Festus Egwarewa Keyamo Aggressively Trouble Shooting for the Headwind to Aviation in Nigeria
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L-R: Prof. Obiora Okonkwo, Spokesperson, AON, (2nd), Barrister Allen Onyema, Vice Chairman, AON, (3rd), Barrister Festus Egwarewa Keyamo, (4th), Capt. Musa Shuaib Nuhu, Director General Civil Aviation, DGCA, Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA, at the stakeholders parley, Bon Hotel, Ikeja, Lagos
Having obviously garnered some reasonable amount of information on the state of air transport in Nigeria, Olorogun Festus Egwarewa Keyamo, the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, a senior member of the Nigerian bar, facilitated public engagement of stakeholders without leaving anyone behind.
Surprisingly, the last engagement with the stakeholders held at the Bon Hotel Ikeja, Lagos, last weekend, actually was a no-holds-barred atmosphere as reflected in the robust discussions that took place.
The anomaly of lumping the regulator with the operators and muddling sensitive tasks in the oversight of other government aviation agencies came to the fore and was immediately resolved.
Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA, was there and then placed on its rightful pedestal as a regulator. The others, Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, FAAN, Nigerian Airspace Management Agency, NAMA, Nigeria Meteorological Agency, NIMET, were reminded without so much ado, of their roles and the statutory obligation of the deference to NCAA.
Olorogun Keyamo reiterated that the Murtala Muhammed Airport international terminals one and two, would experience a thorough facelift to make them deliver on the purpose for which they were built- providing comfort for passengers and ease of flight operations by all other service providers.
He reiterated his outlook of what his ministry should aid the aviation industry to achieve while he holds a forte in the supervisory ministry as minister.
Keyamo who might have settled for the five-point agenda due to the prevailing situations when he assumed office, chronicled the following as his priority;
- To enforce safety standards are religiously adhered to by players in all the strata of the industry.
- To ensure infrastructure provision and upgrading where necessary.
- To provide support in all its myriads of ways and means to guarantee the growth of all industry players in each of the air transport value chains. And to drastically reduce the mortality rate of airline operators in particular.
- To develop capacity in all spheres of the aviation industry for the investors to achieve high returns on their investments
- To maximize, and optimize revenue to the national treasury
OPERATORS
The spokesperson of the Airline Operators of Nigeria, AON, Professor, Obiora Okwonkwo, who is also the Chairman of United Nigeria Airlines, chronicled the challenges bedeviling the operators.
He said delays and cancellations are robbing negatively on the airline’s bottom line. He added that causative factors of about 95 per cent of delays and cancellations, cannot be traced to the airlines. Hence, he implored the minister to give more than usual attention to airport infrastructure development.
Okonkwo identified another clog in the progress wheel of the airlines and which the fault cannot also be placed on the airlines but on the airport managers and the operating environment.
He argued that the airlines had all been disadvantaged before they even started because of the sunrise-to-sunset operations that obtain in the country.
The United Nigeria Airlines Chairman said while airlines in other climes fly for 18 hours or more, airlines in Nigeria can at best fly for 8 hours because the airports and other service providers operate from sunrise to sunset. He said the operating environment brought limitations to the airlines. The minister was charged to give a thought to the challenge.
Okonkwo urged the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency, NAMA, to up its game to enable pilots to land their aircraft at zero visibility as it obtains in other climes.
UNKNOWN REVENUE COLLECTOR- NAEED DYNAMICS CONCEPT- UNDERMINES REGULATORY AUTHORITY, AIR NAVIGATION SERVICE PROVIDER, AND AIR SAFETY
The Chairman of Rotary Wing Aircraft Operators of Nigeria made a revelation that an unknown private business organization had access to the equipment of one of the government agencies and issued an invoice for services it did not render.
The firm carrying out brazenly such illegality is named, Naeed Dynamics Concept Ltd. A whole lot of posers logically arose by the kind of very sensitive area the company has since been operating.
The good news is that the regulatory authority denied any knowledge of the fly-by-night organization named Naeed. The Managing Director of NAMA, also said he raised querry about the incursion of the sinister organization and requested to have proof of the regulator’s oversight, license, etc of Naeed Dynamics Concept.
However, the minister requested the preliminary action by way of a petition to his office, which will remove the bug in no time.
SUBMISSIONS, RAW MATERIAL TO DISTILL IN WARRI
Barrister Keyamo assured that every issue raised at the well-attended stakeholders’ forum would be placed on the operating table in Warri this weekend, at the Executive management retreat to dissect, by way of thorough analysis, and thereafter reach a healthier conclusion.
Keyamo boasted that exhaustive discussion in the consideration of all sides to every issue will provide another sacred document to guide the industry forward-match under Olorogun Festus Egwarewa Keyamo’s watch.
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The ministers five points agenda of moving the aviation industry forward is shortsighted about the importance of aviation personnel welfare which is the key element in developing the aviation industry in the country. Therefore, I’m advocating that the ministers agenda be increased to six to take the aviation industry staff welfare as priority and paramount in formulating policies and implementing the aviation roadmap forthrightly.