Oduah’s Invisible Hands Still In Aviation Sector (II)

By Capt. Daniel Omale
I do not intend to join issues with anyone in my
column, but it has become necessary in this article
to answer Mr Yakubu Dati, a designated manager
(public relations) of the Federal Airports Authority
of Nigeria (FAAN), and also a spokesperson for the
Ministry of Aviation. After his failure to pursue a
meaningful political career in his home state of
Plateau, he gained respite with a job in FAAN.
I sincerely, from the bottom of my heart,
appreciate Dati's gross ignorance in the field of
aviation. But I understand the nature of his job: to
persuade, sensitize, and prop the public to accept
mediocrity of government policies, especially in air
regulation.
Dati lacks both knowledge and ability to rationalize
issues in air transportation industry. As delusional
as he is, I accept one statement in his last week's
article and that is: Oduah's dangerous and unsafe
policies will take a while to retract and correct.
First, I will educate Yakubu Dati a little bit about
aviation, his newly chosen field of endeavour: air
transportation is about safety, nothing more;
rhetoric, relentless propaganda and politics have
no place in the industry. Dati should know that
everyone is aware that he must defend Stella
Oduah's negative attributes, and decorate her
mainly ugly side to remain in office. Yakubu's
precarious job position warrants sympathy from
me; therefore, I applaud his courage.
In just three years as the minister of aviation,
Oduah, in search of a puppet, changed three
different director-generals of the agency —
unprecedented anywhere else in the world. With
such a high turnover of the heads of the NCAA,
instability in the system becomes inevitable. And it
is now showing.
I need to educate Mr Dati and Stella Oduah about
the 90 per cent probability of losing the 2009
achieved Nigeria's category 1 status: the
International Aviation Safety Assessment (IASA)
programme, which involves assessing whether
another country's oversight of its air carrier that
operates, or seeks to operate, into the United
States complies with minimum international
standards for aviation safety, is categorized into
two parts, 1 & 2. A country whose civil aviation
authority meets the required regulatory and safety
oversight standards is placed in category 1.
Those countries that are downgraded from
category 1 to category 2 would have been found
wanting, if the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) of their
country lacks one of the followings:
The country lacks laws or regulations necessary to
support the certification and oversight of air
carriers in accordance with minimum international
standards;
The CAA lacks the technical expertise, resource;
The CAA does not have adequately trained and
qualified technical personnel;
The CAA does not provide adequate inspector
guidance to ensure enforcement of, and
compliance with, minimum international standards,
and
The CAA has insufficient documentation and
records of certification and inadequate continuing
oversight and surveillance of air carrier operations.
This category consists of two groups of countries.
The former minister diluted and weakened the
regulatory strength of our civil aviation authority
through the influx of unqualified personnel into the
system. Today, the NCAA has more support staff
than the trained-skilled surveyors and inspectors
it used to have.
It is important for Dati, the uneducated
spokesperson for the ministry, to understand that
category 1 status has nothing to do with airlines
but the NCAA. As desperate for a job as Yakubu
was, he would have strived to educate himself a
little better in the field he acts as a spokesperson.
He shows his intense ignorance every time he
writes in defence of Ms Oduah, the greediest
minister of aviation ever.
Dati and his madam's ignorance of what aviation
stands for created their illusion that, in today's
sophisticated aviation world, an aircraft can fly in
our national airspace without proper insurance
cover and with an invalid operating licence. The
fact remains that both of them are naïve about the
differences in aircraft operating permits; the
prerequisites to obtain each one of them, and the
operating thresholds. The naivety led the former
minister to award air operating certificates (AOC)
to some unqualified companies in the country.
The majority of these companies are without an air
worthy aircraft; their owners were considered to
be loyalists, and, based on their relationship with
the minister, deserved to be awarded AOCs
without meeting the licence issuance
requirements. She simply ordered the NCAA to
award AOCs to her chosen proxies, like what is
obtained in the oil industry, her core area of
business.
If Yakubu Dati is insinuating that we are flying with
an invalid operating licence, without proper
insurance coverage, then, Ms Oduah, who was
always flying our aircraft before and after she
became the minister of aviation, must have equally
endangered her own life.
The former minister of aviation received more
money than the past four ministers of aviation
combined. In the name of airport remodelling and
aviation road map, she milked the system dry. If
she considers this statement as a mere allegation,
she has a right to seek redress in a court of law.
The stakeholders are ready with evidence.
Oduah's media propaganda machine was louder
than the combined effort of all the other ministers
in other sectors of our economy — an unnecessary
rhetoric to win public support.
On Friday, March 7, 2014, all the newly appointed
heads of the agencies in aviation were ordered to
meet the former aviation minister in her house to
reinforce her magnanimity toward their
appointments.
There, they were instructed to reverse changes
made by their predecessors, especially changes
made within the NCAA, since her three weeks'
departure from the system. Why can't Ms Oduah
allow the aviation system in Nigeria to recover
from the massive damage she has inflicted?
How can Dati make a statement that we fly air
planes without spare parts support? It shows his
backward knowledge of the industry he claims to
represent; even road bikes cannot remain
operational without spares. Dati is obviously the
most senseless employee of FAAN, and it saddens
me that such a clown should defend a system he
knows not.
Yakubu can defend his benefactor as much as
possible, but one thing is certain: Oduah's
obsessive interest to keep looting the system
through the appointment of her chosen candidates
into the aviation sector will surely come to an end.