In the last few months, unfolding events in the Nigerian aviation sector have come under public scrutiny following the tragic Dana Air plane crash of June 3, 2012 and the controversies surrounding how over 160 lives were lost that dark Sunday. In this interview with our Abuja Bureau Chief, Yomi Odunuga, State House Correspondent, Vincent Ikuomola and Reporter, Olugbenga Adanikin, the Minister of Aviation, Princess Stella Oduah, speaks on the efforts being made to reposition the sector, improve on safety and other sundry matters. Excerpts:
What’s your reaction to media report that the Arik Air management allegedly has a list of some Nigerians who have been blacklisted and barred from boarding any of its aircraft including the allegations that those on the list were tagged as security risk to other passengers?
I don’t want to answer that question. I found it, first of all, difficult to believe and I don’t want to believe that Arik did that. I also don’t want to believe that Arik will be that irresponsible to have said that the Chief Executive of an Aviation Agency has been declared persona-non-grata. I don’t believe it. I am still waiting to see it in black and white from them. I’m still waiting to see the chief executive or the public being restricted from travelling on board Arik. I don’t want to say much on that.
The jury is still out on whether it was right for your ministry to clear Dana to fly when investigations into the June 3 crash are inconclusive. You have been quoted as saying that Dana must meet certain requirements before they can fly, how far have they met those said obligations?
We are still working on it. We are not fully ready for them and they are not fully ready to commence work. Again everything Aviation has standard, processes and procedure and you can’t jump either. Everything must go in sequence so we are working on it. Whenever they are ready and certified okay they will fly.
Could you tell us some of those requirements that must be met by Dana?
It’s quite rigorous but there aircraft must be airworthy which means we have to certify the engines and, of course, you know that some of those aircraft have not flown for quite some time. So, we need to recertify their readiness to fly, check their manual and their personnel. So many things will have to be rechecked and certified. It’s a process that, again, you can’t jump. It’s very rigorous but we are on track. As soon as we are done, they would fly. It is not a primitive action; it’s a safety process and a global practice.
The crash of Dana was unfortunate and tragic. In moving forward, what lessons should the nation take away from the incident?
One of the major lessons is that we recognise we are on track in enhancing the regulatory agencies’ performance; in reviewing policies on the regulatory agency; in ensuring that we have in place recertification process that is of global standard. But, most importantly, the checks and balances within the system have been re-enhanced to the extent that we do not leave any loophole. You know in aviation, safety is not a destination it is a process. So wherever you have aviation, everything you do will dovetail towards accomplishing that maximum safety. The lesson we learnt is not complete because the full report is not yet out but the fact is safety must remain priority to us and we are on track like I said.
Do you think we have technical personnel to handle some of these issues?
We do have even if we do have lapses to some extent. But we need to have more than what we have now and that is why we are prioritising our capacity building. Not just that but we must have capable hands in excess. It is about human being so you must have not just those who have the capacity to do the job but should one not be in position to work, you have something to fall back on. But we are going further, we are working with international organisations like the manufacturers of the aircraft so that they can lend us their expertise and also work with us on aircraft re-certification which is an annual thing for us. We are also working with them to make sure we domesticate the maintenance of these aircraft in Nigeria and collaborate with them in training our men because the thing in aviation is that, unlike in vehicle whereby can drive a car regardless of the brand, in aviation, that you can fly Boeing 727 doesn’t mean you can fly the others. You must be aircraft-certified and so we keep in line with that and we must keep on recertifying our engineers, our pilots so they can be aircraft-rated. It’s a very tedious work but again capacity building is a continuous process.
What’s your take on the issue of Aviation Intervention Fund because, from the way airlines continue to fold up in Nigeria, it is as if the fund is not functional?
To start with, we met the fund when we came into office. But when we reviewed the fund, it wasn’t yielding dividend. We believe the impact wasn’t felt and we went back to Central Bank of Nigeria that we need to have a review of the intervention fund. Essentially, what we are asking is: let’s use it to the extent that we will have positive impact within the sector and they agreed with us. We are working out the criteria for airlines that will qualify and benefit from it. One of those is we should use it to professionalise the operations to ensure that airline operators are professionals. We don’t want to do father and son operation. You can invest but we must have professionals to manage it. Secondly, we want to make sure they have capacity building. That is a priority because it’s a professional industry for continuous training and retraining. It is not a favour but it’s something that must be done. But, most importantly, the access we should have for utilising the fund should be such that, knowing what we have, it should be paid directly to the manufacturers and the manufacturer should release the aircraft. It is either the operator or the ministry or those that are able to meet up the criteria will now have access to the aircraft as opposed to what we met here. Money was given and there was no aircraft. I don’t see any. So all these are what we are asking that we change the utilisation modality. So we can feel the impact and meet the purpose the money was given in the first place. We need to have new aircrafts in the system—fuel-efficient aircraft to manage and professionally for that matter. At the end, it will be a win, win for all the government, public and the banks that are lending the money.
One would have thought that the funds were meant to help the private sector to run airlines professionally and in line with international practice since governments all over the world are not known to run businesses well. But with the way things have turned out, don’t you think government intervention would be counter-productive especially if the aircraft are put under its care?
No, no, it’s not coming to the ministry to manage. It’s private sector that will manage it. We are going back to the operations table to manage. However, the operation will not be as you know them because the company themselves need change. We need to change their operational modality and the concepts. Aviation airline operators and operating company is not a hubby, it’s not a part time thing. It’s a full time business. It’s a professional business which must be efficiently managed so that passengers can enjoy and you get proper return on investment. In a nutshell, we want to have airline operators that are professionalised. That is really the keyword for us. If it’s not, it makes nonsense of the whole exercise. It means government that is giving the intervention fund will not get that money back. Don’t forget, it’s actually a loan really but a very concessionary loan. So that money must be repaid. Therefore, if you are not being managed efficiently, you won’t get that money back. It means the public whose government has responsibility to take care of will not have any benefit of that intervention. I won’t want that to happen again. We have a tripartite agreement where the money goes straight to the manufacturing company. It could be Bombardier, it could be Boeing. As long as the manufacturer manufactures fuel-efficient aircraft, give us the maintenance, we will train our people to fly this aircraft, then we are fine. They will now deliver the aircraft to Nigeria. On our side in Nigeria, we would have catalogues of those operators that would have met the criteria. That would qualify them to access these aircraft. So, money doesn’t change hand. What changes hand is the aircraft which is the equipment we need to impact positively on aviation. These are the tools we need to grow the sector, the tools operations need to return this concessionary money given to them by government. That is, for us, the way it can work. At the end, you will have efficient, professional and effective airlines that are local and working for you, me and owners of the businesses.
So does that mean those that mismanaged the funds won’t be tried or that the money will not be retrieved from them?
I wasn’t part of that. I’m leaving that to the Central Bank and other authorities to do what they need to do. Where my beat start is where I can speak authoritatively of. I don’t want to have anything to do with that because it hasn’t impacted positively in the sector I’m asked to manage. For me to have a positive impact, this is what I need to do otherwise it won’t work. So I’m not in a position to answer what will happen to those who failed to use their intervention fund. But don’t also forget that the intervention fund was not set up for aviation really. It was set up for a different purpose. I won’t go into that because Central Bank exhaustively discussed it during the Dana crash incident.
Buying aircraft is key but people will also be interested in infrastructures and facilities to run the airline. Is that part of your responsibility?
It is. We are doing very well in that regard. We started with a master plan and it has been very progressive taking into cognisance the fund constraint we have. So, we started with the gateway i.e. terminal rehabilitation and from there, we are going into infrastructural development upgrade to make sure that the airports are properly certified and in line with international rules and regulations. As you know, aviation is global. You don’t have aviation standard. It is a global standard. We believe that, by the end of next year, our infrastructural upgrade will be equal to none in Africa. We strongly believe that. Again, as we are doing that, we are also doing policy review, procedural upgrade again to make sure that it all goes together towards what we call our vision for Nigeria aviation. We want to become the regional hub for commercial, not just for the region but for Africa. We also want to be regional for training. Nigeria College of Aviation Technology (NCAT) is being repositioned as I speak and the essence is to have not a world class institution but an institution that can accommodate and produce sufficient, technical people to the extent that we are able to do, one out of every five aviation technician to be of Nigerian origin. Again, our time frame is that, in the next 24 months, we should be able to accomplish that. It’s a rigorous exercise. It takes a lot of time but we are truly blessed that we have wonderful men and women who put in countless hours just to make sure that we are able to achieve this goal and I pray that God will bless them for giving out their time for a country that we all love very much. Aviation is economic driver for the nation. It is the nucleus for economic activity for every nation. So it is very crucial for national growth.
Do we have the capacity or airport that can make Nigeria a hub as you earlier mentioned?
What we inherited is nothing to be proud of when you talk about airport terminal but we are not that bad. It’s bad because it does not represent who we are as a people. It doesn’t represent our aspiration as people so we have done the rehabilitation and reconstruction of the existing ones. Clearly there won’t be any airport in Africa that has better facility than us. The second stage is the construction of 5 new international airports and that will be truly a representation of us as hardworking, entrepreneurial people. It’s going to be true representation of Nigerians in all ramifications because the airport is the gateway and the first impression anybody gets of you is the airport and one out of every three visitors translates to investor. So what they see on their arrival is determinant of if they will remain or leave. It is just like someone comes to your house and opens your living room. If your house is unkempt and is dirty and smelly, it doesn’t matter the gold you have inside, the impression of you is already engraved.
With the way the so-called influential airlines in Nigeria shut out passengers or refuse to fly for the flimsiest of excuses, don’t you think it’s high time we thought of having our national carrier?
I agree with you. Don’t forget we started singing this song from the beginning that we must have our own national carrier—a national carrier that will be owned by all of us. We should have a carrier that will go to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and look for investors like you and I and every one of us to be investors. Core investors will have maximum of 15 per cent investment. Every other thing will be paid for by you and I. Government will not be part of this. Government has done their own part by giving approval for national carrier and by having the enabling environment. Other than that, it’s between you and I to make it work. I think we cannot as nation but have a truly national carrier. Not only that, we will also have a national flag in addition to that. It’s a matter of time but it will happen.
How soon? Is it being worked on?
Yes. We are waiting for the final approval then we will go to the market and everybody will buy in.
One of the stories that really made headlines in recent time was the road trip. People will like to know whether it was necessary. Couldn’t we have invited those people? What have we gained anyway?
My question is: how many investors have you seen? They haven’t been coming so we decided to take it to their home front and showcase to them our potentials. We eventually said to them, this is what we have available for you for your investment. See, if you want accelerated growth and you lack capacity, the only way you can get that capacity increase is when you have a merger. So you merge it and it’s an automatic growth. That’s what we want. We want accelerated growth so we went to seek for help, we went to seek for potential investors and we got a lot of quality responses. The question is why did it take us so long before we came seeking for investors? And our response was we just started, we don’t know what may have happened in the past but here we are. This is the fastest opportunity available for investors and it has worked but it hasn’t ended and we intend to do more. We want to bring in more investors because we have clusters of opportunities. Whether its infrastructures, real estate development, retail, entertainment all those. Like I said, airport is not just a garage where people go and they fly. It’s an economic centre. It’s an economic driver. It’s a place where you have economic activity. That is what we want to realise for Nigeria and reposition aviation to the extent that we will have full gains of this potential we are losing. Any potential not gained is a loss and we don’t want that.
The Aerotropolis is one of the vision of the ministry, what is the present status and what do Nigerians stand to gain from it?
Aerotropolis is huge. I’m sure you know it is a mega economic city, aviation city and you have the aerotropolis. It is the bigger one, the larger city. For us, our aerotropolis has larger city that is centered around the airport that is commercial. We have industrial, manufacturing then you have the value chain, the perishable. For us, it is the key to rural development. In you village, you can plant vegetable and sell it in New York which is the initiative of farm to super market. A real farmer will have access to international market and the earning will automatically change to Naira to Dollar and that itself will increase the value chain along the line where people like yourself can become entrepreneurs in different ways. It’s either in logistics, packaging, manufacturing or different things; the value-chain is huge. Apart from the fact that the farming itself will no longer be what men and women are doing, it will be what any young person can do as an entrepreneur. So you have emergence of entrepreneurs and people taking advantage of the opportunity. All these are what the aerotropolis encapsulates and its potentials. The economy of Ethiopia is based on perishables, so is Kenya, Cameroun. All of them are doing that. What are we doing? Zero. This means we are losing that potential. If we assemble phone in Nigeria and exports it to any African country or anywhere in the world, we will dominate the market because we have the skill, manpower and the market. So the essence is what we were known before as the commercial centre of Africa, aerotropolis will bring it back. On the construction of the airport, we have gotten an approval to get the loan. What we are waiting for is the final approval and get approval from the Chinese government to release the money. In all its ramifications, we closed transactions because we have agreed that they will lend us concessionary loan of 22 years with seven years’ moratorium and a 2.5 per cent. That’s free money!
Free money, but will it be properly managed?
Yes, why not? The construction company is not going to be Gbolade and Company Construction Limited. It will be a world class Chinese company transacted by the NEXIM bank. They will construct it within 24 months and we believe they could do it in 18 months. We will give ourselves a longer period should they finish it on time. So now, we will have a world class airport.
On the remodelling and rehabilitation of airports, it has been alleged that you appeared to be focused on a particular region of the country. How will you respond to that?
They are lying and they don’t know what they are saying. They are being mischievous. There is no way that can be done. It can’t be lopsided. It’s not possible. When we came in, the first airport we chose was Kano. We did Hajj. I’m not a Muslim. I’m a Christian but the first terminals we did were hajj terminals, Kano terminal and Kaduna terminal. After that the next one we finished first was Kano terminal. Since the day the Kano international airport was built till we worked on it, nobody touched it. These are not perishable. They are there, anybody, everybody can see them. So I really don’t understand where the story was coming from. It’s sad that it is everything we like to politicize. In aviation, you can’t politicize because it’s just too global. So it’s not true at all.
How did you get the news of the Dana Crash?
I cried, I cried and I cried. Why? Because losing what you can’t give back is a horrible experience. And losing those innocent wonderful people was just too traumatic for me as a person. It’s still a nightmare. And I believe for all of us that witnessed it, the incident is something we will have to live with for the rest of our lives. I don’t know how we can get over that and my prayer is that God will not allow us to experience such a horrible time ever again. But other than that, it was a black day, very very black day.
Recently, you said the Sosoliso and Bellview report will be made ready. When should we expect it?
Very soon, I think the process it’s at the last stage now. We will follow it up rigorously to bring out the report.
In the next three years, where do you see the aviation sector?
Where it is supposed to be. It ought to be at the centre, repositioned efficient professional and effective. Take its rightful position of the nucleus of the nation’s economy but, most importantly, the regional hub for training, maintenance and the first and best aerotropolis within the region.
