Five days to the expiration of year 2024, key players across the country, who have taken their turns to review how the Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau (NSIB) under the management of Captain Alex Badeh Juniour, the Director-General, have rated high the performance of the bureau.
NSIB is the agency of government saddled with the responsibility of investigating accidents or incidents that cut across all the transport modes including, Air transport, road, rail and marine.
Some of the key players, who spoke to the Nigerian Tribune expressed optimism in the leadership of the NSIB even in the coming year based on what they called the ability of the Badeh management to not only wrap up investigations into previous accidents or incidents, but released the reports of the findings and subsequently made recommendations to the regulator to prevent a recurrence.
The bureau last week released the reports of past crashes, including the most recent one that involved a Sikorsky helicopter that crashed into the Atlantic Ocean killing all the eight people including the crew and the passengers onboard.
Commending the swiftness applied by the bureau in concluding investigations and releasing the findings since the assumption of the present management, the key players have attributed the proactive quality of the bureau to the leadership roles being enjoyed outside the shores of the country.
Speaking on the one year in office of the NSIB DG, the managing director of Centurion Security Services, Group Captain John Ojikutu, rtd declared: “NSIB has never failed us whether now or before now. The problem has been the implementation of the Safety Recommendations by the relevant operators or the enforcement of the recommendations by the responsible authority, the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA). There had been many neglects (non implementation) in the implementation and enforcement in the past of over 180 safety recommendations of over 10 years reports which the last Administration of the AIB/NSIB cleared. The problem of the aviation sector is on the neck and shoulder of the NCAA and the problems of the NCAA is inadequate skilled manpower for effective oversight and enforcement of the safety and security regulations. The problem of insufficient skilled manpower is not limited to the NCAA, so it is with the operators.”
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In his remarks, the general secretary of Aviation Round Table (ART), Mr Olumide Ohunayo, lauded the Badeh led management in view of what he called the tremendous feat that has been recorded in the outgoing year.
According to him; “Kudos to the young man who coincidentally was a pilot and this must have given him an edge into some incidents and accidents within the industry that matched up with his training and that must have also helped him in his duties.
“I am happy to see that during his one year, numerous reports have come out and even the recent accidents, the primary reports come out on time and I think that was the pace that was set by the previous Director General and I think the present one has continued on that line and that is commendable, but what i want to see is that he should continue to liaise with the regulator and other industry players to see that some of the recommendations they made are being implemented and also they should make sure they are not loosing contacts with their counterparts outside the world for updates or anything relating to the industry and anything concerning aircraft and engine issues. I want to see them improve in the use of technology,
“I want to see them coordinate other members of the ECOWAS Community in line with the new investigation strategy and see how we can rebuild it from there. I also notice that while they have asked to take care of other mode of transportations, the cooperation is not coming from other sectors, I think that is the area that he needs to work on, that area was weak from inception when they changed the bureau from AIB to NSIB. That area has not improved based on the difficulties from other mode of transport sectors who are in other ministries. I think that is the area he needs to work with the presidency to see how he can ensure other modes of transport totally come under NSIB.”
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