Nnaji Nnolim, former chairperson of the house of
representatives committee on aviation, has described the allegation that he
requested for five percent equity in Nigeria Air as spurious.
Hadi Sirika, former minister of aviation, made the
allegation while speaking on Arise TV on Sunday.
“He (Nnaji) asked to give him five percent of Nigeria Air to
carry him along with his people, and I said to him at that time that honourable,
this is a bidding process that has taken place, and some people won,” Sirika
had said.
The former minister was responding to the lawmaker’s remarks that the launch of the national carrier was “fraudulent”.
Reacting to Sirika’s claim, Nnolim, in a statement on
Sunday, said the former minister came up with the claim because “I remained
consistent in demanding that he followed due process”.
He said the committee had commenced a probe of the former
minister and his team since last year.
“Ordinarily, l would not have bothered to reply to his
allegations of my demand for five percent equity in Nigeria Air as he claimed
during his interview on Arise Television but l believe l owe my constituents
and indeed Nigerians, a duty to put the records straight,” he said.
“It is on record that last year when the minister announced
Ethiopian Airlines as the core investor in Nigeria Air, my committee which was
also inundated with petitions from various stakeholders regarding that announcement
invited the minister and his team to furnish the committee with the details of
the project.
“The committee requested the evidence of the bid process
that gave Ethiopian Airlines the award and the full business case as prepared
by the Nigerian Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC) which
was supposed to spell out the details of all the investors and their equity
contributions.
“Sirika at that meeting said the full business case was
still being worked out by the ICRC and promised to make it available to the
committee as soon it was ready which he failed to do before Airline Operators
of Nigeria (AON) took the ministry to court and got injunction restraining it
from going ahead with the project.”
The lawmaker said all enquiries were suspended to avoid
court contempt.
Nnolim said he also had an encounter with the former
minister when there was a threat of mass resignations by key personnel of the
Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) due to pressures from the ministry to
give waivers to Nigeria Air to enable it to secure air operators certificate
(AOC).
He added that the ploy was for the national carrier to “take
off before the exit of the last administration of President Muhammadu Buhari”.
“I quickly issued a statement warning the former minister
against subverting the authority of NCAA because of its severe consequences on
Nigeria’s air transport sector,” he said.
“It is also common knowledge that the Nigerian institutional
investors he mentioned as participants have all denied him.
“It is not strange
that Sirika came up with this spurious allegation against my person because l
remained consistent in demanding that he followed due process. He should not
deviate from the subject matter. Let him tell Nigerians the truth about the
contraption he sold to us as Nigeria Air.”
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