President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to rescue Airspace operatives from “headwind” by Hadi Sirika

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, PBAT, deplaning

A clarion call has gone to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, PBAT, to give careful and studious attention to a dangerous precedent of a calculated attempt, to demoralize the entire workforce of the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency, NAMA, thus wittingly creating gross disaffection potent enough to undermine air safety.

The ugly situation trying to be entrenched, and the technical professionals in NAMA fervently wish it be nipped in the bud and prevent it from becoming a festering sore with all its dangerous consequences.

The Amalgamated Professional Association at NAMA which comprises, the Nigerian Air Traffic Controllers’ Association, NATCA, National Association of Air Traffic Engineers, NAAE, Aeronautical Information Management Association of Nigeria, AIMAN, and the National Air-traffic Communicators Association of Nigeria, NACAN, made the call at a recent meeting held in Abuja.

The association described as needless and unwholesome, the creation of two directorates and units outside the core operations of the agency, just within 72 hours of the expiration of the last regime, will only succeed in distorting the agency’s organogram and hinders precision service delivery.

The Amalgamated Professionals said the appointments announced by the former minister, Mr. Hadi Sirika, in the creation of units and directorates, were totally alien to the workflow structure of the agency.

They reminded President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and the general public that NAMA is a specialized safety critical service delivery organization whose technical and administrative structure remains sacrosanct, sacred, and must not be desecrated.

The professionals in the core operations of NAMA pleaded that the unity of purpose existing in the agency should not be sacrificed by sentiments, nepotism or mere political patronage as the recent development in the creation of new directorates and units in none core operations rather than in the core operations that needed it most, pose a threat to the safety-critical service the agency is mandated to deliver for safe, efficient, and economical air transport nationwide, and even beyond the shores of Nigeria.

The unions also frowned at the appointments of non-staff of the agency to head the departments as General Managers. They said the appointments grossly undermined the competencies of thoroughbred career personnel, thus preventing them from rising through the ranks to such positions of high responsibility.

The associations however opined that the directorates created, and the appointments had no place in the extant rules and act that established NAMA.

They noted with dismay that presently, there is not enough office space for staff at the headquarter in Abuja, as those that should be available in the office from Monday to Friday now developed roasters granting an appreciable number of workers unqualified days off yet, the space is still not sufficient for those expected to be at their duty post.

Hence the professionals said they could not comprehend the reason for the immediate past minister’s subscribing to the breeding of over bloated workforce in a space everyone knows too well is inadequate for the existing number of staff.

The workers’ professional associations, therefore, demanded that “the government should review the recent creation of directorates and appointment into the agency by strictly sticking to the provisions of the act that established NAMA as a guide to the creation of new directorates, employment, and appointments of non-agency staff to either management or senior management positions”.

They entertained fears that the action of the minister may jeopardize the about a decade of waiting for the National Salary Income and Wages Commission, NSIWC, to implement the negotiated Staffs Conditions of Service (COS).

They also noted that with the advent of the minister, and the indiscriminate employment that followed, the organization had doubled its wage bill thereby having a serious effect on statutory core mandates of the agency, such as human capital development, facilities maintenance/procurement, and many others, the amalgamated professionals claimed.

The meeting “did observe that the negative fall-outs of the indiscriminate recruitment, if not checked, may likely stall the implementation of the negotiated Conditions of Service, CoS”.

The amalgamated Professional associations at NAMA, in their meeting further noted that the forty percent (40%) deduction by the federal government, from the agency’s monthly revenue should be downward reviewed or expunged as the agency merely invoiced its service users on cost recovery basis and not on cut-throat profiteering.

They said by the time the management ceded 40% of its very tenuous monthly revenue to the federal government, the agency often had to contend with unbearable consequences by struggling to meet its core mandate in the areas of operations, equipment, and technical services provisions and training of its workforce as at when due.

Hence the professional associations jointly and urgently demanded that “attention be given to periodic and traditional mandatory training and re-training of the technical and operational professional staff of the agency which had been impaired lately by the paucity of funds.”

The communique from the 31st May meeting in Abuja was signed by the President, National Association of Air Traffic Engineers, NAAE, Engr. Seizing Miri, President, of the Aeronautical Information Management Association of Nigeria, AIMAN, Mr. George William Ngerem, the President of the National Air-traffic Communicators Association of Nigeria, NACAN, Mr. Rabiu Mohammed Sani, and last but not least, the President, Nigerian Air Traffic Controllers’ Association, NATCA, Mr. Agoro Abayomi Omotayo.

It was also reliably learned that copies of the demands are already with the Presidency, Head of the Federal Civil Service, the office of the Secretary to the federal government, and the Permanent Secretary, the Federal Ministry of Aviation, among others.

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