Nigeria’s aviation sector started the New Year on a controversial note stoked by the new permanent secretary of the ministry of aviation and aerospace development, Dr Ibrahim Abubakar Kana.
The permanent secretary, recently deployed to the ministry during his first meeting with heads of agencies of the aviation and members of staff at the ministry in Abuja, was said to have declared that he had the government’s mandate to work with the minister of aviation and aerospace development, Festus Keyamo, to revive the controversial national carrier, Nigeria Air.
The permanent secretary was quoted as saying: “While receiving my deployment letter, I received very clear instructions, with two tasks to achieve within this period, by His Excellency, Mr President, as well as the Head of Service of the Federation. One is to ensure that Air Nigeria comes to be. Two, sanitise our airports across the country. All of us will agree that there is no better time to have an Air Nigeria than now.”
No sooner than the news spread across the media platforms that thunderous reactions erupted from the different interest groups with different motives.
The furore the statement credited to the permanent secretary generated in the new year almost marred the high hope stakeholders have in the new year.
Though the permanent secretary has already recanted his words saying “For the avoidance of doubt, I never said there is a mandate to revive the botched Nigeria Air deal with Ethiopian Airlines. I received no such instruction,” the fact remains that when it comes to issues like that, the government cannot be totally trusted in view of past experiences.
While the permanent secretary deserves some elements of trust by believing that he did not say what was attributed to him, according to an adage that says ‘there can be no smoke without fire’, it is possible that he actually said he was given the mandate to float a national carrier just to test the reactions from Nigerians, who are yet to recover from the global embarrassment brought upon them by the circumstances surrounding the botched Nigeria Air in the last administration.
Again, the denial by the permanent secretary may not necessarily mean the government has totally jettisoned the idea in view of its body language as witnessed in the declaration made by the minister last year when he said the national carrier project had been placed on indefinite suspension.
Therefore, placing something under indefinite suspension may not mean the end of it as that subject of interest may be revisited once more, hence, this may have led to the controversies the mandate to float the national carrier raised.
Anyways, what should become clearer to the government in the case of the new national carrier is the fact that playing up such a project now may end up being one of the most policy somersault of the century considering the over one thousand and one critical projects needed to further transform and make the sector more business-friendly crying for attention.
Flying any kite about another national carrier after the huge and unaccounted for public funds sunk into the botched national carrier in the eight years of the former President Muhammadu Buhari’s government will only expose the present government as not only being wasteful, but lacking in vision.
As good as having a national carrier is meant to be for the country; one obvious fact is that Nigeria lacks good and patriotic people who can help midwife the project because of endemic corruption and greed which had played out since the liquidation of the former national carrier, Nigeria Airways.
In a saner clime, it is expected that what transpired during the eight years of the botched Nigeria Air, including how much public fund that was wasted, what should be the priority of government is to unravel the shoddy job rather than skip over it and still have the mind of repeating the same blunder.
Sincerely, for the proponents of a national carrier, this is not the best time as there are many more critical needs of the sector required to be put in place to make the entire sector including domestic air transport more conducive and profitable.
What is the essence of using public funds to float a national carrier that will operate in an unfriendly environment where even the existing private airlines are struggling for survival?
Agreed that while efforts are ongoing to tackle many challenges confronting a seamless air transport in the country such as erecting standard infrastructure, availability of enough forex, government goodwill and support, review of lopsided Bilateral Air Service Agreements (BASA), review of unpopular policies like multiple taxes, expensive Jet A1 among many other needs, the sector is still far from its eldorado.
In case government has excess funds somewhere that it does not know where to spend it, such funds should be diverted into the critical needs of the sector which will automatically make the environment comfortable for business and air transport, rather than shortchanging Nigerians under the guise of floating another carrier that cannot stand the test of time.
Above all, will it be too much if this government can empower two or three of the existing domestic airlines to become formidable flag carriers flying the flag of Nigeria around the world?
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