
i guess he was quoting some economists he saw on tv out of context.

i was waiting for someone to pull out one of these.
i have heard him long enough to make an opinion.
even idiots make sense once in a while (without even looking into the contents of your extract).

MrCrackles:
I listened to one interview and i thought to myself, how the fucking hell did he rise up so quick?
He sounded really daft and made little sense throughout!. . .

"In Nigeria, the rich is only lucky that we do not know his secrets".

the above quote was said by Mayor Akinpelu of the FAME tabloid. it was over a decade ago, while he and his FAME colleagues were having a quarrel with a third party (one of the rich men).
I have never forgotten that quote, Mayor himself might have forgotten it but i have not and it has not been disproved till this day.
i am not holding my breath, either.

Jimoh Ibrahim’s Global Fleet Pays N3.1bn to Oceanic
•Advises others to pay and complain later
By Emele Onu, 08.25.2009


Business magnate and Chairman of Global Fleet Group, Barrister Jimoh Ibrahim, yesterday paid N3.1 billion to Oceanic Bank, thereby making good his promise to redeem the indebtedness of his company to the financial institution.
Ibrahim made the payment by a wire transfer even though he argued that his company’s account with Oceanic Bank should be audited for the first time in five years to determine its current status.
He advised others to pay first and complain later, saying that would assist the ongoing banking reform.
Oceanic Bank acknowledged the payment by Global Fleet through a letter dated August 24 and addressed to Ibrahim as the chairman of the company.
The letter which was jointly signed by the bank’s Assistant General Manager, Corporate Banking Group, Robinson Ofomata, and General Manager, Corporate Banking Group, Omotayo Ajani, thanked Ibrahim for his cooperation and banking relationship with the bank.
Oceanic Bank further stated in the letter to Ibrahim and Global Fleet that “the Bank undertakes to refund to you excess charges or debits on the account that is not authorized by you, or interest rate that is not in compliance with our terms of loan as soon as the reconciled account is mutually agreed upon.”
Ibrahim said in a statement yesterday that the loan had been performing and blamed Oceanic Bank for any outstanding in the account on poor banking relationship.
According to the Global Fleet Chairman, Oceanic Bank had in 2007 through a letter dated May 23, 2007 credited Global Fleet account with N1.98 billion being reversal of excess charges and accrued interest on the company’s account.
Ibrahim said: “When a bank by its own admission and confession says they over charged our account with N2 billion, CBN should be on caution as to figure out what exactly the debt profile is and that is why I said that our company’s account with Oceanic Bank should be audited for the first time in five years.”
He said Global Fleet had no reason to stop its relationship with Oceanic Bank and advised the bank to be transparent.
However, the business mogul maintained that the CBN would succeed only if it publishes exactly what everyone owes and avoid computer error that has reduced some people’s debt.
The CBN had last week released the names of debtors to the five troubled banks. The debtors were mostly shareholders and directors who secured loans totaling N747 billion from the banks whose executives were removed for financial mismanagement.
A breakdown of the loans, which were classified as non-performing, indicated that Oceanic Bank Plc had N278.204 billion or 37 per cent in non performing credits; Intercontinental Bank Plc, N210 .903 billion or 28 per cent; Afribank Nigeria Plc, N141.856 billion or 19 per cent; Union Bank of Nigeria Plc, N73.582 billion or 9.8 per cent; and FinBank Plc, N42.445 billion or 5.6 per cent.
Ibrahim and some other persons listed on the list had objected to the values and statuses of the loans credited to their names and companies.

MrCrackles:
I listened to one interview and i thought to myself, how the fucking hell did he rise up so quick?
He sounded really daft and made little sense throughout!. . .

i did worse than you.
i listened to a second and even third interview before i gave up.
my exact same sentiments about Mrs. Cecelia Ibru.

otokx:
Jimoh Ibrahim likes media talk.

i take his words with a pinch of salt.
he talks too much and often talks crap.

it's your boy, the WILDCHILD.

another reason why NYSC should be scrapped.
this happens every year and will always continue.
years back, during my time, a married woman was got being screwed by a male corper in the bush after parade one evening.
imagine the embarrasment.