The Minister of State for Aviation, Hadi Sirika, in this interview with Abuja Bureau Chief, Yomi Odunuga and Augustine Ehikioya, talks about the closure of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, national carrier and many other issues. Excerpts:
Let’s start by asking you about the reconstruction of the Abuja runaway. Are positive that the deadline will be met?
Of course, the deadline of six weeks closure will be met. I am very sure now that we have done a week; everything is going to the plan. The contractor has mobilized since and everything is looking good. As a matter of fact, I just ordered that we should put countdown clock at the entrance of the Airport, so each time the contractor is going in there, he is conscious of the countdown and the time. I will also put one for him in his office so as he sits in his office, he sees the countdown. Beyond that, that is just a way of spicing it up, just to create some fun. But the truth is that we have three layers, three sets of consultants. We have the main consultant that we engage for the project, which are private sector consultant. We have got the in-house consultant and the ministry of information in my office had also established some team which created another consultant and these are noble people, well trained, well skilled in project management and they are the consultants for the project. I receive a daily brief from them.
Aviation sector, even before you came in, really put people in doubt as to whether Nigeria really has the capacity to run a thoroughly professional aviation sector. Since you came in, we have witnessed some ups and downs; in what ways do you think your ministry can intervene to make the sector more competitive and professional?
I don’t believe Nigerians don’t have the capacity to run the aviation sector professionally. A lot of Nigerians are well trained aviators, they have seen it all, made names outside the country and have also helped run the industry within the country for a very long time. Of course, it is not perfect just like any other industry. What the ministry is doing to ensure that the industry is run more professionally and also in such a manner that is done very well by engaging the private sector is that we set out our goals. We came in as a government whereby we want to see aviation industry that is forward looking, it is professional, it is led by the private sector, it is in such a way that it is able to connect people and businesses, countries and towns, continents and nations and of course, provides the link to tourism and so on. That is our vision and all of these cannot happen except we do what we think is necessary to put it straight. So, we thought of our airports which are the gateways, we thought of concession to ensure that they are well built. I thought that this is very clear from the onset and we have not gotten there yet but I think we are getting there. We also thought of establishing a national carrier. This national carrier is private sector driven. I don’t even like the name national carrier, may be Nigeria carrier because it is going to be 100 percent private sector. If government will take any stake if necessary, it may not be more than three or five percent. But we will ensure that it is private sector led and driven and that national carrier would connect with other carriers and make alliances and do what is necessary to reach out to other airlines around the world.
Let us look at the human elements that has made the aviation to be what it is in Nigeria today; a situation where airlines that are initially believed to be functioning well suddenly collapse due to probably lack of aircraft or sometimes, they said the government is not helping by giving them soft loans to buy airplanes and all that, what exactly is your ministry doing about that? Secondly, let us also look at the issue of flight delays, people have said it is because there are no concrete sanctioning measures.
Delays and cancellations are not new to aviation and they are not also unique to Nigeria. What is bad is though is if those delays are things that can be avoided. For example, anywhere in the world, you can have delays due to weather, even in the US, Russia, UK, etc. You can also have cancellations for one reason or the other. And we put mechanism in place from my ministry or Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, they have not made it public on how you are going to seek redress or how a passenger can insist on his rights, may be because we have consumer protection unit in the NCAA which is alive and have treated so many issues. So, we have things in place. It is just that may be information as regarding to delay and so on is that once it is something that is an act of God and not within our powers, there is nothing we can do but if they are things we are caught doing with negligence, for sure we have mechanism of dealing with them. Recently, we fined about three airlines and they paid because those things are there.
Going back to the national carrier, how soon should Nigerians be expecting this?
Very soon; it is a process, it is not something that once you say now and it happens the next day. By the way there is Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC), there is also Bureau for Public Procurement (BPP), there is also Bureau for Public Enterprise (BPE). All of these government agencies were established in a situation whereby once you are venturing into something like this, they will have a role to play. You have to appoint transaction adviser, you have to go to BPP to get clearance, ICRC to get clearance, you have to take it to Council for approval by the presidential council, then the bid, then you get to the process of getting cleared.
So going through the advertisement, going through the short listing, going through the ICRC, going through the BPE, we are now on our way to the council and once council approved, they come back to us for the transaction adviser to do their outline business case which will now be taken to the government to approve and it becomes full business case and then from the business case we go to the market. So, it is a long process that is why since I came we have been talking about concessioning national carrier and nothing happened. People think we are just sitting down doing nothing. We are going through the process so that we would do it according to the law but it takes time. I am thinking at the end of this year, we should be able to have both airport concession and the national carrier.
When you came up with the idea of closing Abuja Airport for six weeks, did you ever imagined the kind of protest and disagreements from different quarters?
Yes. People sit there and criticize and they think that you can just wake up from your bed and decide to close Abuja airport, no. Firstly, we saw what was wrong with the airport and the runaway as well, we went there and we thought of all the possible ways we could do it without total shutting down. Some of the options were to work in the night from 12 midnight to 6am, may be an hour before the flights would have been an ideal thing but the 3,600km runaway is completely gone bad. If you do that procedure, you will be doing may be only 10 metres a day across and so, if you divide that 10 by 3,600km, it is 360 days. The minimum you can is one year and within that one year, there will be raining season.
Two raining seasons and before you finished, the remaining runaway would be so dilapidated that you cannot use it. So, that was out of it. If it was spot repairs, may be five or six portions that are bad, then you can shut it down at night, repair it and by the time you do that for two, three weeks, you would have finished those spots and an overlay which is really pretty simple.
You can be doing that at night until you finish because the main architecture of the runaway is still intact but this one is gone bad so, we cannot afford that. We called consultants, they went there and saw what it is and advised that there is other way we can do it.
The Nigerian Society of Engineers met on this and agreed that the procedure we want to follow is the best. I was surprised when we went to the National Assembly, the President of the Nigerian Society of Engineers having earlier agreed said that what we are doing is wrong but he was countered almost immediately by the Council of Regulatory Engineers (COREN) who are regulator of Engineers. The president of Nigerian Society of Engineers never went to that runaway for one day, never carried out studies, he just woke up and went to the National Assembly and said what he said. But for people who have been there, COREN went there to check first, took samples and carried out test on the runaway and that is why they are supportive. I know that there is going to be protest but like I read on the social media, one guy was saying if you want everybody to be happy with you, don’t become a leader, go and sell ice-cream. What we are doing is it in the interest of the country.
After these six weeks, what are the other maintenance that will be carried out at the Abuja airport and other airports?
Abuja airport closure was for six weeks but the entire work is for six months and they will continue to work until they finish the runaway and make sure that the runaway is good. Government is thinking of doing another runaway so that these kinds of things do not happen. Just like we have in Lagos, we have two runaways in Lagos, we have two runaways in Port Harcourt, there are two runaways in Kano.
So, it is high time Abuja should have two runaways. We are doing quite a lot of things which people don’t see with the naked eyes but they are the things that make everything to work; the navigation equipment, communication equipment, radars that see every flying object and try to separate one from another one so that there is no collision.
These are the things that we have been doing silently and people don’t see. But you need something that will improve the security and safety of the passengers and the efficiency by which they travel. If you are able to fix the safety, efficiency and the security of travel, you would have achieved the intent and purpose of aviation. The remaining things are aesthetics- the air condition, the robust fantastic looking and terminal buildings and so on are things that are desirable, must have but they are not critical to the operation of aviation.
It is always said that people in your position work so hard, they don’t have time to relax. How do you relax?
Well, I used to create time for me to relax by playing polo or swimming in my house or visiting friends. Occasionally, before now, I go for holidays every three or six months. I will check out some places and relax but since I took this job, unfortunately, I have not been able to do any of those. I remember some two, three months ago, there was a polo tournament being played in Port Harcourt and I sent a team there with the intention to play but believe me, in the week long tournament, I was there only once and I landed Port Harcourt, I went to the field, I found them playing, I played for about 30 to 40 minutes and I got up and came back and I never went back until the end of the tournament. It is very difficult. I know that we need it for the brain to function very well.
What’s yours philosophy for life?
Keep it simple. Everything you are doing keep it simple. You have to be very sincere in what you are doing. I remember you or your colleague once asked me why is it that I don’t have my photos around the airports and agencies and I told them that the best picture I would leave behind is the work I would have done as a minister. My image and what I have done would not be out of the minds of Nigerians but if I become the worst Aviation Minister Nigeria ever had my photo would not change that.
