Aviation unions to meet professionals, stakeholders over crisis
Despite setting up an investigative panel to probe the purchase of two armoured cars at an inflated cost of N255m by the Nigeria Civil Aviation Agency, NCAA, the Presidency is discreetly rallying support to save the Minister of Aviation, Ms. Stella Oduah.
The leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and her kinsmen have also embarked on several efforts to save Oduah’s job.
A lobby team has also been put in place by the minister to ensure that she retains her position while several amorphous groups have been formed to protest against her planned sack, saying President Goodluck Jonathan was the main target.
Contrary to insinuation that the Aviation Minister was prevented from seeing President Jonathan in Israel where he had gone for pilgrimage, a senior aide of the President and a serving governor on the President’s entourage had facilitated a meeting between the President and Oduah.
“President Jonathan and Oduah met in Israel, but that is not to say that Mr. Jonathan has given her a clean bill of health. He will await the outcome of the panel’s finding,” the source said.
A member of the House of Representatives’ Committee on Aviation, who pleaded anonymity, confirmed to National Mirror yesterday that “The President’s men are trying to reach out to the Committee to tone down on its probe.”
The former Head of Service of the Federation, Alhaji Isa Bello Sali, heads the three-man investigation panel. The two other members of the panel are National Security Adviser (NSA), Colonel Sambo Dasuki (rtd) and Air Vice Marshal Dick Iruenaberi.
The panel is to submit its report within two weeks while the secretariat of the panel will be provided by the office of the NSA.
The Bureau for Public Procurement, BPP, had last week testified that the controversial purchase of two bulletproof BMW cars for Oduah breached the Public Procurement Act.
The minister is billed to appear before the House committee by tomorrow.
Also, the All Progressives Congress, APC, has said that President Jonathan may become an accessory to corruption if he continues along his current path of shielding Aviation Minister, Oduah, from the consequences of the massive corruption and abuse of office over the purchase of two armoured cars at an inflated cost of N255m and without following due process.
In a statement issued in Lagos yesterday by its Interim National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said it reached that conclusion after juxtaposing the evidence that have come out on the scandal against the actions so far taken by the President.
The party said: “It has now emerged that the money spent to purchase the armoured cars was not appropriated, which is a violation of the Nigerian Constitution; that due process was not followed in buying the cars, as the Bureau of Public Procurement, BPP, has testified, and that the Minister – who was said to have approved the purchase – violated the law by approving an expenditure over the N100 million limit.
“These revelations make the Oduahgate a straightforward case that should have been summarily dealt with by the President. Instead, he has engaged himself in a rigmarole by setting up a diversionary administrative panel in what is now looking like an orchestrated ploy to buy time, hoping this issue will die down and the minister will escape being sanctioned.
“Unfortunately for Mr. President, Oduahgate is not just another scandal, but a referendum on his administration’s fight against corruption, and on the legacy he intends to leave in this critical area.”
The party also accused the President of thumbing his nose at Nigerians, who have expressed outrage at the action of the minister, by approving for her to travel to Israel to sign bilateral agreement.
“No one believes the dummy that is being sold to the public, that the minister was denied access to the President in Israel. The egregious act of putting the minister on his entourage, at a time she is at the centre of a terrible scandal, calls to question the President’s sense of propriety and his commitment to the war against corruption.
“This indecorous action of making a minister, who is under investigation for monumental corruption and abuse of office one of the faces of Nigeria in a foreign land is an embarrassment to the country and its people, and a further dent on the poor image of the Jonathan administration. We condemn it most whole-heartedly. We now understand why corruption has grown wings under the Jonathan Presidency, and why the administration may well go down as the most corrupt in the country’s history,” APC said
The party added that through his body language, the President is sending a signal to his ministers that it is alright to be corrupt, wondering whether he (Jonathan) is aware of the joke making the rounds that there are five ‘Super Ministers’ in his cabinet whom he can neither sanction nor remove, irrespective of their actions, because they are the ones ferreting funds into his war chest for 2015.
It also condemned the resort to crowd hiring to protest against the growing calls for sanctions against Oduah, saying concerned groups and citizens are closely following the developments and will not allow it to be swept under the carpet.
In a related development, the recent crises in the Nigerian aviation industry have become major concerns for the three major unions in the sector.
The unions said in a bid to prevent further calamities, it is pertinent for stakeholders, professionals and even elders in the sector to deliberate on a way forward.
The unions; National Association of Aircraft Pilots and Engineers, NAAPE, Air Transport Services Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, ATSSAN and the National Union of Air Transport Employees, NUATE, said that having x-rayed the recent happenings in the sector, it is important they meet to proffer solutions to them.
The unions said that if solutions were not immediately proffered to the recent crises, the future of aviation in Nigeria was at stake and warned that planes may start to fall off the skies again.
A one-day meeting involving all stakeholders in the sector has been scheduled for tomorrow (Tuesday) in Abuja.
Speaking on behalf of the group, the President, NAAPE, Mr. Isaac Balami, explained that the meeting would seek to chart a course for more participation by all stakeholders in the sector for the purpose of moving the aviation industry forward in months ahead.
Balami revealed that an industry veteran, Capt. Paul Tahal, would moderate at the one-day event, adding that the three unions had collectively called upon these elders and experts within reach to attend what he described as a crucial meeting.
He also stated that they would use the opportunity of the dialogue to collectively make valuable contributions on how to proactively move the industry to greater heights, stressing that if the country was to attain its vision of 20: 2020, it must grow its aviation sector to a level befitting of the physical size and population of the country.
Meanwhile, some groups and individuals have kicked against calls in some quarters for the sack of Oduah.
Some Igbo youths under the aegis of Igbo Progressives Union, IPU, and some elders in the geopolitical zone led by High Chief George Nwabueze over the weekend reiterated their support for the embattled minister.
The youths, in their hundreds protested to the Akanu- Ibiam International Airport, Enugu at the weekend and insisted that the minister did not do anything wrong with the purchase of the cars.
An online statement signed by the Coordinating spokesman for aviation parastatals, Mr. Yakubu Dati, stated that the protesting youth carried placards with different inscriptions and accused unnamed groups of people of being behind the calls for the removal of the minister.
The youths alleged that some cabals in the country had wanted Oduah out by all means, adding that their intentions was to stop the minister from going ahead with her transformation agenda in the country’s aviation sector.
The group, who spoke through their leader, Emeka Agbo, who is said to be a student of the Institute of Management and Technology, IMT, Enugu said Igbo youths were prepared to go the whole hog in ensuring that their daughter was protected, expressing dismay that some highly placed individuals were determined to rubbish the towering pedigree and achievements of Oduah in the sector.
On their part, the people of Ogbaru, Anambra State, the home town of Oduah led by their High Chief Nwabueze alleged that the battle was not about the minister, but the 2015 presidential elections.
Nwabueze said that some people who were not comfortable with the transformation agenda of President Goodluck Jonathan had ganged up to tarnish the image of members of the federal cabinet.
He said the criticisms against Oduah were not only borne out of envy, but were politically motivated. He claimed that all the shylock businessmen, whose concession and lease agreements in the sector were either cancelled or terminated in the public interest, are behind Oduah’s present travails.
Source: National Mirror
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