Immediate past Nigeria’s minister of aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika, has exonerated himself from the controversy trailing the unveiling of the purported national carrier described by many as fraudulent.
Appearing on Arise Television station on Sunday, Sirika took time to debunk the allegations of fraud against him on the Nigeria Air project, insisting that contrary to the different billions of Naira being bandied to have been spent on the project from 2015 till date, the government only budgeted N5 billion for the project.
Out of the N5 billion, Sirika, while saying only N3 billion was released, said the released money was spent on staff salaries, office maintenance, and other facilitations.
The minister used the time to get back at the immediate Chairman of the House Committee on Aviation, Honourable Nnolim Nnaji, for describing the Nigeria Air project as a fraud.
Contrary to the indictment of Sirika by the Nnaji-led committee during a public hearing conducted on the controversy and huge condemnation that followed the unveiling of the Nigeria Air with an Ethiopian airline aircraft, the former minister accused Nnaji of badmouthing the project because he refused to give him five percent share in the project.
According to Sirika, Nnaji was nursing bitterness against him because he turned down his request to grant him and his ‘people’ five percent equity share in the purported national carrier.
The minister, throughout the interview, evade questions on how much the stakeholders had invested in the project, saying the amount each will invest depends on the share percentage they hold even as he revealed that no agreement has been signed by the shareholders up till he left office as the minister.
The former minister, who pushed all questions regarding the Air Operators Certificate (AOC) to the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), took time off to tactically attack United Nigeria Airlines and Air Peace, who spearheaded the litigation against the national carrier project in the court.
Sirika insisted that rather than being accused of not carrying stakeholders along, maintained that he personally invited the domestic carriers to invest in the proposed national airline.
The minister’s outburst has already set the sector on fire, with many people faulting him for going on personal attacks rather than clearing the many questions trailing the project.
While many described the minister’s response as cheap blackmail, others argued that it showed the level of compromise on the part of the lawmakers who, rather than put the former minister on his toes, chose to pursue personal gains.
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