Exactly three months ago, precisely in August, the government of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu named the fiery legal icon, Mr Festus Egwarewa Keyamo, as the country’s minister of aviation and aerospace development.
His appointment was, however, greeted with mixed feelings from the different interest groups for reasons not farfetched from the state of confusion reigning in the sector, in view of illegalities perpetrated by the immediate past minister.
At the time Keyamo was appointed a minister, the entire sector had been engulfed in many crisis traceable to many unpopular policies imposed on the sector by the former minister.
Top of such controversial policies included the national carrier, the Nigeria Air project, relocation of the head offices of the aviation agencies to Abuja, demolition of the multibillion naira headquarters of the then Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB), now National Safety Investigative Bureau (NSIB) without alternative arrangements for the workers affected, the lopsided recruitments into the agencies and many more.
The reactions that greeted the policies pitched the former minister against the aviation unions and the workers, a situation which almost turned the sector upside down.
Another issue was his deliberate refusal to inaugurate the board of directors for the aviation agencies for the eight years he held sway at the ministry, allowing him to singlehandedly run the affairs of the entire sector.
The non-constitution of boards empowered the former minister to take some actions that ordinarily would have been checkmated by the boards.
Obviously, the denial of the agencies of this critical component of governance may have paid off for the immediate past minister, but the consequences for the sector may linger on for some time, because of the negative impact of the illegalities.
It is a known fact that the objectives of board of directors,include serving as custodians and checks and balances to strengthen the critical role for corporate governance in any establishment. Aviation sector was totally neglected in the last eight years thus dwindling the development of the sector.
With the appointment of Keyamo and being a senior learned fellow, respite came the way of the different stakeholders who believed that in no time, he should be able to correct the mistakes of not having this important but missing link by urgently assembling a team of core professionals across the boards to earnestly give life to the hitherto neglected area of governance.
Considering the relevance of having the boards of the directors in place, in line with the agenda of the present government’s commitments towards revamping the image of the sector as being packaged by the present minister, key players have challenged him to inaugurate the boards for the agencies without further delay.
One of the excuses given by the former minister, which has been punctured at different fora, was that majority of the names submitted as members of the boards did not meet the requirements.
It is, therefore, expected that the present minister, who has since hit the ground running, as witnessed in some of the actions he has so far taken, should waste no more time in inaugurating the hoards, which will go a long way in assisting him to guard and guide his agenda to a success story.
For the minister to achieve his roadmap for the sector, he cannot do it alone without having the presence of the boards on ground. In other words, he needs a fully constituted boards to work with if he wants to go far.
Therefore, in searching for qualified personalities who will constitute the memberships of the boards, let the minister look inward, as there are many retired personnel who had contributed immensely to the transformation of the sector while in active service.
Such people may have retired from the system, but the wealth of experiences they gathered can be annexed by the minister to achieve the positive agenda of the present administration.
It will be good for the minister to depart from the usual filling of the boards with core politicians who know little or nothing about the sector, by bringing in retired professionals to complement the politicians who will be on the boards. The aviation sector needs the boards without further delay.
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