Six years of running Nigeria’s aviation without boards

There are many things the country’s aviation sector will remember the present government for vis a vis how some of its actions and inactions affect the sector either positively or negatively.

One of such inactions of the government is its failure to inaugurate the boards of directors for the different aviation agencies.

It is no longer news that six years after the coming of the present government, this all important part of components meant to help create checks and balance in the running of the sector has been relegated.

This is the first time the sector as sensitive as it is will be managed by the minister and the various Chief Executives of the agencies without the input of the boards for six years running.

In a simple form, a board serves as a sort of watchdog over the running of any organisation. In other words, the functions of the board of any organisation includes playing the check and balance role between the minister, the management and even the workers to give room for transparency and fairness.

Unfortunately, as important as the positions of boards would have been for the aviation agencies and despite the directives from the presidency that the various boards should be inaugurated, the minister has continued to flout this rule for reasons best known to him.

Again, it is sad that even when the government knew of the minister’s refusal to carry out this instruction it chose to look the other way while other agencies of government have their boards in place, all the pleas from the key players failed to yield any dividend.

The continuous refusal of the minister to install the aviation boards has once again sparked debates amongst the key players in the sector, who are accusing the minister of playing a ‘tin God’ and subsequently holding the entire sector to ransom.

Besides the key players, former National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Comrade Adams Oshiomhole had about three years ago issued a deadline for the inauguration of the board members, a directive the minister still disregarded.

In line with the position of the president of Aviation Round Table (ART), a body of various aviation professionals, Elder Gbenga Olowo that the failure of the minister to inaugurate the boards for the aviation agencies can cast a thick shadow on transparency, accountability and responsibility in the sector, this is the present notion in the sector.

Even though it is also being argued that the failure to inaugurate the boards may not be unconnected to the compositions of the boards majority of whom have been said to belong to the political class, on the contrary, this should not be an alibi for denying the sector of this crucial aspect for six years.

What the minister should have done to correct this anomaly would have been taking the lists to the relevant body for amendment and then inaugurate.

The continuous refusal to inaugurate the boards by the minister apart from being responsible for some negative happenings which probably would have been avoided with input from the boards, the deliberate attempt to deny the sector of the boards can seriously bring about lack of transparency in the scheme of things.

It is absurd for the minister to continue to lord its policies on the sector without an important body of the boards to checkmate such policies in a sector that is one of the most highly regulated.

Obviously, the minister’s refusal to give room for board members may definitely be misconstrued to mean that he alone can run the affairs of the entire sector vis a vis the various aviation agencies. To continue to relegate this critical aspect of governance without a superior argument is another bad policy the present government will be remembered for. Hoping all these questionable policies will not eventually consume the sector.

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