Why Nigerians should give Nigeria Air/ ET partnership a chance

The Federal Government, through the Minister of Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika, last week unveiled the Eastern African Airline, Ethiopia Airlines as the preferred bidder to help package the new flag carrier, Nigeria Air project.

Besides the African carrier, Nigerian investors were not left out as MRS, SAHCO and the Nigerian Sovereign Fund with the Federal Gov[1]ernment were also announced as part of the historic partnership. Ethiopian’s 49 per cent shares in the new company automatically make it the largest single shareholder with the remaining 51 per cent going to three investors and the government.

Unanimously, the assessment team for the Nigeria Air project cleared the ET Technical Bid, which had a total score of 89 per cent out of 100, after when another assessment carried out on ET’s Financial Bid found the African carrier scoring 15 per cent out of 20, making the Ethiopian Airline Consortium to have the combined score (Technical and Financial Bid) of 86.7 per cent.

Nevertheless, the unveiling of ET as the preferred bidder has since turned the entire sector upside down with the different key players expressing mixed feelings about the choice of ET and the total pack[1]age.

Opponents have argued that for ET that was already established in Nigeria to become a preferred bidder in the Nigerian company, the development would only be to the disadvantage of Nigeria. Supporters of the partnership have equally praised the choice of an African carrier which among other reasons have been able to carve a niche for itself in the global aviation and airline business.

Without doubt, whatever angle the development is being viewed from, every interest group, to a large extent, has the right to its opinion, but one fact that should be allowed to play up is the fact that the country cannot afford to remain on the same status quo. There is, therefore, every need to always take new steps.

The absence of a national carrier for over two decades gave rise to many unpalatable spiral effects including instability amongst the existing private carriers which prior to the fall of Nigeria Airways used its model to run their airlines; absence of Nigeria at critical gatherings where issues affecting policies like royalty and other commercial issues relating to the country are discussed.

The unwise liquidation of the defunct carrier obviously led to many shenanigans that have been playing out which include exploitation of Nigerian travellers by foreign airlines who took advantage of the situ[1]ation to slam unreasonable fares on Nigerians.

Amidst this confusion, should these sad tales continue? The answer is a resounding ‘no’. An affirmative answer has been provided by the present government who right from inception promised to put an end to this embarrassing situation and the stigma that in a country of over 200 million people, floating an airline had become rocket science.

Agreed that the government may have fallen short of expectations in the style it engaged in packaging the new airline, which many believed had been shrouded in secrecy, the bottom line is that the reality of putting a smile back on the faces of Nigerians, particularly the flying class, is almost concluded through the partnership with Ethiopian Airlines and the Nigerian investors.

Rather than continuing to find faults or expressing pessimism based on past experiences, the government should be commended for going this far with the project just as the choice of ET should be commended if for nothing else, its loyalty as witnessed in the decision of the airline to remain with Nigeria when other foreign carriers benefitting from Nigeria through the huge traffic they enjoy abandoned it when they were mostly needed.

Therefore, for an airline that stuck out its neck to fly into Kaduna airport when the Abuja airport runway was shut down for repairs de- spite the story of insecurity trailing the Kaduna airport at the time, allowing such an airline to have a role to play in the coming airline is not too much.

For the fact that ET indicated the interest to contribute towards making Nigeria Air a reality at a period many other foreign airlines and their countries are avoiding doing business with Nigeria, the op- ponents of the partnership should learn to compromise for the success of the project.

Again, looking at the pedigree of Ethiopian Airlines from the angle of its success story, not only has it been a leading light on the continent, but its ability to compete favourably even in the midst of the mega carriers of this world. It is certain that the African carrier will not let Nigeria down.

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