The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Stella Oduah

  • National carrier to be unveiled by month end – Minister

    National carrier to be unveiled by month end – Minister

    The Minister of Aviation, Princess Stella Oduah, has disclosed that necessary procedure involved in the unveiling of the nation’s national carrier would be ready before end of October.

    The minister said all arrangements have been concluded but awaiting

    final approval from President Goodluck Jonathan on implementation of policies on the carrier.

    Oduah disclosed this at a press conference organised by the ministry on Wednesday in Abuja.

    She added that the Federal Government had also spent about N9 billion for security measures in the nation’s airports.

    She said, “I am happy to announce to you that we are very done with the national carrier and I will tell you very soon when we get the final approval. I guarantee you before the end of the month.”

    On airport rehabilitation, the minister said a reasonable sum which is

    contained in the budget of the ministry had been spent on the airports, but about N648 million was spent on the General Aviation Terminal of the Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport, Abuja.

     

     

  • Nigeria’s airspace safe – Minister

    Nigeria’s airspace safe – Minister

    Despite the recent accidents in the nation’s aviation industry, the Federal Government on Monday assured that Nigeria’s airspace is one of the safest in the world.

    Speaking with State House correspondents in Abuja, the Minister of Aviation, Mrs. Stella Oduah, maintained that Nigeria’s airspace, according to the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) report is the 12th safest globally.

    According to her, Nigeria scored 65 per cent, which is above the global average.

    Describing the critics of the ongoing reforms in the aviation sector as ignorant, she said that security and safety in the sector cannot be achieved without adequate funding.

    She claimed that the suspension of Dana Air operations, which followed last Thursday’s fatal Associated Airline crash in Lagos, was not a fire brigade response.

    The minister claimed that the suspension was done in line with the law and policy of certification, which she said is a constant assessment of operators to ensure they are in compliance.

    On criticism of the sector, she described such criticism to be from “drunk and drug addicts.”

    She urged Nigerians to ignore such comments that have no bearing with reality.

    Reacting to the allegations that the ministry under her is dwelling more on money making in the sector than issues of safety, she said: “I think it is ignorant to start with because you cannot have security and safety without funding it, it has to be funded. If you are talking of safety for instance you need to have the infrastructure that addresses that. If you are talking security you need to have the infrastructure that addresses that and all that must be sustained and must be maintained. And if you do not do that you are not just being sincere.”

    “And then when you talk about the issue of renovation, the terminal itself is the first safety and security facility that any passenger comes across. And so in a plan you must start from A to Z. And in aviation it is often said that if you think safety and security is expensive, wait until accident happens and see how expensive it is.”

     

  • Dana Crash remembrance Service

    Dana Crash remembrance Service

  • Why compensations for DANA victims were delayed – Minister

    Why compensations for DANA victims were delayed – Minister

    The Minister of Aviation, Princess Stella Oduah, on Monday explained why families of victims of last June DANA air crash are yet to receive their compensations.

    The minister said, although 30 percent of the payment had been made the issue of multiple claimants and litigation had been a major challenge.

    Oduah, who spoke through her Special Assistant on Media, Joe Obi, in Abuja, said the federal government was working to ensure that compensations are being paid to legitimate next of kin.

    She said: “We will continue to share the loss suffered by these families. Our heart and condolences go out to them. The issue of compensation like the minister has said on Thursday, all efforts are being intensified by the Ministry of Aviation and the Federal Government to ensure that every victim’s family is fully compensated according to the regulations.

    “One of the greatest obstacles is that in some cases, you have multiple claimants and the greatest injustice somebody can do to the deceased is to pay compensation to somebody that does not deserve or warrant it.

    “We are taking our time deliberately to ensure that compensation is given to the right person so a situation where you have multiple claimant, you must make a deliberate effort to identify the legitimate next of kin.”

     

  • Too much money chasing too much frivolity

    Too much money chasing too much frivolity

    Between them, three women have partitioned Nigeria into an overbearing and scheming country. It is doubtful whether the three – Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (Finance), Stella Oduah(Aviation) and Diezani Alison-Madueke(Petroleum) – do so deliberately. But by their policies, and the vociferous arguments they summon to drive them, the country’s fate seems sealed, at least under President Goodluck Jonathan. The situation was probably not better under Chief Olusegun Obasanjo’s presidency, but in those days it was at least difficult to determine where Obasanjo’s overbearingness began and where the conceitedness of his appointees ended. We groped in that fogginess for eight years to 2007 assured that some sort of balance could be conjured by nature itself. Nature, we convinced ourselves, abhorred imbalance. But under Jonathan, there is no fog anywhere, nor is nature keen to intervene.

    For a moment, let us put aside the policy parade of the Finance and Petroleum ministers, and instead concern ourselves with the Aviation minister, who is on some sort of rampage. It is of course mere co-incidence that the three ministers are from the Southeast/South-South. Their power and influence – some say dominance – is probably not due to their states or regions of origin. They are influential partly because of their intellects and mostly because of their personalities. When it comes to the debate over finance and poverty, have you ever tried to convince the highly opinionated Okonjo-Iweala that the square of the longest side hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides? Forget it; it’s a lost cause. No matter how right you are, she is even righter. If you draw the sword of Pythagoras, she will counter with the shield of Euclid. And you would be lucky to get in a word when she is declaiming on any topic.

    Diezani (I mean no disrespect; her first name, which is not common, is simpler to use than her hyphenated surname) is probably the most oratorical of the three, and certainly the most dashing. What degree of persuasiveness she loses by way of conjured or ambiguous facts and figures, especially when she is put to task by the National Assembly and the querulous long-suffering public, she makes up for by way of sheer verbal profundity. It is always an unequal combat when a brilliant but not fluent speaker meets an eloquent exaggerator who can manage to pay occasional homage to logic. Whereas the Finance minister undermines your statistics and makes you doubt the sources of your figures, the Petroleum minister overwhelms you with her rolling words and glacial composure, thawing only sparingly to remind you of her humanity, nay, femininity. Neither of the two ministers is ever able to convince anyone about the fidelity of the facts and figures coming from the two ministries, whether as they concern poverty and the application of fiscal tools to regenerate the economy, or as they concern fuel consumption or the so-called subsidy regime.

    Of the three, however, Oduah, who is the main focus of this piece today, appears to be the most daring and enterprising, and perhaps the most energetic. By dint of her obtrusion, she has managed to raise the status of the Aviation ministry from a sedate, backroom bureaucracy to a frontline and, if we should borrow a phrase from modern analysts, cutting-edge organisation. As her obtrusiveness during electioneering showed, when she made the so-called Neighbour-to-Neighbour unit of the Jonathan campaign organisation a powerful instrument propelled by delicate and indecipherable financial engineering, she has a knack for turning water to wine, and turning a molehill to a mountain. Left alone in the Aviation ministry, as the Jonathan government seems increasingly bent on doing, she could soon begin imagining the prospect of developing a rocketry department in the ministry with the objective of putting a Nigerian on the moon, if not next year, then the year after. Her imagination is so fecund that, like God observed of human beings at the Tower of Babel (Gen 11), whatever she proposes to do she was likely to accomplish. But of course I exaggerate, for Oduah’s fecundity is neither profound nor without a terrible price.

    During the 2011 electioneering, Oduah knew how to get things done. She has transferred that talent and energy to her present assignment. Somehow, she does not seem to be discomfited by lack of funds. She is renovating, modernising, and in some instances, expanding the airports in the country, of course, in phases. And from all evidence, and by frequent fliers’ testimonies, she is doing the renovation to taste. But that exercise, as salutary as it seems, jars against a sensible consideration of the economics of airports. Might the renovation not be an unsupportable elevation of aesthetics over functionality? Ghana’s Kotoka Airport is not as fascinating as Murtala Mohammed International Airport, but it is better maintained, better utilised, friendlier to travellers, and there is always a general sense of sanity and safety in its precincts. I won’t push this point, however, for Nigerians, high and low, are eternally fond of the meretricious.

    Oduah speaks interminably about grandness in the aviation sector without a correspondingly grand and realistic paradigm to support her dreams. She wants at least one International Airport comparable with the best in the world. But in which aspect of Nigerian leadership is there anything comparable with the best in the world? Is it in observance of the constitution? What of the justice system, education, politics, healthcare, and all other human development indicators? This objectionable lack of realism, as personified by Oduah’s approach to aviation matters, is discernible in the attitudes of Nigerian leaders to the construction of State Houses, legislative complexes, official residential quarters, and the headquarters of some powerful ministries, departments and agencies. Oduah’s comparable airport terminal will pander to our outsized ego, and nothing more.

    Perhaps the most disagreeable policy to come from the Aviation minister is the decision to float a new national carrier barely 10 years after the same federal government scrapped the old carrier, the Nigeria Airways. The old carrier was scrapped because the government and its World Bank economists argued that governments were notoriously inefficient in running businesses. With maniacal zeal, the previous government scrapped virtually everything publicly owned. Official residences and cars were monetised. Roads were to be offered to willing concessionaires, and even Federal Government Colleges were scrapped. Virtually nothing was to be left in the hands of the government except the privileges of power. Now, they are gradually reversing themselves – a troubling indication of sloppy thinking, official grandstanding and depressing lack of public debate.

    When the Aviation minister first mooted the idea of a new carrier, a columnist with this newspaper argued along the following lines: “Oduah indicates the new national carrier will welcome private equity and be jointly and professionally managed to make it a successful venture. In addition, she says, if all things go well, the new carrier could hit the skies before many months. But it was not too long ago, however, that the government invited Virgin Atlantic to invest in the airline business in Nigeria over the ashes of Nigeria Airways. It proved an impossible task after just a few years, as the new airline made huge losses estimated at more than $300m between 2005 and 2010. In 2007 alone, Virgin Nigeria Airways lost nearly N10 billion. Moreover, Virgin Atlantic Limited never took more than 49 percent equity in the Virgin Nigeria project. So, what has changed? Oduah says the government has learnt its lessons, and will not repeat the mistakes of the past. She is confident that a new national carrier operated jointly with private capital will fly. Nonsense.

    “If private investors want to come into the airline business either in partnership or alone, the skies are always open. As everyone knows, the skies may be open, but the capital to establish and run airlines here has not always been open or friendly. Airline business has been a difficult one in recent years requiring the help of the government to keep it aloft…It is doubtful whether Oduah can convince anyone of the need for a new national carrier. The idea of a new national carrier is idle and wishful thinking. There is absolutely no basis for it, either financially or managerially…”

    And while we were still trying to come to terms with the new carrier bugaboo, Oduah threw us an even tougher bone to chew. According to an aviation source, the federal government plans to buy 30 new aircraft to be distributed to airlines to help them operate better and to crash air fares. Now, if there is a worse malady than this, we would like to hear it. The crazy venture, we are told, is to be funded by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) – would Sanusi Lamido Sanusi countenance this nonsense? – and the Bank of Industry (BoI). Would the planes be given free? If not, would it not further aggravate the financial distress of the operators and encumber their operating costs? And are the CBN and BoI so loaded with idle money that they can be persuaded to throw it on fantasies?

    It is not enough to absorb the fact that these three ministers are powerful and influential, or that they give the Jonathan cabinet its steely core; we must also recognise that they are in fact symptomatic of the lack of consistent policy framework required to run a disciplined, transformative and progressive government. The ministers and their policies indicate just how besotted to grand fantasies the government has become, and why their successes will be few and far between.

  • Stella Oduah: Truly transformational

    Stella Oduah: Truly transformational

    The President Goodluck Jonathan administration has been so dismal and yet receding still that the very thought of it invests one with overwhelming gloom. Especially when you consider what might have been, the enormous potentials and giant leaps Nigeria might have made under steadier hands and a more perspicacious mind. Embroiled in Jonathan’s unremitting inertia, one becomes quick to dismiss him and his pack as a bunch of no-gooders. But that is indeed what it is save for the work of Prof. Bath Nnaji, Power Minister (now chucked out), Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar and Aviation Minister, Princess Stella Oduah, the surprise candidate.

    Truth be told, we never gave her a chance. Not yours truly, not many Nigerians. It must be something about her beauty – she is too beautiful to be capable of any serious work; many thought. She built a sizeable oil firm, the skeptics are reminded, but they would be quick to dismiss that with something like: this is Nigeria and any beauty with half brain would build Disneyland if she desired; after all isn’t the richest woman in the whole wide world a Nigerian fashion designer? Thus Princess Oduah had her bewitching beauty arrayed against her ab initio.

    Then there was the Neighbour 2 Neighbour (N2N) suv; a seeming cash machine that steam-rolled President Jonathan to power in spite of deadly odds. She was at the helm of this monstrous vehicle which churned out cash faster than any teller machine. The operation – which was what Jonathan’s primary and subsequent election campaign turned out to be – was driven with such palpable tenacity and a tinge of ruthlessness that the result could not have been anything else but what it turned out to be – landslide victory. Princess Oduah is of course remembered as the dowager wearing the steel gloves in those high-wire moments.

    When she was rewarded with the Aviation Ministry top job, there was instantaneous uproar especially from the experts and workers in the industry. We the media joined the lynch mob deploying the rather risqué cliché in classifying her as a square peg in a round hole! Of course job for the boys, sorry, for the girls, was the refrain that rented the air. Perhaps, having lived with the Nigerian culture of appointment as settlement in the past few decades we have grown to expect nothing from our government appointees. Not the least a beautiful and moneyed Princess. She was written off from the first day by many. Including this column, sorry to say.

    But the Princess has turned out to be the soothing revelation of the Jonathan administration. In 18 months she has put up such a sterling performance that had long become extinct in this part of the world. Much used to government propaganda, all the talk about master plan, aviation framework and 8-point road map were just the usual ‘story’ to yours truly as the lady harped upon them early last year. When she embarked on what they called international road show, I was ‘definitely’ sure it was one of those jamborees. What sold me was returning to Owerri Airport after about one year not to find the seedy shed that was the Sam Mbakwe International Cargo Airport (SMICA) totally rebuilt. The SMICA terminal was a miserable structure built over 30 years ago by late Governor Sam Mbakwe through the effort of the people. Today it has taken a major makeover; a heart-lifting and indeed a miraculous transformation.

    The same thing one has witnessed at the General Aviation Terminal (GAT) in Lagos and the domestic terminal at the Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport, Abuja. One hears the same massive overhaul is taking place simultaneously in eight other airports across the country and 11 more are in various stages of work. If the Princess’ feat were just the erection of glitzy structures, one would argue that anyone who had funding could do same. But the change is seems to be deeper and multifaceted which include safety and security issues plus long-term plan of hub status and an aerotropolis initiative. There is also the ‘soft’ project of getting foreign airlines to behave better and give Nigeria her due in bilateral agreements.

    What one finds most remarkable is not the monumental work initiated and executed in such a short period of time but her unhidden passion for her job and the pathos of a great patriot in the face of despoliation and decadence. One would not be ashamed to say that in one’s 25 years of practice, one has not noticed this kind of dedication to duty and zeal to repair and deliver the goods to the people from an appointee.

    Princess Oduah is by far, the most outstanding minister today in the Jonathan team. One would dare wager that if she were the Petroleum Minister, she would have built us refineries and saved Nigeria the shame of importing kerosene from Niger Republic and Ghana; if she were Works Minister, she would have fixed the Benin-Ore highway without feeding us with a whole asphalt of excuses; if she were the Health Minister, she would have almost completed for Nigeria, a world class health tourism complex that would make Nigerians shun Indian and UK hospitals; if she were Education Minister, she would have driven the nine new federal universities to great heights and perhaps started about a dozen Unity Schools; if…

    While most of Stella’s colleague still can’t find their way around their ministry’s complex not to mention drawing up a master plan and road map, she has shown that in spite of a doodling leadership, all it takes is passion, patriotism and drive to turn Nigeria around. If she can turn around a turbulent aviation industry which had been in decay for the past three decades, there is no responsibility she cannot handle, it seems. We hope she would keep up this tempo and don’t get carried away by this initial success.

    YAKOWA AND AZAZI: Now here, now no more: the painful exit of Governor Patrick Yakowa of Kaduna State and former National Security Adviser, Andrew Azazi, reiterates for us the living, two quick lessons. One is that it awakens the realization in us that this minute you are a governor or an NSA and in the next couple of minutes you could become mere ashes. The second point is that if only we realize the unforgiving futility of life we would be more sober, pausing every moment to pay obeisance to life, to the living and to our Maker. May god grant their souls eternal repose. Amen.

    NOTE: this is wishing all our readers a great Christmas and a happy New Year. EXPRESSO goes on vacation till late January.

  • Minister denies ethnic charge

    Minister denies ethnic charge

    Does the Minister of Aviation Princess Stella Oduah have anything against the North?

    No, she says, pointing out that the North has benefited more from the ongoing transformation of the sector under her.

    Princess Oduah, who spoke through her Special Assistant on Media, Mr Joe Obi, said the first projects embarked on and inaugurated by the minister are located in the North, wondering where the allegation of marginalisation was coming from.

    “Let me state that the North is not marginalised. In fact, I have to state clearly here that the North has benefited most from this transformation. We started by inauguration of the Hajj Terminal in Kano and Kaduna. These were the first projects that were commenced and inaugurated by the minister,” he said.

    On the state airports, Obi said the vision of the ministry is to encourage states that can build airports to do so.

    He said: “The vision of the minister of aviation is for Nigeria to have access to airports even as close as possible anywhere they reside. Airports, as you know, are economic hubs and anywhere you have airports, they help to improve and develop the economy of any nation.

    “Our vision is to encourage states that are viable to come up with airports. We recently had Jigawa State indicating interest to build another airport and the ministry is solidly behind them. Any state that has the resources and they think they can manage an airport, this will make airport, airport facilities and airlines more accessible to Nigerians and it will also help to boost the Nigerian economy”.

    On the denial of right to some foreign airlines to enter the Kano and other parts of the North, Obi reiterated that the minister did not deny Turkish and others approval to fly into Kano, adding that approval has been given and that it is the airline that is delaying the commencement of operations.

  • Aviation roadmap, one year on

    Since assuming office, Princess Stella Oduah has left no one in doubt that she is on a serious mission. She inherited an industry, as Minister of Aviation, on the verge of collapse. The absence of a well articulated aviation policy, excessive bureaucracy and bad management is its albatross. Attempts to formulate a national policy dates back to 1986. African ministers responsible for civil aviation met in Yamoussoukro, Ivory Coast in October 1988 to fine-tune common positions. This heralded the historic Yamoussoukro Declaration (YD) of 1988. It became imperative to harmonise the National Aviation Policy of 1989 with the Regional Aviation Policy contained in the Yamoussoukro Declaration of 1988 which was reaffirmed in 1994. Princess Oduah waded through these policies and came up with the Aviation Road map. The Road-map provided the institutional framework for the provision of infrastructure, monitoring and control of the industry. One year down the road, critics are no longer in doubt about government’s determination to implement the road-map.

    Princess Oduah showed she meant business when shortly on assuming office, she stopped the exploitative collection of N2, 500 passenger service charge (PSC) introduced unilaterally by the operators. Her mission to restore aviation to its rightful place as a vehicle for economic progress was not open to negotiation. In the words of Henry Longfellow, “In this world a man must either be an anvil or hammer”. Those who dared to stand on her way have confessed that beneath her soft spoken mien is an iron lady.

    When she engaged the British authorities on the airfare disparity saga, she stood eyeball to eyeball with our erstwhile colonial masters, to the admiration of her compatriots. Known for walking where angels fear to tread, Princess Oduah inherited a sector that had virtually negotiated away its soul to powerful forces in the guise of public private partnerships (PPP), concessionaires and other drain pipes. At least, four ministers had fought the ‘aviation cabal’ to no success. For a woman who has conquered the private sector and successfully established a business conglomerate with interest spanning oil and gas, agriculture, engineering, logistics, trading and philanthropy, fate had prepared her for a time like this.

    Worried by the decay at airports and terminals built over 30 years ago, the minister embarked on massive reconstruction and remodelling. The Kaduna and Kano Hajj terminals were remodelled and commissioned in record time. Work is on-going at the Sokoto terminal. Within three months of mounting the saddle, she began work on 11 airports in the first instance, out of the 22 earmarked. From Lagos to Yola, Port Harcourt to Enugu, the quality and pace of work took the aviation sector by storm. She restored our national pride and implored Nigeria’s standing in the comity of nations. Some ‘aviation stakeholders’ are, however, seething that the minister deviated from the normal practice where money is shared among ‘stakeholders’. With a threat to teach her a lesson, they alleged that the minister was remodelling the airports without approval. They also claimed that contracts were awarded without due process and that the (BASA) funds were being spent without regard for laid down procedures. Unknown to them, due process was followed and approvals received from relevant authorities before embarking on the projects. Furthermore, the contractors were using their money to fund the projects without a kobo taken from the BASA funds!

    Unperturbed, the minister rolled up her sleeves for move work as she embarked on the Aerotropolis project. This concept which has been embraced internationally is about building cities with complete infrastructure around airports. Similar to Schipol in Germany, Amsterdam in Netherland and Heathrow in the United Kingdom, this new business module is yet another window to attract foreign investment and grow the economy.

    To harness the benefits of the critical infrastructure being put in place, Princess Oduah went on an international investment road show. The investment road show being a key element of the road map for transformation of the air transport industry is already yielding results.

    The Chinese have already signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Nigeria to finance the construction of 11 new state-of-the-art airports out of which six will be for perishables. The conferment of the award of the public officer of the year 2011 on Princess Oduah by Leadership did not come to many as a surprise. As a workaholic who is not given to vain glories, she is a great believer in nation building. In his treatise, James Thomas notes: “To be a great thinker and so always master of the situation, one must of necessity have been a great thinker in action. An eagle was never yet hatched from a goose’s egg.”

    On October 22, the first of the 11 remodelled terminals was commissioned by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) Senator Anyim Pius Anyim.

    Stakeholders, hitherto with doubts, had a change of mind when they saw the magnificence of the new terminal. With that, the wind was taken out of the sail of the minister’s critics.

    But the minister cannot be deterred by such distractions! She has placed her hands on the plough and there is no looking back. As the remaining 10 remodelled airports await commissioning in quick succession in the next two months, work will soon begin on the remaining 10 airports in the second phase of the remodelling project. The airport landscape has become one huge construction site and Nigerians owe it all to Princess Oduah.

     

    •Yakubu Dati is the General Manager (Corporate Communications of FAAN)

  • ‘Dana crash still a nightmare for me’

    ‘Dana crash still a nightmare for me’

    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.