The desire of most stakeholders for Senator Hadi Sirika to be returned for the second term has since been fulfilled with his reappointment and return to manage the affairs of the sector for another four years.
With his reappointment last week, key players across the sector while welcoming him back have however set up targets for him vis a vis what they expect from him in his second coming.
For the managing director of Centurion Security Services and a one time military commandant of the Lagos airport, Group Captain John Ojikutu (retired), it would be better for Sirika this time around to consolidate on the previous achievement by fine tuning their level of development within the specified timings to next level of development.
This just as a member of the Aviation Round Table Safety Initiative and a director at Zenith Travels, Mr Olumide Ohunayo called on the minister to this time around be more selfless in his service to the sector, an attribute which he said he did not see in his first term.
The minister should consider merging Arik Air and Aero and designating the eventual airline as a flag carrier if and only if their debts, liabilities and assets can be respectively estimated and a credible plan is worked out for recovering sufficiently the government intervention funds and the liabilities to other creditors within and outside the country (six months/12 months).
Ojikutu also want Sirika to determine if the two Airlines could be merged, with a view to selling them to technical foreign investors, patriotic and credible Nigerians at reasonable cost to setup a flag carrier only if the government funds can be fully recovered and those of other creditors except if they are willing to be part of the new carrier with their credits in Arik and Aero (six months/12 months).
According to Ojikutu “There should be no going back on the plan for a national carrier and as earlier suggested the composition and share ownership must include experience foreign technical partner/investor, credible Nigerian investors and the Nigerian public through the Stock Market to give it a national image and not a government image. However, like you said at the last stakeholders’ forum, Federal Government including states who wish to be part must together not have more than 10 per cent shares in the national carrier capitalisation (12/18 months).”
On the airport concession plans spearheaded by Sirika in his first term, Ojikutu while calling for the upgrade of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) to Hooding Company having all the terminals concession to private companies on behalf of the federal government, he advised government to give out all the 22 federal airports for concession at once to remove the burden of providing annual budgets for their maintenance and improvement from the government except recovery intervention.
This is just as he called for the commercialisations of the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) while all other aeronautical infrastructure under FAAN should be handed over to NAMA which include: the Runway, taxiways and associated lighting and approaching lightings. The aircraft operators with their hangers and building fall into the concession programme (12/18 months).
Lending his voice, Ohunayo who said what the sector clamoured for before his reappointment was a minister who will be commercially oriented, called on Sirika to use his second term to identify gaps in the sector and fill them up.
His words “We do not want the minister that is only interested in supporting and going after foreign organisations and companies for commission. So, we therefore requested for a commercially oriented minister that will be able to look at the productivity of the sector, how to improve Nigerian participation in all facets of the sector so as to improve employment and generate more revenue. That is an area the new minister needs to look at.
“I know that if you look at the projects he had, the national carrier, hangar, none of those projects was achieved in his first term. And I think he already has a ground start. He needs to look at the books, look at the past. He must not say oh I have listed these projects I must complete them, he must weigh them. if he stays for another four years, he will be the longest serving minister of aviation and if you are the longest serving aviation minister, you must have no reason to have uncompleted projects in eight years. So he should weigh his options and pick the ones that are achievable in the next four years. On the national carrier, I really don’t have much to say for now I will only ask him to look at the appropriate method that will be used to go about it.”