Following the termination of Nigeria Air joint venture with Ethiopian Airlines, stakeholders have said former Aviation Minister, Hadi Sirika, ignored warnings against going into the failed project.
Last week, Ethiopian Airlines announced that the Nigerian
government had lost interest in following through with the partnership.
The airline’s Group Chief Executive Officer, Mesfin Tasew,
had said: “The Nigeria government has lost interest in partnering with a
foreign airline.”
Therefore, the industry experts commended the federal
government for the action it took, saying Emirates, Qatar, Etihad and Turkish
Airlines shunned the former minister when he came up with the project.
They spoke in separate conversations with Vanguard,
cautioning government against floating another national carrier.
Why it failed
A former military commandant at the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Group Captain John Ojikutu, retd, said: “Going by what I know, I told Sirika that a national carrier wouldn’t work because they wanted to start it as a government carrier.
”If I may ask, how many countries are into national carriers
now? It is only very few countries and you will find that the population of
those countries are probably less than 50 million.
“Those are the type of countries that can talk about
establishing a national carrier, not Nigeria. For us, we cannot set up a
national carrier. What we can do is to set up a flag carrier. They should set
up a flag carrier and forget about this issue of national carriers because it
won’t work.”
Disrespect agreements
Also speaking, former spokesperson of the defunct Nigeria
Airways, Mr Chris Aligbe, said: “When Sirika was marketing Nigeria Air, because
I followed the whole procedure, I saw he went on an extensive marketing to
Emirates, Qatar, Etihad, Turkish Airline and even Pegasus, who said ‘no, they were
not interested in investing’.
“Our country is known globally as a country that doesn’t
respect agreements. That is our emblem. Today, Nigeria is blacklisted by
aircraft leasing companies. That is why
we see wet lease, not dry lease aircraft.
”No Nigeria airline can get a dry lease because two airlines
in Nigeria undermined the Cape Town Convention on international interests in
mobile equipment. It is one of the reasons, with all the marketing Sirika did,
when they advertised Nigeria Air, it was only Ethiopian Airline that applied.”
Future plans
Former Minister of Aviation, Air Vice Marshal Anthony
Okpere, retd, on his part, said if there were plans to establish a national
carrier in future, “what Federal Government should do is designate Air Peace
and Ibom Air as the country’s carriers.
”To start all over again by buying aircraft or going to rent
aircraft and start painting it to deceive Nigerians will not work. We need to
develop our internal capacity and expand it.
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