GRADUALLY, the May 29 date for the final disengagement of the President Muhammadu Buhari led government is drawing closer, but not with its barrage of experiences that will linger on for some time.
The country’s aviation sector is not an exemption from the emotional impact foisted on the entire system through many of the unpopular decisions taken by the outgoing minister in the course of implementing his policies.
Unarguably, no one can take away the height of brilliance and the strong personality of the minister, which makes him to earn the title of a ‘go getter’ among some stakeholders in the sector.
Without doubt, the minister eschewed these qualities as witnessed in his ability to sway both the executive arm of government at the center and that of the National Assembly members to his side in his bid to get approval for his needs to run the sector in his eight years as minister.
In the history of the sector, the outgoing minister apart from being the longest serving, happened to be the one that must have enjoyed access to huge fundings, even till his last days in the office he still continues to get approval for fundings for projects execution.
For being able to achieve this, it definitely takes someone with high level of politicking and a master in the act of persuasion to bend these two arms of government to his side effortlessly.
Perhaps these attributes must have been responsible for his being able to single handedly control the ministry and the aviation agencies for eight years without governing boards without being challenged by the two arms.
For eight years, the outgoing minister was the only one overseeing the affairs of the entire sector including choosing those who deserve whatever in forms of contracts and even employments into the agencies.
In other words, the outgoing minister almost became ‘a small god’ that cannot be challenged by other stakeholders in the absence of the boards that would have served as a check and balance on his policies.
To say the greatest undoing of the minister in these eight years remains his refusal to inaugurate the boards, which would have guided him in executing his policies without running into problems he encountered.
As good as most of his policies were meant to be even though they subsequently ran into murky waters, the presence of the boards would have assisted in leveraging the loopholes that truncated the policies.
Obviously, the minister has succeeded in having his ways but without making much efforts in view of the failure to bring most of the policies to fruition, it is hoped that the incoming successor will learn greatly from these grievous mistakes.
In every cadre of governance, there is what is called the team work model which allows for sharing of ideas and inputs for the sole aim of coming up with a clean and good end result that will be acceptable to the majority.
However, had the minister imbibed the team spirit modem as against his rejection of ideas from the different array of professionals readily available, he would have achieved better in his policies and all the chaos his model have created in the sector would have been avoided.
Already, these controversial policies have thrown the sector into a deep mess, which may become the first Herculean task awaiting the incoming minister, which may create an early distractions for him.
For the fact that the next minister is coming to inherit a crisis ridden sector, whoever is coming onboard will really need the inputs from the wealth of experience of the different professional groups to find his feet on time.
The aviation sector is presently unhealthy in the face of the myriad of challenges confronting it, ranging from multiple litigations, Labour/workers agitations, foreign airlines trapped funds, total disregard to the principles of federal character in employment which has lowered workers morales and many others.
Whoever is therefore coming as the next minister must realise that while he/she is coming to clean the Augean stable left by his predecessor, he should avoid coming to play the same smart card played by the outgoing minister if he wants to succeed and write his name in gold and put the incoming government on the right part of history.