Sirika must be questioned on Nigeria Air – Ex-NAMA MD, Iyayi

A former Managing Director of the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency, Roland Iyayi, says the aircraft recently unveiled as Nigeria Air’s belongs to Ethiopian Airlines in this interview with FUNMI FABUNMI. He also criticises the Federal Government for launching the national carrier despite a court’s stay order

The former minister of aviation last Friday welcomed an aircraft purportedly one of many in the Nigeria Air fleet, despite a stay order by the court.  What is your take on this?

This is nothing short of a monumental fraud by the minister. The aircraft that was flown in today (Friday) has a registration is ET-APL and it is a Boeing 737 8 Max belonging to Ethiopian Airlines. This particular aircraft was operated by Malawian Airlines, one of ET’s other subsidiaries, but it failed. The point here is, this aircraft is not Nigerian. So, it cannot be said to be an aircraft acquired for the purpose of Nigeria Air. But my instincts tell me what the minister has done is to hurriedly arrange with ET to fly an aircraft into the country for the purpose of hoodwinking Nigerians further that this indeed is the first aircraft in a series of aircraft for Nigeria Air. Nothing can be farther from the truth.  The fact of the matter is that this aircraft will be leaving Nigeria later today or tomorrow and flying to Turkey. We have checked out on the flight radar the routing of this aircraft and the schedule. It is evident that it is only transiting Nigeria for this show, which is a big farce as far as I’m concerned.

I see this as a monumental fraud by the minister. It does not augur well for the integrity of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority because essentially you cannot in one breath be told by the court to stay action on a project pending the determination of the substantive matter, yet you went ahead and violation of every court order that has been issued on this matter, you flew in an aircraft and even went ahead to invite the press, government officials and even traditional rulers for the purported unveiling of the airline.

I believe this is in contempt of a court order and indeed the outgoing honorable minister of aviation must be fully sanctioned and he must be brought before the court and the full weight of the law be put to bear on him because we cannot continue to have a country that is lawless. What he has done is something that would be looked at by foreign investors that there is no law and order in Nigeria and rather than encourage anything, it will discourage any well-meaning business person who wants to come into Nigeria. If you know where you want to invest has no law and order, what is the point going in there? This particular act is something that is totally at variance with the norms and totally puts Nigeria in a bad light. All over social media as we speak, I have seen messages sent to me from America. This is a topic. So, what exactly are we doing in this country? This is a huge farce. The minister needs to be brought to account for this act, for bringing the entire country to disrepute. This must not go unpunished, that is my position.

Does the landing of the aircraft in Abuja signal the birth of the national carrier?

I doubt very much if flying an aircraft into an airport and having a water salute to show people that there is an aircraft that has been painted in the colours of Nigeria Air would amount to birthing an airline. The truth of the matter is, I think what the outgoing honourable minister has done is nothing short of taking Nigerians for a big ride. And I think it is a monumental fraud to assume that by conniving with Ethiopian Airlines, having an aircraft that was on commercial flight for ET on May 21 or maybe a week ago, flying into Tel Aviv on an ET405 flight to fly into Abuja only for static display and then taken out, would mean to birth an airline. That particular aircraft flew out of Abuja yesterday and as I speak, it is back in Ethiopia and I can tell you that currently the deck house of Nigeria Air stuck on it is being removed and rebranded for ET to be put back in service. So, all that we saw a few days ago was a charade by the outgoing minister of aviation possibly to sort of block out, considering the fact that in the last seven to eight years we have had about N85.42bn in allocation to Nigeria Air, which is supposedly a private enterprise. So, we have a lot of issues here that are not explained and I think this desperate move by the outgoing minister is just one in the line of several things he has done to undermine the entire Nigerian populace.

Your airline, along with others, sued the minister and the Federal Government on behalf of local airlines. Could Ethiopian Airlines be aware of these court orders and still participate in this?

As a matter of fact, there are three orders of the court that the minister and Ethiopian Airlines are familiar with. They know about them; they have been served and the attorneys representing the AON have written to them and copied them and had the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority and all the relevant agencies in copy, to be aware of these orders of court. Indeed, what was done two days ago was a flagrant abuse of the judicial system and I think the full weight of the law should be brought to bear on the minister and Ethiopian Airlines because I do not see them as being good corporate citizens. I cannot even imagine a Nigerian entity operating in Ethiopia, which had been ordered to stay action, will go ahead and do what was done three days ago in Ethiopia. It will never happen. So, for it to have come to Nigeria to do this, it shows the absolute contempt it has for the Nigerian people and I don’t think to a large extent it will make good a partner. I believe what is being done is a total undermining of our judicious system, processes and country and people, which Sirika must be held accountable for.

You have worked in the aviation sector for quite a while. As a former managing director of the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency, when you have an aircraft of that nature coming in, what is the process of bringing it into Nigeria?

If you have a foreign aircraft wanting to fly into Nigeria, the process is for you to file what is called a clearance to the authorities in Nigeria, indicating when and where you are coming, the type of aircraft, the crew operating, and to indicate the intent. Invariably, what we have today is the minister of aviation in making sure that this particular flight comes in would have told the authorities to go ahead and issue the clearance for the flight to come in. The flight came in as a technical flight; it did not come in as a commercial flight. So, you can consider that to be a visiting aircraft. For a visiting aircraft, within 48 hours of filing a clearance to fly into your airspace and all that, a clearance is usually issued by the NCAA and the Nigeria Airspace Management Agency. So, I do not see a situation where Ethiopian Airlines ordinarily would want to come into Nigeria and would be denied the clearance to come in. So, ordinarily, it took advantage of that loophole and that is exactly what it exploited.

How would you describe the relationship between Sirika and Ethiopian Airlines?

Well, I would not know exactly the direct relationship because I am not privy to the meetings they have had but what I can say clearly is, Ethiopian Airlines, a couple of years ago approached Air Peace to have it partner with it. Air Peace thought the arrangement was an above board arrangement and followed through with it to a point where negotiations were being had only for Ethiopian Airlines to tell Air Peace that there was no point for it to aspire to grow its airline. That it was willing to provide Air Peace, as a matter of fact, pay its rent of $32m per annum for Air Peace to sit back and allow it to run the show. What Air Peace asked was that where does that leave other airlines in the country? Where does that leave my country and where does that leave my staff? These were questions it could not provide answers for. In other words, what we see going on now with the outgoing minister of aviation and ET would amount to something similar because if you take cognisance of a structure of how this whole thing came to be, it is almost certain that there was no transparency. Everybody that we have been told that was part of this process has denied being part of it. So, you then ask: who are those supposedly the private enterprise owners of Nigeria Air? Nobody has come forward to say he/she is the owner. (Punch)