On the unemployed Nigerian pilots

It is a sad commentary on the inability of our policy planners to sit down and carefully plan our manpower requirements in each sector and how those who have acquired skills in various disciplines can be gainfully engaged to contribute their quota in the task of nation building. The report further indicates that by the […]

It is a sad commentary on the inability of our policy planners to sit down and carefully plan our manpower requirements in each sector and how those who have acquired skills in various disciplines can be gainfully engaged to contribute their quota in the task of nation building. The report further indicates that by the end of next year, the number of trained but jobless Nigerian pilots would climb to 500 and could later be heading to 1000 when many students, who are currently undergoing training in some institutions both home and abroad under the sponsorship of some state governments and intervention agencies, are expected to have graduated.
Right now, the schools of aviation in Zaria and Ilorin are training nearly 200 students while the Kano State Government and the Niger Delta Development Commission have also reportedly sponsored for training abroad another 200 students in Jordan and South Africa respectively. Expectedly, the would-be graduates will be seeking for jobs in the aviation industry by the end of next year.
According to the report, the plight of our indigenous pilots is partly caused by the fact that private jets’ owners, commercial airlines and helicopter operators prefer to hire expatriate pilots at the detriment of the local ones. What is even more unfortunate is that some of these foreign pilots earn about three times more than what local pilots can possibly earn. On all fronts, the nation is the loser: we have a crop of highly and expensively trained manpower that cannot make contribution to the national economy and as a result they soon lose their skills because of disuse. What a tragedy!
National interest dictates that a quota of pilots flying our domestic routes must be allocated to indigenous pilots. At the moment, about 800 foreign pilots are flying in Nigeria when their 200 domestic counterparts cannot find planes to fly. The situation is even more unacceptable because training a pilot is not cheap. It costs about N8 million to train one. And many of them are trained by their parents who make a lot of sacrifices to do so.
But the plight of the jobless pilots does not stop at their being unengaged. It is compounded by the rule of flying which says that a trained pilot who does not fly two years after graduation must undergo retraining before he/she can once again become employable. Acquiring such a refresher course comes at another huge financial cost, estimated at about N2 million. It means that a licensed pilot who is unemployed for a length of time suffers a double jeopardy. This is most unfair and against our national interest. It is scandalous for a grossly underdeveloped country like Nigeria to have well trained professionals who cannot be used for national development.
While efforts should be made to apply the rules for expatriate quota in operation to ensure that our indigenous pilots can fly, the ultimate solution lies in a vigorous development of the country’s aviation sector. We note that some fairly commendable efforts are being made by Jonathan administration to remodel some of the nation’s airports, though with some concerns over the quality of the work. While efforts to improve the aviation infrastructure should continue, steps should also be taken to assist airline operators to expand their fleet of aircraft. One of the conditions for such assistance is that they must hire a larger number of indigenous manpower.
We acknowledge that our country is operating a deregulated economy. But nothing says that in such an economic regime, the state should not be involved in strategic planning that will ensure the training of human capital and their judicious utilisation in especially key and specialised sectors such as aviation.