Botched Nigeria Air project

Last week, the Federal Government announced the suspension of the formation a new national airline, Nigeria Air. The suspension was done at the instance of an economic team headed by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo that reviewed the project. Despite that announcement, government’s real stand on the matter is still not clear, given conflicting claims by […]

Last week, the Federal Government announced the suspension of the formation a new national airline, Nigeria Air. The suspension was done at the instance of an economic team headed by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo that reviewed the project. Despite that announcement, government’s real stand on the matter is still not clear, given conflicting claims by its ministers.

Minister of State for Aviation Hadi Sirika, who announced the decision after last week’s meeting of the Federal Executive Council, added a caveat that the project was still on course. Minister of Information Lai Mohamed however said the project was suspended due to investor apathy. According to Mohamed, the investors who were billed to collaborate with the government in driving the venture developed cold feet after its launch. A further clarification is therefore needed as to the true status of this project.

The dream of floating a new national airline for Nigeria more than a decade after the collapse of Nigeria Airways was viewed by many Nigerians as a mere day dream. Under the Buhari administration however, Minister of State Sirika drove the project actively but mysteriously, with little information to Nigerians or input from aviation experts. In July this year, Sirika used the 2018 edition of the Farnborough Air Show in London to unveil Nigeria Air’s name and logo.

Addressing a press conference at the occasion, Sirika said government concluded all necessary arrangements including obtaining a certificate of compliance from the Nigeria Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission which had taken over the defunct Nigeria Airways, and was at the point of investor search. Government, according to him, also carried out extensive market research and had its act ready to run. We also learnt that government will provide $8m as preliminary cost and another $300m as initial take off for the airline.

Many Nigerian aviation experts and economists warned that all was not well with the entire concept of floating a national airline from scratch. Among the arguments voiced against the project included the untidy state of the winding up of the defunct Nigeria Airways, with the disengagement payoff of the former staff still pending. Another was that the safeguards for the viability of the project were yet to be marshalled out convincingly. Yet another was the lack of transparency in the entire build up and final launch of the project. Incidentally the clarification by Lai Mohamed in respect of investor apathy has more than vindicated the sceptics who had earlier seen through the project as hollow and a mere drain pipe on the public till.

The most disappointing aspect of the ill-fated project is that despite public apathy and skepticism, the government still went ahead and wasted public funds on it. Huge sums were paid, for example, to a foreign firm to produce the logo, which was a little different from that of the defunct Nigeria Airways and which Nigerian artists could easily do. Such waste at the expense of the Nigerian tax payer should not be condoned.

The project, such as it was, also proceeded without transparency or involvement of knowledgeable Nigerians, including their representatives in the National Assembly. Instead, the little that we hear about the project were snippets dropped here and there by the minister, when close consultation with experienced aviators and businessmen in Nigeria could have warned government of the pitfalls. Even the views of Nigerian airline operators were brushed aside in the matter and at one point we learnt from Sirika that government was about to commit hundreds of millions of dollars to ensure the airline’s take off.

We are therefore not surprised that this poorly conceived project crashed so suddenly and ignominiously. We urge the government to wave aside Sirika’s insistence that the project is still alive. It should state firmly that the white elephant project has been consigned to the cooler, at least for the foreseeable future.