Fani-Kayode should hide himself in shame - Aviation minister

The Minister of Aviation, Ms. Stella Oduah, on Tuesday hit back at Mr. Femi Fani-Kayode, describing him as an ignorant individual, who "should hide his head in shame."

 Fani-Kayode, a former minister of Aviation, had criticised the Peoples Democratic Party for expressing confidence in Oduah despite the air crashes that had happened during her tenure as minister.

"How many more people have to be killed in air crashes before our President (Dr. Goodluck Jonathan) realises that he needs a new Minister of Aviation?" Fani-Kayode had asked. But Oduah said in Abuja that Fani-Kayode was misleading innocent Nigerians and needed sympathy. She spoke at an aviation safety event organised by the Civil Air Navigation Services Organisation and hosted by the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency.

Oduah said, "I have huge sympathy for them, the ignorant people in particular. Because when you speak out of context, when you speak under the influence of whatever it is you are under, you speak incorrectly and you mislead innocent Nigerians and that is what he has done. And he really should hide his head in shame." Fani-Kayode, while reacting to Oduah's comments about him, asked the minister to grow up and stop being petty. He said, "My advice and counsel to her is to grow up and stop being petty. She is meant to talk like someone who befits her office and not like a market woman or a fish wife.

"I do not like joining issues with women publicly which is why I was very gentle with her in my essay though I made my point. "But this particular woman is endangering the lives of our people with her incompetence and insensitivity and we cannot just keep quiet.

"This is a woman under whose watch almost 200 people have been killed as Aviation Minister and instead of focusing on how to save lives her obsession has become smearing and abusing Femi Fani-Kayode." He said it was wrong for the minister to tell Nigerians that ''accidents are inevitable'' and that they were ''acts of God."

"This is a woman who thinks more about how her headscarf looks, her jewelry and the jewelry of others more than she does about protecting Nigerian air travellers," he added. He said if anyone should bury her head in shame it should be the minister and not him.