Nigeria Air and Hadi Sirika: Why transparency matters

In November 1983, I was going to France on study leave and my employer, Ahmadu Bello University gave me a warrant to collect a ticket to Paris from Nigeria Airways. I flew from Kaduna to Lagos for my flight to Paris only to be told at 9 pm that that Nigeria Airways had cancelled the flight. I regretted that I had refused to take the advice of the transport office to trade my Nigeria Airways ticket for a more reliable airline. Luckily, Nigeria Airways ticket was still endorsable at that time and I was able to fly the same night through Air Afrique. I felt bad and since that time had hoped my country would have a national carrier we would all be proud of.

Not surprisingly, the suspension of the Nigeria Air project by by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) on Wednesday was sad for a lot of us who would have loved to see a Nigerian Carrier that we can proudly call ours ferry us around the world and make a lot of money as British Airways, Emirates, Air France etc. are making out of our money. We know the difficulties of government ownership of airlines and what led to the liquidation of Nigeria Airways in 2004 so when Minister Hadi Sirika announced in December 2015 that his strategic objective was Aviation Minister was the establishment of a private successful national airline for Nigeria, I put him on my “I like” list. With the suspension of the project and the knowledge that it is all Hadi Sirika’s fault, I feel bitter because he could have succeeded if he had consulted widely and planned well. Instead, he conducted one of the most opaque attempts to establish a project in Nigeria with no information, almost no consultations and absolutely no transparency.

I have followed the airline issue closely and noticed hat between December 2015 and July 2018, Minister Hadi Sirika on numerous occasions assured Nigerian that the project was on course but he never gave any details on what was being planned. I noticed that a lot of aviation stakeholders were asking question on what the plans of the minister was but there was no response. It became clear that for him, the airline was his personal project and he did not see the need to discuss with stakeholders and create a consensus on the best strategy to adopt. Given the total information blackout, a lot of speculations arose that he was planning to use the assets of Arik and Aero Contrators taken over by AMCON to start the new line. Others speculated that he was begging Qatar Air to come and set up an airline for us. Speculation became the sole mode of engagement because the minister refused to engage with anybody.

It was only in July this year at the Farnborough International Air Show in the United Kingdom that Hadi Sirika announced that the name of the proposed new National Carrier is ‘Nigeria Air’ and that the proposed national airline would be unveiled before the end of the year. Then came the bombshell - government would invest $300 million in the new venture and own only 5% of it. With great fanfare, he then launched the logo of the airline for which he had paid some foreign company $600,000 and multiple complaints broke out. The most effective was the tweet by Mustafa Chike Obi, former Managing Director of AMCON who tweeted out on July 21st why Nigeria was paying $300 million for only 5% of the new carrier while Air France/KLM had paid $286 million for 31% share of Virgin Atlantic. The tweet went viral and there was massive reportage in the media that the minister was planning a scam. It was in this context that the next day, the Minister announced that the entire bill for the start-up would be borne by Government, which would have 100% and not 5% ownership and would subsequently sell 95% to the private sector. It was incredible that even at that stage Hadi Sirika was not willing to share basic information on the scheme with Nigerians and only acted under intense pressure. After assuring Nigerians for three years that the project would be 100% private, he turned it to 100% government project and did not even want to tell Nigerians. It’s simply incredible.

On another matter, the same Minister Hadi Sirika has refused to inaugurate all the governing boards of the parastatals in the aviation sector despite repeated admonishing from the President, the APC party chairman and the Central Working Committee of the ruling party. He is therefore single-handedly running the entire aviation sector. This means that he is a powerful man but because he is only one man doing the work of several institutions, it’s not surprising that success is far away from the sector he controls. Nigeria will not receive the first set of five airplanes for the airliner on December 19 and own 30 aircraft within five years as he promised the world at his United Kingdom event.

According to newspaper reports, it was the Economic Management Team (EMT) led by the Vice President that examined the project and discovered with consternation that he had committed the Government to major and immediate investment to set up the carrier despite knowing fully well that the project had not been budgeted for. Meanwhile, it is important to know what has happened to the $8.8 million preliminary cost apparently provided by Government. What has the money been spent on and how would those responsible for disbursing the money be made accountable? It’s important to recall in this regard that the Minister has promised that all commitments he had made in the botched attempt would be fully paid for by Nigeria. Does the Government know what he has committed us to? Someone should oversee this process and ensure more resources are not wasted without people being made accountable.

Lack of accountability in the aviation sector has been a problem for some time. According to media reports, there is a strong likelihood that aircraft leasing companies may blacklist Nigeria over the failure of domestic operators to keep to terms of agreements they have signed in leasing aircraft, spares and engines. Nigerian airlines are already finding it difficult to lease aircraft and get spares from international lessors. This is because some of the airline operators reneged on their contractual agreements with the lessors to return their leased aircraft as enshrined in agreements they signed. Reports indicate that rather than return the aircraft, the operators went to court to stop the lessors from repossessing their airplanes. As aviation parastatals have no boards to guide their work and Minister Sirika was busy with his pet plans, no one is supervising the industry. If Nigerian carriers cannot lease, they are left with only one choice - outright purchase of aircraft at high cost occasioned by the depreciating value of the naira. Clearly, order, transparency and due process has to be returned to the aviation industry.